Tuesday 12 July 2022

Tory Fissures Are Opening Up

And so the Tory leadership contest is reduced to eight. Sajid Javid and the might of Rehman Chishti couldn't get the 20 MPs needed to make the first round of the vote, so they're out. Earlier on Tuesday Grant Shapps abandoned the field and pledged fealty to Rish! Sunak, while Priti Patel declared her non-entity's non-entrance into the contest, reasoning she's better off trying to get a job with one of the other candidates. The eight left then are Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt, Tom Tugendhat, Nadhim Zahawi, Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, and Liz Truss. You might say the first five are what passes for something just about recognisable as the centre right, while the remaining tweesome threesome are, to use the scientific term, batshit. But even then the "sensibles" are hopelessly compromised. Despite pushing a socially liberal image during her 12 years in parliament, Penny Mordaunt went hard on trans women straight out the gate. Jeremy Hunt, as we know, has saddled himself with Esther McVey to provide some right wing and "working class" creds. And Tugendhat is on the record for wanting to expel all Russians from the UK over Putin's invasion of Ukraine. All terribly normal people.

Apart from refusing to confront real problems and concerns, what else have we learned from the contest during its opening stage? Let's begin with Badenhoch and how she's been received by the Tory faithful. On Politics Live Tuesday lunch time, she was heralded as a "disruptor". Heaven knows why when her unoriginal anti-woke positioning is indistinguishable from everyone else's. Though a moment of levity (lavatory?) was provided when her campaign team fixed 'men' and 'ladies' onto unisex loos, ensuring her launch was overshadowed by a pair of toilets. I' sure there's a joke in there somewhere. Still, there is something off by how Badenoch is covered and spoke about by the right and centrist press. She was elected in 2017 and has held junior briefs since 2019. Tugendhat was elected two years earlier and has held no ministerial post. Braverman was elected in 2017, got her first junior job a year later and before she had time to breathe was promoted by Johnson to Attorney General in 2020. She is several months young than Badenoch. Yet why do the paid for commentators and rumour peddlers, repeated aloud on television and in the press, talk about Badenoch's "inexperience" and question whether it's too early for her? Just a thought.

Meanwhile, over in Camp Woke, or Sunak's campaign as it's known to the rest of the world, there are whispers of shenanigans. As the frontrunner, Sunak has bagged many more endorsements than he needs, meaning his campaign team can get a bit strategic. During Johnson's run three years ago, it is widely acknowledged that Gavin Williamson used surplus votes from Johnson's lead to manipulate the process and engineer who his final opponent was to be. This was done by ensuring supporters voted for certain candidates to knock out the more dangerous opponents. It was felt Hunt was the best opposition to put in front of the membership because he was ill-remembered for his time with the NHS, is incredibly wooden and sits like he's propped up by a broom, and was fairly vocally remain during the referendum campaign. The suggestion is abroad that the same game is afoot, with Hunt the preferred opponent for Rish! to go to the members with and Williamson organising the operation. For Sunak, his most serious opponents are Mordaunt and Tugendhat, and Truss if the batshits rally round her candidacy, which is why he absolutely does not want to face them. Hunt is known and easily beatable, and so we can expect Sunak supporters voting for Hunt up until he's either knocked out, or makes the cut.

But this brings up a possibly significant problem. If Williamson's schemes work or not, it does look like that last two are going to be Sunak and some other candidate from the party's more moderate wing - a term we should use advisedly when discussing contemporary Tory politics. The right with their culture war BS and other peculiar obsessions are in danger of getting locked out. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries mustered enough competency today to declare for Truss, the candidate most closely aligned with their beliefs. And, one assumes, the candidate most likely to keep them in their jobs. Similarly, don't be too surprised if Patel declares for one of the "centrist" candidates. However, if the right are kept out through vote engineering and their priorities aren't reflected in Johnson's successor, the possibility for backbench mischief and disunity increases. Sunak, if he wins, is politically flat footed and not terribly savvy, which can only exacerbate discontent. Furthermore, around 65 MPs remained loyal to the last to Johnson and they're not particularly happy about the manner of Sunak's resignation. The sort of combustible material that blazing rows are made of.

