So, the big winner from the third round of voting in the Conservative leadership contest was?
The mobile phone companies.
As I write, and I suspect, as you read, a flurry of long persuasive calls have been made, and will continue to be made, right up until the fourth ballot opens. I too spent last night on the phone.
As Sky’s Deputy Political Editor, Sam Coates mentioned after the result – Tom Tugendhat and any one of the nineteen other MPs who supported him yesterday – have just become the best friends of the last three in the race.
“Tom Tugendhat will never be so popular with Tory MPs,” Coates told viewers, as supporters of other camps lined up to praise him in defeat.
It’s an accurate observation but don’t expect Tugendhat to give much away. I bet we do not hear who he votes for today even after he does it. His endorsement, if it is given at all, will be a big prize but I doubt this morning Teams Cleverly, Badenoch and Jenrick will make him their immediate priority – it’s his supporters they’re after.
So, once again, our ConservativeHome survey proved reliable.
Did you ever doubt it would?
Conference has been a game-changer for James Cleverly and the vote yesterday was the clearest proof of that. He emerged the clear winner from the third ballot having picked up 18 more votes after being level with Tugendhat on 21 in the second round.
Tugendhat went out, having dropped one vote from the second round but I hope his efforts and his campaign will forgive me when I say pretty much everyone was expecting him to go out.
It’s strange because he didn’t have a bad Conference, though a simplified ‘spirit of 2005’ did seem to return, and the speeches on the Wednesday did change things. Tugendhat didn’t make a bad speech; it just didn’t land how he’d have hoped.
Knowing him, Tugendhat won’t have conceded it was over until The Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Bob Blackman read out the results.
However, he will surely know, no winning candidate is going to sideline him, as Boris did, for far too long, from a senior role in the shadow cabinet, and a place at the top of a future Conservative Government. He wasn’t spinning when he laid out his record as Security Minister. It was a good one, and I know that, having been in the Home Office with him.
The Conservative parliamentary party is described as the most sophisticated electorate in the world, but it can also be the slipperiest.
Its prisms change with the political weather and can be as unpredictable as the sea. They’ll never dismiss this suspicion for as long as leadership ballots are secret (I’ll leave that for another time), but the point is this: they smell winners, and switch accordingly.
Do not assume, however, that instantly means Cleverly. Let’s just accept, for the record, it is not guaranteed he’s in the last two. He just – probably is.
So, teams Badenoch and Jenrick know they are now in a real fight, probably with each other, because if we follow the received wisdom (ironically not always wise) either of them can take the fight to Cleverly in the members’ vote, but in the few hours left they need to fight to remove the other from the race.
Before I get into the tactics of that, let’s just acknowledge there is a section of MPs who like James Cleverly – but don’t rate him. It’s existed for some time, even when he’s defied the odds, but it’s there, and he cannot deny it.
Both his opponents will be pointing to this with any wavering Tugendhat supporters, and beyond. They will also be suggesting, and have, that his experience in high office is not universally successful.
When it comes to Robert Jenrick he knows there are MPs on the right who are concerned about Badenoch’s risk of pushing people away (whether she meant to or not) and that she does not always scream ‘unifying force’. They also know while she’s popular with members he himself has a core of the membership that back him and that some of those on the right who voted for Tugendhat, are more naturally his than Cleverly’s or hers.
Nick Timothy who had supported Tugendhat has already declared for Jenrick and he was always going to be a prize, though of course he has but one vote.
Expect Team Jenrick to keep pointing out to any wavering MPs that the media issues Badenoch had over conference will not go away.
Jenrick himself is impressive enough face to face but some MPs tell me they felt he didn’t nail on the badge of authenticity in his speech in Birmingham.
There are also some MPs who are nervous about his political companions and entourage, and the extent he is the front man for a larger band.
I was always told that if Suella Braverman ran, someone would quip, “so you are voting for Sir John Hayes as leader”.
Let me stress I have nothing ill to say about Sir John but to deny that Jenrick gets a ‘power behind the throne’ focus amongst some would be to lie. I have seen enough of him close up to think he would be his own man, but this issue of ‘but what about his backers’ exists whether he and his team like it or not. His majoring on ‘principles’ is part of the riposte to just such accusations.
Meanwhile team Badenoch are eagerly making their case.
They’ll say she’s the only one who has put on votes in each round of MP ballots, and the only one still winning amongst members -and we at ConHome can’t be selective about our survey, that’s what it keeps telling us, despite the Cleverly surge.
They like her, and there are fears members will need a lot of calming if she isn’t presented to them. Her team will also say Jenrick has gone backwards, that his early surge is a high-water mark, and falling away.
She can be genial – when she wants, and she’ll need to be as charming as she can in all her calls to MPs in play, if she wants to prevent losing them to others.
Badenoch will also be arguing on two fronts. They’ll be the concerns she’ll highlight about Jenrick, but she will set her comprehensive vision of reform of the party against Cleverly’s ‘let’s get on with it’ pitch, which to some sounds too much like business as usual, possibly glossing over the reasons the party suffered such a massive defeat.
She has however been a little quiet since Conference.
So, what of last night’s clear winner.
Did James Cleverly know he’d get to this point?
No.
Conference was vital. He wasn’t going to quit before Conference, but his team knew it was make or break. They had every concern Tugendhat could overtake him there and instead Cleverly would be this morning’s headline of ‘latest out of the race.’
We know now Cleverly’s Conference performance did change things. He’s in the lead now, but still not leader.
He will undoubtedly be told: he needs to face Jenrick in a run off because of Badenoch’s membership support. That it does no harm (though shouldn’t be relevant) that a Badenoch Cleverly run off is more grist to the staggeringly good record the Tories have on diversity – and which Labour have consistently failed on when it comes to the top job. It will be suggested to him by commentators to lend votes if it might help skew things in his favour either way.
I doubt he’ll listen to these points.
He’s military minded to his core, regardless of whether he went to Luton, not Basra. He’ll often cite tactical lessons from generals of the past over the politics of now.
So, instinctively, wise or not, he won’t try to influence who his opponent might end up being, to get into the last two. He will marshal his team and his tactics to be ready to tackle whomsoever MPs choose in a way that suits him, and his message.
Besides, I don’t see anyone able to lend votes to another candidate, there still aren’t enough to go around without risk. He will in essence face who he’s given – or bow out wondering how it all changed again so quickly.
This afternoon we’ll know who the final two will be.
One reason this has been, bar some incidents of grit, a relatively benign contest, is that whilst none of the four, now three, agree on everything nor do they deeply dislike each other.
But this is a leadership contest, and the stakes are huge – it’s going to get much crunchier in the coming weeks and ConHome will apply a strong microscope to the last two, whoever they are.
As of yesterday, the game is now well and truly afoot.