Cleverly, Badenoch and Jenrick stay in Tory leadership race as Tugendhat knocked out – UK politics live | Politics

James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch have both posted messages on social media paying tribute to Tom Tugendhat.

Cleverly said:

@TomTugendhat is a close friend who I was privileged to work with at the Home Office. He ran a great campaign and will without doubt have a big role to play in our Party’s future.

And Badenoch said:

Commiserations to my friend @TomTugendhat. He ran a great campaign and led the debate on security and how we stand tall on the world stage in volatile times.

I’m pleased to have increased support and grateful to all of my colleagues who voted for me. This is a very tight race and I’ll continue fighting for every vote. It’s also clear from every independent poll and survey, the support from members for my @Renewal2030 campaign is surging.

And Tom Tugendhat has posted this about his defeat.

To everyone who backed our campaign – thank you!

Your energy, your ideas and your support have shown a vision of what our party could become.

Our campaign has ended but our commitment to our country continues.

James Cleverly has posted this about his victory in the third round ballot today.

I’m grateful to all my colleagues for their support today, and I’m pleased to be through to the next round.

The job’s not finished.

I’m excited to keep spreading our positive Conservative message.

For much of the summer Robert Jenrick was the clear bookmaker’s favourite in the Tory leadership contest. Going back to a point before the general election, Kemi Badenoch was favourite for a long time, but the odds shifted when political insiders started to take the view she was unlikely to make the final ballot.

Even a week ago, at Conservative conference, Jenrick was still ahead. The big news, in polling terms, this time last week was that Jenrick had just about caught up with Kemi Badenoch in terms of popularity with members.

But the rise of James Cleverly (a distant third in the race this time last week) has been extraordinary. There were 16 votes up for grabs in the ballot this afternoon (MPs who voted for Mel Stride before he was eliminated). Cleverly’s vote went up by 18 – suggesting he could have picked up the entire Stride haul, and won over two extra people too. In reality, some of the Stride votes may have gone elsewhere, and there is likely to have been some churn (people who voted for one candidate last time switching to another). Still, it is close to a clean sweep.

Last week it was clear that Cleverly had “won” the final hustings by delivering the best speech on the final day. But I don’t think there were any commentators who realised on the day quite to what extent that speech would upend the race.

Now Cleverly and Badenoch both have a path to victory. For Jenrick, it is much harder.

A survey of Tory members by ConservativeHome at the weekend implies that, if Cleverly and Badenoch are on the final ballot, Badenoch will win narrowly. Here are the figures, which suggest she is ahead of him by 48% to 42%, with don’t knows at 9%. If Badenoch can make the final ballot tomorrow, by overtaking Jenrick, and if she can hold this lead with members, she can win.

Cleverly’s best chance of becoming leader would involve going into a final ballot against Jenrick. These figures suggest he would win quite easily, as they put him on 54% against Jenrick’s 36%. That means Cleverly supporters may be tempted to lend votes to Jenrick to get him over the line tomorrow. This happened in 2019, when Boris Johnson wanted to be up against Jeremy Hunt, not Michael Gove, in the final ballot. But it’s a risky enterprise.

For Jenrick, there is no obvious route to victory as things stand now.

Of course, a survey is just a survey and, as the last week has shown, in an electoral contest people change their mind about the candidates. Perhaps Jenrick could make the final two and turn things around. But today he’s trailing.

Here is some comment on the results from the latest Tory leadership ballot.

From my colleague Pippa Crerar

The 20 MPs who backed Tugendhat will now decide who to back in next round.
Many would assume James Cleverly as other more centrist candidate in race.
But they may have views on who they want him to go up against: Badenoch or Jenrick?

From ITV’s Robert Peston

Cleverly now a shoo-in to be in the ballot of Tory members, because most of Tugendhat’s 20 will transfer to him. The battle on the party’s right between Jenrick with 31 and Badenoch with 30 will be something to behold over the next 24 hours

From the Sunday Times’ Harry Yorke

Another Tory leadership contest producing quite the potential upset

Kemi Badenoch almost stationary but Jenrick has gone significantly backwards — not something anyone was predicting before this afternoon

Here are the results.

James Cleverly: 39 (up 18 from last round)

Robert Jenrick: 31 (down 2)

Kemi Badenoch: 30 (up 2)

Tom Tugendhat: 20 (down 1)

Bob Blackman, chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, is due to read out the results of today’s Tory leadership ballot shortly.

Labour was not ready for government, in organisational terms, Peter Mandelson has said.

Speaking on the Times’ How to Win an Election podcast, Mandelson, who was a key fixer when New Labour was in government, said:

One of the problems for the Starmer administration is that there was an ambiguity about what the role of Number 10 was right at the beginning. And Keir had given a signal that he didn’t want to run a command and control Number 10 operation. He wanted to give more freedom, more autonomy to departments. He didn’t want to second guess everyone. He wanted to give people wriggle room. Well, I’m afraid that the great ship of state called the British Nation and Government doesn’t work like that.

[It] requires a very good, quite complex, quite sophisticated machine at Number 10. And the truth is that for all the preparation that was made for government by the Starmer team, it wasn’t done to the extent or in the way it should have been. There wasn’t enough sort of pinning down and agreement amongst everyone as to how it should operate. And once in government, you know, people’s different roles were not frankly communicated as they needed to be. So, it wasn’t all joined up, I’m afraid.

This is an implicit criticism of Sue Gray, who was replaced on Sunday as Starmer’s chief of staff. Gray was in charge of the transition into government when Labour was in opposition.

Mandelson also praised Morgan McSweeney, Gray’s replacement, saying he would be “a very hard taskmasker” for people working in No 10.