And there we are after the first day. The battle lines are drawn, the frontrunners are clear to see, and the fissures of future divisions are opening up. Strap yourselves in. The ride is only going to get bumpier.

Image Credit

8 comments:

Blissex said...

«The eight left then are Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt, Tom Tugendhat, Nadhim Zahawi [...] the first five are what passes for something just about recognisable as the centre right»

Oh please oh no oh oh! They are hard right thatcherites. Maybe it passes nowadays as "centre right", but then the Thatcher governments on the same metric were "centre left".

David Lindsay said...

The elimination of Jeremy Hunt would have handed power to his 18 voters, only three fewer than the gap between Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt. If this had been a real contest.

Sunak has been groomed as his generation's voice of the haute bourgeoisie since they put him on television as little more than the schoolboy that he must have been when they had decided to feature him. His campaign launch yesterday was a grandees' big day out.

If Sunak topped the poll again tomorrow, then expect a "foiled bomb plot" or something to emphasise the need for "stability" and thus to ensure his coronation. When Boris Johnson said today that his successor might be elected by acclamation, then he could have had only one possible candidate in mind.

Anyone who cheered on, never mind joined in, the vilification of Jeremy Corbyn cannot complain about any of this. The vocabulary is already the same. The Johnson years were "a shameful interlude", and what have you. Boris Johnson has already joined Corbyn as a folk demon the mere mention of whose name closes the debate. Johnson has been declared The Worst Prime Minister Ever even though I for one am not aware that he has ever started a war.

Last night, the Labour Party in the House of Lords abstained so as to defeat an amendment to give free school meals to all children of Universal Credit claimants, half of whom are in work if that matters for this purpose. To have supported it would have been "Corbynite". This has been par for the course ever since the last General Election. Now watch out for all the things that are going to be "Johnsonite". Everyone is too polite to mention that while Keir Starmer did indeed sit in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, a Shadow Cabinet was all that it ever was.

Meanwhile, although there will no doubt be brief Premierships of other people, to be treated as embarrassments without analysis ever thereafter in the manner of Gordon Brown's and Theresa May's, the office of Prime Minister will almost always be held by a carefully safeguarded succession of Tony Blairs, David Camerons and Rishi Sunaks. If everything had gone according to plan, then Cameron would have handed over to Sunak in the last couple of years.

Hey, ho. There will always be those whose weird hobby was that end in itself, the Labour Party. But we who instead actively sought to strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, are getting on with our think tank, our weekly magazine of news and comment, our fortnightly satirical magazine, our monthly cultural review, our quarterly academic journal, our international book series, our Associateship programme, and our pursuit of direct representation for our people on public bodies and in the media, including the balance of power after the next two General Elections before winning a third outright.

Blissex said...

«the office of Prime Minister will almost always be held by a carefully safeguarded succession of Tony Blairs, David Camerons and Rishi Sunaks. If everything had gone according to plan, then Cameron would have handed over to Sunak in the last couple of years.»

T. Balogh, "The Establishment" (1959): «"Whoever is in office, the Whigs are in power." It was Mr Harold Wilson himself, many years before he came to the Prime Minister's office»

Blissex said...

«However, if the right are kept out through vote engineering and their priorities aren't reflected in Johnson's successor, the possibility for backbench mischief and disunity increases. [...] around 65 MPs remained loyal to the last to Johnson and they're not particularly happy about the manner of Sunak's resignation. The sort of combustible material that blazing rows are made of.»

Our blogger's as usual reminds us well that all this focus on the leadership race is just flim-flam, just more heat than light, all about personalities and their clashes and plot, by using words like "combustible" and "blazing rows".

All this flim-flammery is happening while "the economy" is BOOMING:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/14/private-rents-in-uk-reach-record-highs-with-20-rises-in-manchester
Average private rents in Britain have hit record highs, jumping by more than 20% in some areas such as Manchester, new data shows. The average advertised rent outside London is 11.8% higher than a year ago, while in the capital it is up by 15.8%, according to the property website Rightmove. [...] An estimated 11 million people rent privately in England alone, and the sector has doubled in size during the past 20 years.

