The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel - The Tory leadership elections

Waiting for May to throw her hat in the ring at this point

"Stewart has done well to bump an actual contender (Mordaunt) from there."

Is that why she's not standing?

... yet.

Yeah I’d actually missed that Mordaunt hadn’t declared but I’d be very surprised if she doesn’t.

James Cleverly first to withdraw from leadership race

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) June 4, 2019

with his name as trench as a caption by matt

I'm assuming most of the no hopers, while vain enough not to see themselves as absolute no hopers, are more motivated by thoughts of selling their support to a big dog in exchange for patronage in the next cabinet than they are than they are by thoughts of winding up behind the wheel of the clown car

I didn't know he entered the race.

Tory Party has now backed itself into a situation where anything short of a full-on state of exception looks like weakness https://t.co/zoiQxpnxOV

— Will Davies (@davies_will) June 5, 2019

From earlier in that thread - this is why the Anyone But Borises have been giving way to Anyone But Raabs

NEW: Raab becomes the first leadership candidate to refuse to rule out proroguing Parliament to force through a no deal Brexit

He says ruling anything out is “weakening our hand with the EU... If I become PM we are leaving at the end of October”

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) June 5, 2019

If Raab gets a decent headwind he could split the hard Brexit vote and prevent either of them getting on the final ballot.

Is there a single Remain Tory in the race or have they all decided there's just no point?

YES! YES! YES!
THANK YOU @SamGyimah !!!
Oi!! Tories! You now have a contender who isn't going to "f*** business" (Boris) via no-deal or turn the UK into a "slave state" (Mogg) via the deal. If you want ANY chance of saving your party, Sam Gyimah is your Obi Wan!@Conservatives https://t.co/Q6aOHq7dyJ

— Femi (@Femi_Sorry) June 2, 2019

excruciating

So excruciating. He was on the Trump Sucks march yesterday wearing an over-laundered T-shirt that said I’M FEMI - ASK ME ABOUT BREXIT and honestly, the FBPE provoked some serious RMDE.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/resources/images/9948538.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery

detail from hieronymus bosch's "snivelling little scrote descends into hell".

Oh, he's fine with being Scottish now, is he?

Talking of snivelling little scrotes, this one stops just short of using the H word to describe Corbyn...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/05/majority-of-voters-think-boris-johnson-would-make-bad-pm-polling-expert

for starters wasn't that De Gaulle fellow a bit of an anti-semite.. anyway I thought Hancock is supposed to be mr nice guy? that's a terrible slur to make against someone and absolute hyperbolic claptrap to boot.

Excuse me, Richard Nixon?

seeing as it's already national ahistorical nostalgia week let's also pretend all Western leaders have never been anti-semites since h word.

Churchill was a raving antisemite. It’s debated that De Valera was ...oh sorry, I forgot, Ireland isn’t a “western” country when people are trying to paint Corbyn as “anti-western”..

he had the 3rd reich on speed-dial did that cunt!

@matthancockmp sends vile tweet about "queers". Cameron shd sack him now, or is this how Tories really think? pic.twitter.com/0BEEl7DGqb

— Steve Reed (@SteveReedMP) October 2, 2014

My boy restoring order to democracy:

We live in a parliamentary democracy. You can try to lock the gates of parliament. But to do so for this purpose would be unlawful. This plan is unlawful, undemocratic, and unacheivable. And the idea itself is profoundly offensive to our liberty constitution and traditions. https://t.co/2yjQiNje1q

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 5, 2019

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Interesting to compare these results with the ones from a cpl months ago - Who will be next Tory leader?

Hunt now less popular, Gove still a strong fav, Raab has fallen out of the running, but Boris Johnson, totally written off by ilx last time round is now the leading candidate.

