Politics - funny old game

During a phone call yesterday morning I was asked which candidate I wanted to win the Conservative party leadership.

“Anyone but Hunt,” I said without hesitation.

Eight hours later the former Health Secretary was duly dispatched into political oblivion, coming last of the eight candidates and out of the contest.

Whoever thought it was a clever wheeze to pair him with Esther McVey - who was promised the job of deputy PM should Hunt win the leadership - got what they deserved.

I’ve nothing against McVey whose Blue Collar Conservatives brought a refreshing spark to the Tory fringe at last year’s party conference (see Notes from CPC21), but it smacked of desperation on both sides.

What the hell did they have in common? Perhaps that was the point. Shoehorn together two very different political outlooks and, hey presto, unite the party.

Except that it rarely works like that and I’m glad Conservative MPs gave the idea short shrift.

The big disappointment is that Team Hunt was supported (allegedly) by Philip Davies, a great constituency MP and someone I have always credited with enormous good sense and integrity.

Davies is of course married to McVey so perhaps his judgement was driven by loyalty to her but, seriously, what was he thinking?

As it happens I can think of only one good thing that might have come out of a Hunt premiership and that’s broadcasters struggling on a daily basis to get his name right.

If you haven’t heard the compilation above do listen. It always makes me laugh.

Meanwhile former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost this morning launched an astonishing Exocet at Penny Mordaunt, who came second in yesterday’s vote.

Revealing “grave reservations” about the trade minister becoming PM, he told TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer:

“To be honest, I’m quite surprised she is where she is in this race. She was my deputy – notionally more than really – in the Brexit talks last year.

“I’m sorry to say this, she did not master the necessary detail in the negotiations last year. She would not always deliver tough messages to the European Union when that was necessary and I’m afraid she was not fully accountable or always visible. Sometimes I did not even know where she was.

“I’m afraid this became such a problem that after six months I had to ask the PM to move her on and find somebody else to support me.

“If you’re going to be a PM you’ve got to be able to take responsibility, to run the machine, make tough decisions and deliver tough messages. Anyone can appear in a video and say ‘I vow to thee my country’ , but it’s what you do in practice.

“From the basis of what I saw, I would have grave reservations.”

Lord Frost is very well respected among Brexiteers so if she can come back from that good luck to her but her fellow MPs can’t say they haven’t been warned.

Btw, this article about aides and special advisors is worth reading - The other race for Downing Street (Politico).

As someone who is well outside the Westminster bubble I’m surprised how many names are familiar to me.

Another familiar name pops up in this article in today’s Daily Mail - Is a shadowy ex-sex party organiser - who warned Boris Johnson 'Quit or we'll get you out' - now secretly helping Team Rishi?.

It follows a very similar ‘expose’ in the Mail in February - Machiavellian manoeuvres behind the plot to topple Boris Johnson... and how they all lead to Rishi Sunak.

I’ve written about Douglas Smith before - recalling, for example, the time he got into my first floor flat in West Kensington via a drainpipe and sash window - so I won’t repeat myself, but it amuses me that someone I liked but considered something of a maverick when I knew him 40 years ago is now credited with having so much influence in the corridors of power.

Politics - it’s funny old game.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Anyone but Rishi. I fear he backs metropolitan civil servants and middle class lobbyists over ordinary struggling people who will no doubt, through more sin taxes, pay for the salaries of one and the funding of the other.

Rishi is too out of touch and as leader he will lose the so called "Conservatives" the next election and abandon us to a Lab/Lib coalition government which will punish lifestyle and green sinners with the solid approval of their own self importance.

Brexit has never been that important for me because I soon came to realise that in or out of the EU makes no difference to smokers or anyone who questions the green agenda.The real and meaningful change can only come with the abolition of the Nanny State so people can be free to live and enjoy life once more both here and abroad.