I guess that many Conservative, New Labour, LibDems voters, officials, MPs, will be celebrating their BTL investing sagacity and whatever they think otherwise of Johnson they should be grateful to him for stewarding "the economy" so well.

Because every rent increase is a win-win: BTL landlords benefit directly, and since that increases the demand by them for properties to "invest" in, it increases property prices too, benefiting owner-occupiers too. Everybody wins! :-)

Blissex said...

BTW there is not just a political similarity between K. Starmer and R. Sunak: as D.Lindsay pointed out some time ago, the rise to prominence of K. Starmer has been astonishingly fast:

* New Labour appointed him DPP in 2009 when he was just a well regarded lawyer, pushing him ahead of many more experienced candidates.
* In 2013 after a whole year spent "thinking about politics" he was gifted an ultra-safe central London seat by New Labour, pushing him ahead of many more candidates who had waited for decades for such an opportunity,
* In 2016 after a long 2 years on the backbenches he got a front-bench high profile shadow secretary of state position, jumping ahead of many more experienced MPs who had waited for decades for such an opportunity.
* In 2019 after 3 years on the front bench he became the main candidate for and won the leadership of the opposition, jumping ahead of many candidates with much longer experiences in politics.

The rise to prominence of R. Sunak has been even more rapid:

* In 2015 he was gifted the ultra-safe seat of Richmond (Yorkshire), succeeding W. Hague (the seat is an historically "whig" one), pushing him ahead of many more candidates who had waited for decades for such an opportunity.
* After waiting patiently for a whole 2.5 years he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary, jumping ahead of many more experienced MPs who had waited for decades for such an opportunity.
* He had to wait a whole 1.5 years he was appointed to the high office of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, jumping ahead of many more experienced MPs who had waited for decades for such an opportunity
* After another long 1.5 years he joined the front bench to become Chancellor, jumping ahead of many more experienced MPs who had waited for decades for such an opportunity.
* It took him then over 2 long years to become he became the main candidate for and won the leadership of the governing party, jumping ahead of many candidates with much longer experiences in politics.

Some "conspiracy theorist" may think they have really influential "sponsors" (the same ones perhaps).

RobertD said...

'D. Lindsay writes: If everything had gone according to plan, then Cameron would have handed over to Sunak in the last couple of years.'

If everything had gone according to plan Cameron would surely have handed over to Osborne, who is still only 51.

Blissex said...

«If everything had gone according to plan Cameron would surely have handed over to Osborne, who is still only 51.»

That was not going to happen, I think that the main reason why Cameron was PM instead of Osborne was that Osborne is not "telegenic"/"photogenic", and is less good at PR. I reckon that in 2010-2016 the real head of government was Osborne, and Cameron the junior partner.

Someone once said that politics is like the movie industry but for ugly people, but only to a point, and they should look hammy and "trustable", but George Osborne looks a bit too much like Rowan Atkinson: https://www.qwant.com/?t=images&q=george+osborne

RobertD said...

"George Osborne looks a bit too much like Rowan Atkinson: https://www.qwant.com/?t=images&q=george+osborne"

Unusually frivolous for you, Blissex, even with the benefit of hindsight.

Try this - more your usual style:

Average House Price in England

May 2010 £177,754
July 2016 £230,868

(Source: land registry, https://landregistry.data.gov.uk/app/ukhpi/compare?print=true&from=1999-12-31&to=2019-04-16&location%5B%5D=W92000004&location%5B%5D=E92000001&st=all&in=avg)

An excellent job for his target constituency! Forget the silly photos - nothing that a good makeup artist couldn't sort out.

"I reckon that in 2010-2016 the real head of government was Osborne, and Cameron the junior partner"

Assuming Osborne did indeed oppose holding a referendum on EU membership that looks rather doubtful to me.