Next Prime Minister / Tory Party Leader

[sa7med]

Penny and Sunak now joint favs at about 3.5. Liz has drifted to 8. Don't know if the new rules have anything to do with it.

No way the Tory membership will go with Sunak.

And nor should they. The leader of our nation should represent the majority of voters that he / she leads. We are still a democracy after all.

CS

Majority meaning?

[LeTiss]

From a trading perspective Sunak has to find a way of persuading people to drop out of the race in order to support him, on the promise of being rewarded with a big job

I'm not a Tory member, but I know people who are.....Sunak is hated on the ground
Sunak will be defeated if this gets put to the 100,000 members - that makes his price look worth laying

It all depends whether he can nail this without going to those members

[Archery1969]

From a trading perspective Sunak has to find a way of persuading people to drop out of the race in order to support him, on the promise of being rewarded with a big job

I'm not a Tory member, but I know people who are.....Sunak is hated on the ground
Sunak will be defeated if this gets put to the 100,000 members - that makes his price look worth laying

It all depends whether he can nail this without going to those members

But he cant nail it without going to the members, can he ?

[Derek27]

From a trading perspective Sunak has to find a way of persuading people to drop out of the race in order to support him, on the promise of being rewarded with a big job

I'm not a Tory member, but I know people who are.....Sunak is hated on the ground
Sunak will be defeated if this gets put to the 100,000 members - that makes his price look worth laying

It all depends whether he can nail this without going to those members

Doesn't the final vote automatically go to the members?

[Dallas]

From a trading perspective Sunak has to find a way of persuading people to drop out of the race in order to support him, on the promise of being rewarded with a big job

I'm not a Tory member, but I know people who are.....Sunak is hated on the ground
Sunak will be defeated if this gets put to the 100,000 members - that makes his price look worth laying

It all depends whether he can nail this without going to those members

But he cant nail it without going to the members, can he ?

If he can command a big majority of the MP's the last contender may drop out similar to how Leadsom did against May in 2016
Even if they thought they could win the members vote its not going to be a good start for anyone wanting to get policies through if 60%-70% wanted the other person to lead them

[LeTiss]

That's what I thought, but I was swayed by people with knowledge on Tory party rules

When the process is whittled down to two candidates, it goes to the party members
However, if one of those stands down - the other will be given a free run, although he/she still needs to be ratified by party members
It's highly unlikely though for Sunak to be rejected, if he's the only candidate being recommended

This is from the Commons Library confirming this:

The leader of the Party must be a sitting MP.

Conservative Party leadership elections consist of two stages:

Stage 1 – Conservative MPs choose two candidates to put forward to stage two.
Stage 2 – Party members are balloted. The candidate with the most votes wins.
A leadership contest will occur if a sitting leader resigns or if they lose a vote of no confidence of MPs.

A vote of no confidence in a sitting leader must be held if 15% of Conservative MPs write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee saying they no longer have confidence in the leader. The current 15% threshold is 54 MPs. MPs may withdraw letters at any time.

The rules for votes of no confidence are a matter for the 1922 Committee and are not available in the public domain.

Stage 1
The rules and procedures for stage 1 of a leadership election are determined by the Executive of the 1922 Committee in consultation with the Conservative Party Board. This will include how an MP can be validly nominated.

The rules are not in a publicly available document. Each time a leadership election is held the chair of the 1922 Committee will announce the rules to be followed and the timetable.

If there are more than two candidates the field is whittled down. This will usually involve a series of ballots, depending on the number of candidates. If multiple ballots are required, the candidate(s) with the lowest vote is/are eliminated and MPs are re-balloted until only two candidates remain.

In 2019 there were initially 10 candidates in the first ballot and six rounds of balloting were required before the final two candidates were known.

In the event of only one candidate being successfully nominated they become leader of the Party. However, they may be subject to a vote of Party members to ratify the result.

