Conservative leadership contest ignites as UK sizzles

By Siân​ Jones 

Britain may have been baking in record temperatures over the past few days, but arguably there’s no hotter place to be this week than the pressure cooker of the Westminster village, as the Conservative leadership contest approaches boiling point.

At 3pm today, the result of the fourth and penultimate ballot of Conservative MPs was declared, with politics watchers eager to see how the 31 votes for the last eliminated candidate, Tom Tugendhat, would be redistributed.

Again, Rishi Sunak topped the poll, gaining three votes to reach 118; a total that virtually guarantees him a spot in the final two candidates who will be voted on by the Conservative Party membership over the summer. Second, again, was Penny Mordaunt, with 92 votes; an increase of 10 from the last ballot, but just 6 ahead of Liz Truss, who showed the most momentum in this round with a gain of 15 votes.

Some political commentators expressed surprise that Mr Sunak should have gained just three votes from the centrist Mr Tugendhat’s supporters, while Liz Truss, who has positioned herself as the standard-bearer of the right, surged with an additional 15. This has prompted speculation in some quarters as to whether some of Mr Sunak’s votes could have been ‘leant’ to Ms Truss to prevent Ms Mordaunt reaching the final two.

As expected, Kemi Badenoch was eliminated, gaining a single vote on the previous ballot. Her 59 votes will now be hotly contested in the fifth and final round of MPs’ voting tomorrow. Some commentators believe that the bulk of her votes are likely to transfer to Liz Truss, and could therefore put the Foreign Secretary comfortably on the final ballot paper, squeezing out Penny Mordaunt.

After tomorrow’s final MP ballot, we will know for certain which two candidates will go forward to the vote of the 120,000 or so Conservative Party members, the result of which will be announced on September 5^th. This has been a historically diverse contest, with the Conservative Party now certain to give the nation either its third female Prime Minister, or its first BAME Prime Minister.

However, the acrimony that has characterised this leadership election has shown no sign of dying down. After two bad-tempered television debates shot through with blue-on-blue mudslinging and personal attacks, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss withdrew from Sky’s final TV clash, originally scheduled to take place this evening. This led to the event being cancelled, but it was too late to prevent Labour’s attack dogs seizing upon the fresh material that had been gifted to them.

One policy area that has been subject to particular scrutiny over the past few days has been the candidates’ respective commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Alok Sharma, who led last year's COP26 climate conference and chaired yesterday’s green hustings event, threatened to quit if the current target was abandoned. All the candidates except Kemi Badenoch had previously signed the Conservative Environment Network’s pledge to maintain the target. However, at the hustings, Mrs Badenoch appeared to change position and said she would back it after all. Much policy detail remains to be seen from the candidates in terms of how the milestone will actually be met, particularly given that both Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss have pledged to suspend green levies and Rishi Sunak has cautioned against going “too hard and fast”.

Meanwhile, in the dying days of the Johnson administration, the current Cabinet – remember them? – have been trying to keep the show on the road. Yesterday evening, the Government comfortably won a confidence vote in the Commons, despite the whip being withdrawn from Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood for failing to turn up.  Tonight, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi will deliver his inaugural Mansion House speech, in which he will pledge to bring inflation under control through sound public finances, and to create a new post-Brexit financial services regulatory regime.

But despite Boris Johnson’s eye-catching flypast in an RAF Typhoon fighter jet this week, it’s the next Government, set to be formed in September, that the public and business are turning their attention to. Over the summer, we can expect more policy meat to be added to the bones of what has been set out so far, as the final two candidates attempt to demonstrate that they can win over not just the Conservative Party, but the country as a whole in the next General Election.

Whether either of the two final candidates will be able to match Boris Johnson’s renowned communication and campaigning skills remains to be seen. But whatever the result, Conservatives across the country will be hoping that the concluding stage of the contest will be conducted in a more constructive spirit than we have seen thus far.