18.45 Update
18.30 Update
Those ’22 Executive rule changes for this election:
– – –
Another one bites the dust.
Malthouse’s statement on Twitter is reproduced above.
As Mark said this morning after James Cleverly withdrew from the contest, “pressure has grown in recent days for the field to thin out (by voluntary withdrawals) or be thinned out (by rule changes of one sort or another)”.
As we write, it is being claimed that the 1922 Committee’s Executive agreed today to speed up the election process. We suggested earlier today that it should do precisely that by agreeing rules for this contest that would eliminate more candidates in each ballot.
Any decision by the ’22 may or may not have influenced Malthouse in his decision, but it is a sensible one, since his candidacy has attracted fewer than ten declared supporters to date.
This morning, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart, Mark Harper and Esther McVey had fewer than ten backers each.
And on our count to date, Sam Gyimah has yet to find even one.