First leadership vote shows Conservatives are keen to sign their own suicide note
Top place: Boris Johnson celebrates his three-figure result in the first round of the Conservative leadership election (not really – it’s an old photo).
Many Labour supporters will be delighted at the result of the first vote in the Conservative Party leadership contest.
Boris Johnson took 114 of the 313 votes available, indicating that Tory MPs want to be led by a racist, sexist, jingoistic, warmongering buffoon who spaffs cash up the wall on pointless vanity projects (Garden Bridge, anyone?) and likes to fund foreign wars (Saudia Arabia v Yemen, for example).
https://twitter.com/chuffed_to_bitz/status/1139132566441746432
Here’s how I reported the vote on Twitter:
Here we go: Gove – 37 Hancock – 20 Harper – 10 Hunt – 43 Javid – 23 Johnson – 114 Leadsom – 11 McVey – 9 Raab – 27 Stewart – 19. McVey, Harper, and Leadsom are out. #ToryLeadershipContest #PoliticsLive #bbcnews #UKPolitics
— Mike Sivier (@MidWalesMike) June 13, 2019
This means both Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey are out, which may provoke accusations of sexism against the Tory MPs on this occasion.
Jeremy Hunt took second place – the man dubbed “continuity Theresa May” by some elements in the media. Of course, Theresa May is now widely considered to have been the worst prime minister since Lord North, who lost the UK’s colonies in America in the 18th century, so that’s no recommendation.
Michael Gove came in third. Did the controversy over his drugs hypocrisy have a bearing on that? If so, it may not last until the next round.
In This Writer’s opinion, the biggest threat to Jeremy Corbyn is Rory Stewart, who’s currently the person with the lowest supporter-base of those still in the contest.
Tory Rory hasn’t been tarred by close association with either the Cameron or May ministries – he’s not responsible for any of the appalling policies they enacted (although he certainly has voted for them).
And he has a manner that would appeal to the general public. He looks like he means what he says.
But what am I suggesting? He’ll never win!
This leader election is an extended suicide note to the UK electorate by the Conservative Party – the huge support for Boris Johnson makes this clear.
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This speaks volumes about how the nasty Tories don’t care a fig for the decent values of honesty, integrity and statesmanship.
Who speaks for the majority of the Nation. Miss something?Most people eligible to vote watch and read low brain non challenging newspapers and TV programmes, and then just to read the sports and goss. And online poll of general public showed Boris on top with 80% of vote choice.
Rory Stewart is polling second amongst the Conservative Party membership.
Being the least worst of a bad bunch is hardly an acolade.
Although it also worked for Boris’s fellow New Yorker and bufoon Trump…..
The MP’s have shown exactly what kind of Leader they think will save the Tory Party by voting overwhelmingly for him. Out of fear rather than seeing the reality of how he will be tilting at windmills and achieve nothing
But will the grassroots Tory Party members who have the final say be so easily convinced?
Oh well if we do end up with that Buffoon as the next Tory PM… it will finally be the end of the Conservatives
History shows you can’t take ANYTHING for granted in these contests. That said, it would take ALL the votes of the other candidates to go to another candidate to have beaten him, even then he’d still get through to the final members votes.
But lets not underestimate his ability to mouth off and say EXACTLY the wrong thing at the wrong time. Obviously his backers are carefully scripting him and keeping him well away from news media.
What the Tories fail to understand is that they need to elect a leader who plays well OUTSIDE the party. Boris won’t play well, even among Labour Brexit voters.
Hopefully this will KILL Tory ambitions of a win at the next GE. I’d thought that the next GE would surely be a hung parliament, but with Boris at the helm I could see a slim win for Labour. Maybe a better win if the anti-Semitism smears settle down, although I think not as I feel that some of these smears are originating from Blairites within the party as a last ditch effort in ridding the party of Corbyn when all ‘legal’ means have failed. Some of them are prepared to ruin the party in doing so…
the man is anidiot, god help us, tories going from bad to worse omg
I hope to god you are right, Mike. I just fear the “Teflon Trump ” effect. Trump says that he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and his supporters would still vote for him. And he’s right!
I fear that Boris could do something either spectacularly immoral, like cheating on a wife or girlfriend, or abandoning a partner and child, or helping a friend get a journalist beaten up, or making blatant racist remarks, or else do something spectacularly inept like wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on London water cannon that have to then be scrapped or planning a Garden Bridge that never got built, or denouncing Tory donors by saying “F**k business”, and he would still be the Tory voter’s favourite.
Tory voters are desperate and demoralised but they still have the bulk of the newspapers drip-feeding them their favourite reactionary poison and they turn up religiously to vote.
Mind your language, please!