The Scotsman's Westminster Correspondent Alexander Brown reports from the latest round of voting in the Tory leadership contest.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello from a very warm, sunny and delightful Westminster, where we have just had the result
00:05of the latest Tory leadership election ballot, where Tom Tugendhat, a man who had garnered
00:10the most supporters from the Scottish Conservatives and the MSPs, has been eliminated with just
00:1520 MPs backing him. And the biggest surprise, the most newsworthy event here, is James Cleverley
00:22after a barnstorming conference speech that got numerous standing ovations, has topped
00:26the ballot, putting Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badnok in huge trouble. For a long time there
00:32has been a belief that James Cleverley could be the dark horse because he is the best communicator,
00:36but in the day-to-day of Parliament we haven't really got to see that. I've got to see how
00:40much work is going in. I go into Parliament, when you go up the escalators from the entrance
00:44that journalists and people who work here go in, he's often been there for the past
00:48month, loitering, networking, charming you might say. He would say actually I'm pursuing
00:52my job, I'm just meeting people. Actually he's been working hard on it. And he's now
00:56got 39 MPs, so a pretty stonking lead over the other two. For Robert Jenrick, for so
01:02long the favourite, he is now in a huge battle with Kemi to secure the vote at the Tory right,
01:08which I genuinely don't know how it's going to go. Normally we have an idea of these things,
01:12you know, Keir Starmer was always going to be the Labour leader. Now it seems like James
01:17Cleverley is guaranteed to get through to the final two, which is when members will
01:20vote on it. But we do not know who will survive out of Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.
01:25I would guess, and this will be out of date by tomorrow, because we will know by Wednesday
01:29afternoon who has survived. I would imagine Robert Jenrick will go because he's not had
01:34a very good campaign. He came across as a bit odd at conference. He's said some things
01:41that have caused problems, such as everyone who says Alawak Barrow in the street should
01:45be arrested, or wearing a T-shirt with a jumper that said Hamas are terrorists, which
01:50obviously everyone knows is a strange thing to do. And I think there is a belief that
01:54maybe he's pitching more to reform rather than the wider electorate that the Conservatives
01:58need to go after. Either way, commiserations to Tom Tugendhat. We will always have Tom
02:04Tugendhat and all the other pun-based merchandise he had at conference. And stay tuned to scottsman.com
02:10to find out what happens, and more analysis, today, tomorrow, until the end of time.