The recent history of the Conservative Party and the country is the ultras have had their way on both policy and personnel. The result – for both party and country – is now clear to see.
I was a Conservative MP for the best part of ten years, and have been a political journalist for the better part of 20. But as the old song about the Pushmepullyou has it, I’ve “never seen anything like it in my life”.
Some Tory members would see such a development as nothing less than an establishment coup: as a conspiracy of bad actors working together to win revenge for Brexit.
Under this scheme, the ’22 Executive would change the rules, Truss would go – and a high threshold would be set to ensure only a single nomination.
He has effectively been treated as being guilty, which he may or may not be, before the claim has been investigated. This offends natural justice.
The carnage in the markets is a reminder that she will need all the support from Conservative MPs she can get. That will require handling them with more tact and skill than she has shown so far.
At present, we are languishing in the polls. However, if we keep their reputation for being good on the economy, then the public may decide to give us another chance.
If Truss is set on rewriting the Integrated Review, she will need bandwidth at the top of govenment to do so effectively, given the awesome scale of the economic challenges facing her.
Potential candidates should be required to clear a robust threshold of minimum support to enter the Parliamentary stage of the election – say 25 MPs.
It may be that there’s one between more frequent ballots and a higher threshold – a quarter of the Parliamentary Party, say, rather than 15 per cent.
The Prime Minister claims that “as a government, we can move on and focus on that stuff that really matters”.
This is a worse result than Theresa May achieved when challenged, so today’s ballot is unlikely to bring the Prime Minister’s troubles to an end.
A rolling list of MPs who have made their intentions clear as this afternoon’s ballot approaches.
The new 1922 executive should agree to change the rules of the contest so that no candidate can stand without ten per cent of the selectorate nominating them.