DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Tory members must be offered a real choice
Imagine a Sliding Doors scenario in which, instead of plunging their daggers into Boris Johnson’s back, Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid had done the decent thing and shown their leader some loyalty.
In this parallel universe, Tory MPs would be happily dreaming about where to spend summer recess and the name of Chris Pincher, the Carlton Club groper, would already have been relegated to the status of an obscure pub-quiz question.
In charge would still be their charismatic and vote-winning PM, to whom many owed their jobs following his storming landslide victory less than three years ago.
And the Mail would wager that he’d have similarly wiped the floor with Sir Keir Starmer (aka ‘Captain Crasheroony Snoozefest’) and the fringe parties hoping to join him in a coalition of broad Left bedlam.
Whoever the Tories choose to replace Boris Johnson will be second best
Instead, alas, the Tory MPs chose strife and self-mutilation over stability.
The sad truth is that whoever they choose to replace Boris will be second best. But they mustn’t make a bad situation worse by denying the grassroots a genuine choice.
A poll from the influential Conservative Home website shows that more than half of members favour one of the two remaining centre-Right candidates – Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch.
Yet there is a serious danger that neither will make the shortlist of two, decided on by Tory MPs before being passed to the membership for a final decision. That would stink of a Westminster stitch-up.
Both the other leading candidates, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, are on the social democratic wing of the party, prepared to raise taxes to balance the books rather than slash the bloated state.
In the ITV candidates’ debate last night, the dividing lines began to widen.
The adversarial format clearly suited an energised Miss Truss, who put Mr Sunak firmly on the spot over low growth and the fact that taxes have risen to 1940s, post-war levels on his watch.
Mrs Badenoch, meanwhile, attacked the former Chancellor over stratospheric levels of Covid fraud.
In an impressive performance she also embarrassed Miss Mordaunt again over her support for gender self-identification.
Miss Mordaunt’s early lustre really has faded rapidly as more has become known about her record.
Two former bosses have expressed grave reservations about her competence. And it now emerges that as a Cabinet Office minister she met the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, in defiance of a Government boycott.
Either Miss Mordaunt was ignorant of the ban, in which case she was negligent, or she flouted it, which would make her irresponsible. Either failing could be disastrous in a PM.
Mr Sunak repeated his warning that to cut taxes now would be unwise, promising only jam tomorrow. Does he understand that people are facing genuine hardship?
In contrast, Miss Truss demonstrated her passionate commitment to low-tax, small-state Conservatism, by promising to ease the burden on hard-pressed families immediately, rather than waiting for some hypothetical future date.
Significantly, the Conservative Home poll suggests she would beat either Mr Sunak or Miss Mordaunt if she were to make the final run-off. True, Mrs Badenoch is a shining prospect for the future, but giving the top job to someone so inexperienced would be a dangerous leap of faith.
However, if both women were to be excluded from the final ballot, the membership would justifiably feel they’ve been betrayed by a Westminster clique.
So when the next election comes round, and their MP asks them to stuff envelopes, organise rallies and knock on doors, they might find they have better things to do.
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