Boris Johnson 7
Michael Gove 6
Some other Muppet 4
Jeremy Hunt 4
Rory Stewart 3
Penny Mordaunt 3
Jacob Rees-Mogg 2
Andrea Leadsom 1

With the one

Jeremy Hunt 7
Michael Gove 6
Dominic Raab 3
Penny Mordaunt 2
David Davis 2
Priti Patel 1
Jacob Rees-Mogg 1
Amber Rudd 1
Rory Stewart 1
Tom Tugendhat 1
Gavin Williamson 1
Andrea Leadsom 1
Sajid Javid 1

I can only conclude ilx doesn't have a clue

In my veins:

BREAKING: the latest YouGov poll puts us narrowly in the lead, once awareness is taken into account- ie once you remove the “don’t know enough about this candidate” I am now ahead of Boris and the other candidates. This is vital as we build awareness. Thank you. Let’s keep going.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 7, 2019

Can't help think that the Stewart vote is bit of wish fulfillment for a slightly less nasty, less Eurosceptic Tory to win.

Let's keep going on a long march into the desert to won over the natives

Cue swelling Maurice Jarre orchestration

once you remove the “don’t vomit enough about this candidate” i am in the lead

The two things that made Cameron a winner with people who didn’t really agree with him, wrt the grass roots, were that he was recognised as ‘one of us’ or a social superior and he was the kind of vaguely smart, successful person they would like their granddaughter to marry. Get through the first stage of selection by the party as an inoffensive anyone-but-x candidate and he has the laity locked down.

I may have picked the wrong Pashto-speaking, ex-forces, centre-right, upper-middle-class MP but I think this is still true.

Also the laity is now somehow even more extra super mental than it used to be

do people really want their granddaughters marrying that homonculus-looking mf

*reads a bunch of 19th century novels* yes, they do

NEW: Channel 4 will broadcast the first Conservative leadership debate, with a live studio audience. Apply to attend here: https://t.co/dbJl3sz72T

— Survation. (@Survation) June 7, 2019

Conservative Leadership Debate is taped in front of a live studio audience

Michael Gove admits to taking cocaine on 'several social occasions' https://t.co/0n4t4ziFoo

— Guardian politics (@GdnPolitics) June 7, 2019

loool the Stewart effect kicking in. next Jeremy Hunt talks about his accidental exposure to some M-cat in 2008.

which one did DMT

"well it said "plant food" on the label... and there was no clear warning Not to snort it like a fucking deranged greedy pig on it's last night on earth ... etc..

I can only conclude ilx doesn't have a clue

Hmmmm, not quite, mark s hasn't a clue, he's been trying to persuade the rest of us that Boris is a busted flush and unelectable for years now. Never bought into that tbh.

So you're saying that you voted for Boris previously but Mark hacked the poll?

the current betting market is totally not concerned with stupid fucking latest ClickbaitGov poll: BJ is red hot fav @ 8/15 and Opium boy is 33's.

can boris get to be prime minister by the new* tory means of not bothering to stand for election: possibly (tho i'd still bet against it)
can boris win a GE: nope

*as in developed largely since i last noted that boris is over

S Bush reckons Boris would be perfect tory leader for Corbyn to run against and beat, can't remember his working out but agree with him. Having him as leader would be effectively signalling that have given up on a significant chunk of their voters - specifically the "moderate" remain voting lot.

SB's reasoning is iirc largely based on careful attention to polling -- including polling negatives (as well as patiently sceptical familiarity with the attitudes of MPs)

adapting my two startling post-baldrick political insights so that they actually interact with one another: if it's true that mnay's intransigence has enormously damaged the "normal" working of the various intersecting institutions she was embedded in (claim made up uthread), then that certainly includes their ability to protect themselves against long-term self-harm (which has to date been the tory party's secretest and yet most public weapon: it is after all by far the oldest political party still extant, even counting globally). which means its protections against the massive harm of bojo -- whatever they actually are -- are also reduced: so yes, he may stumble through… but the state of said institutions if/when he does will be such that they will immediately just wreck him

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/83/d5/4d/83d54d6d5ee7c71773f1da13b8bd4ad8.gif

.@sajidjavid: I like a cigarette, I punched bullies first and I love a cheeky Nando'shttps://t.co/ZfKC4OkpEZ

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) June 7, 2019

when is one of these authentocrat jokers going to try a solemn + respectful Nandos ffs.