Morgan McSweeney, I believe, he’s the sort of person who knows what excellence is and he will insist on having the best people in the jobs. He will always be available to them. He will always counsel them. He will always give them advice, but he will expect them to get on with their jobs and to deliver. And if they do, they’ll be fine and safe. And if they don’t, then I’m afraid they will be out. He’s a very hard taskmaster.

The former Labour MP John Woodcock is no longer the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, according to Adam Bienkov from Byline Times. The Home Office has confirmed that Woodcock has left the post.

Woodcock was elected a Labour MP in 2010 but he was very critical of Jeremy Corbyn when Corbyn was leader, left the party partly as a result of disciplinary proceedings that he said were politically motivated and at the time of the 2019 election urged people to vote for Boris Johnson, not Corbyn. He was subsequently given a peerage, as Lord Walney, and he became the political violence adviser in 2020.

In May this year he published a report with recommendations that were criticised as draconian. The then Conservative government only gave it a lukewarm reception, and Labour has not embraced the recommendations either.

In the Commons MPs are debating a Conservative opposition day motion criticising the government’s plan to impose VAT on school fees. This is one issue on which the Tories are united; all four leadership candidates have opposed the move, and said they want to reverse it.

The debate was opened by Damian Hinds, the shadow education secretary, who is not a leadership candidate.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was criticised for a post on X where she justified the tax by referring to private schools cutting back on embossed stationery and swimming pools to help fund it.

Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery.

Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools.

Our students need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches

The Conservative MP Graham Stuart said this was a “malicious and spiteful tweet” and he said James Murray, the Treasury minister speaking on behalf of the government, should apologise for it on Phillipson’s behalf.

But Murray replied:

I, nor any of my colleagues, will make any apology for wanting to improve state education across this country to make sure that the aspiration of every parent in our country to get the best possible education for their children can be fulfilled.

More in Common have now published their voting intention polling figures mentioned earlier. This is from Luke Tryl’s, its director, who also points out that the combined total for parties on the right (47% – Conservatives 28%, plus Reform UK 19%) is almost the same as the combined total for parties on the left (49% – Labour 29%, Lib Dems 11%, Greens 7% and SNP 2%).

James Cleverly is seen by voters as the Tory leadership candidate most likely to become prime minister, according to new polling by Ipsos..

In its write-up, Ipsos says:

When asked which leadership candidate would be most likely to become prime minister if they become Conservative leader, one in five Britons say James Cleverly (21%) marking a 7-point increase since late September 2024 before Conservative party conference. Robert Jenrick trails behind at 10%, with Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch at 7% each. The main shift here being between those saying don’t know (-6) and those saying Mr Cleverly is most likely (+7).

However, more than one in four still say they don’t know (27%) and 28% think none of the candidates are likely to become prime minister.

But the polling also suggests, as the public heard and read about the last four candidates in the contest while the Tory conference was happening, all of them saw their net favourability ratings with the public at large go down. Cleverly’s ratings only fell by 2 points, from -16 to -18. But Tom Tugendhat’s fell by 6 points, and Kemi Badenoch’s and Robert Jenrick’s both fell by 8 points.

On this measure, Badenoch is the most unpopular candidate, with a net favourability rating of -26, followed by Jenrick (-24), Tugendhat (-19) and Cleverly (-18).

Like many Guardian readers, including a lot of you BTL, Anushka Asthana, ITV’s political editor, is annoyed by reports that suggest Sue Gray’s departure is best understood as part of a boy’s club plot and Keir Starmer having a problem with women. She has posted these on social media.

Sorry to rant but the whole “boys club” thing irritates me. Of course there is a lot of focus on the Keir’s, Morgan’s and (admittedly numerous) Matt’s but as I’ve discovered Keir Starmer would NOT be PM without the senior women in the operation 1/

Firstly the entire campaign was field directed by a woman. Yeah yeah- totally true that they put two men in charge (don’t they so often!) but Hollie Ridley basically ran the mechanics of the campaign 2/

The strategy director was Deborah Mattinson, the now party chair Ellie Reeves was critical, and as for the new deputy chief of staffs- Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson … 3/

Ask anyone inside Labour and they’ll tell you that Jill Cuthbertson is about as powerful as they come. She was by Gordon Brown’s side in 2010 & Ed Miliband’s in 2015 and was beside Starmer’s at almost every key moment of campaign. She helped make Zelensky meet happen for eg 4/

The turnaround in the reputation with business (which was hard got and is now on shaky ground) was led by Vidhya Alakeson and Katie Martin (Rachel Reeves’ chief of staff) and the CX herself. Alakeson has run big organisations previously 5/

Obviously Sue Gray as chief of staff was also central to that (and her deputy- also a woman- Helene Reardon Bond) so its not surprising her supporters feel she’s been badly treated but they should blame the man who made decision not the women in the team!? 6/

I think the “boys club” does exist in links between boys on either side of the political and media fences – which means the roles of men are so often amplified (and obviously often with reason- I’ve written myself about McSweeney today) but it’s not true that it’s all men 7/

And for what it’s worth I’ve had more women moan about Sue Gray’s role than men. But also true that almost all these people- men & women- have been in Downing st from the start of this operation- so surely all carry blame for what has gone wrong? & Starmer ultimately in charge 8/

Btw that doesn’t mean I think Labour don’t have a woman leader problem – and I talk about this in my book. I’m sure the party- wanting to opt for “safe” option post 2019- at least in part saw Starmer as safe because as a man he was seen as more prime ministerial 9/

Anushka has got more about this in her new book about the election (reviewed here).