[Derek27]

Rees-Mogg endorses Liz Truss, but he also said Johnson's doing a great job and we're lucky to have him as PM!

[Derek27]

Starmer putting through the VoNC tomorrow. Tories have no choice but to reject it. They don't want an election with their pants down.

[eatyourgreens]

Starmer putting through the VoNC tomorrow. Tories have no choice but to reject it. They don't want an election with their pants down.

their pants are always down, due to the weight of the bulging brown evelopes in the pockets!

[Derek27]

John Major highlights what we all know, that the cabinet rats only turned against their chief rat when it was in their interests.

[greenmark]

Cutting taxes requires cuts in govt spending or more govt borrowing or growth in the economy.

Cuts will make the Torys as popular as a fart in a spacesuit.
I doubt there's a great deal of 'fiscal headroom' for borrowing (but am prepared to listen about that).
Growth in the economy is a snowball's chance in hell. With Covid, Ukraine and Brexit pinning us down, how can growth happen?

Suggesting cutting taxes is beyond stupid and if a taxcutter is elected the "redwall" Tory's will be toast at the next election because of the service cuts in those areas.
It would probably back into coalition territory.

I reckon the notion of Sunak going through without challenge could be spot on.

[Archery1969]

Cutting taxes requires cuts in govt spending or more govt borrowing or growth in the economy.

Cuts will make the Torys as popular as a fart in a spacesuit.
I doubt there's a great deal of 'fiscal headroom' for borrowing (but am prepared to listen about that).
Growth in the economy is a snowball's chance in hell. With Covid, Ukraine and Brexit pinning us down, how can growth happen?

Suggesting cutting taxes is beyond stupid and if a taxcutter is elected the "redwall" Tory's will be toast at the next election because of the service cuts in those areas.
It would probably back into coalition territory.

I reckon the notion of Sunak going through without challenge could be spot on.

I doubt more borrowing is on the cards as current debt interest alone is £60.9 billion. It's expected to rise to £80 billion by the end of 2022.

They should have borrowed from the Bank of England at the minimal interest rate allowed.

Current national debt is £2,200 billion or 103% of GDP. That is seriously shocking.

[greenmark]

Cutting taxes requires cuts in govt spending or more govt borrowing or growth in the economy.

Cuts will make the Torys as popular as a fart in a spacesuit.
I doubt there's a great deal of 'fiscal headroom' for borrowing (but am prepared to listen about that).
Growth in the economy is a snowball's chance in hell. With Covid, Ukraine and Brexit pinning us down, how can growth happen?

Suggesting cutting taxes is beyond stupid and if a taxcutter is elected the "redwall" Tory's will be toast at the next election because of the service cuts in those areas.
It would probably back into coalition territory.

I reckon the notion of Sunak going through without challenge could be spot on.

I doubt more borrowing is on the cards as current debt interest alone is £60.9 billion. It's expected to rise to £80 billion by the end of 2022.

They should have borrowed from the Bank of England at the minimal interest rate allowed.

Current national debt is £2,200 billion or 103% of GDP. That is seriously shocking.

So cuts it is. Bye bye "levelling up". And a summer (and beyond) of discontent beckons. And I agree different groups holding the rest of us to ransom isn't fair. But, thus far, the strikers are groups that took a battering through covid. So I'm a bit undecided. Only thing you can definitely say is, the current system for strikes decisions is Thatcherite. Pretty ironic.

[Archery1969]

Cutting taxes requires cuts in govt spending or more govt borrowing or growth in the economy.

Cuts will make the Torys as popular as a fart in a spacesuit.
I doubt there's a great deal of 'fiscal headroom' for borrowing (but am prepared to listen about that).
Growth in the economy is a snowball's chance in hell. With Covid, Ukraine and Brexit pinning us down, how can growth happen?

Suggesting cutting taxes is beyond stupid and if a taxcutter is elected the "redwall" Tory's will be toast at the next election because of the service cuts in those areas.
It would probably back into coalition territory.

I reckon the notion of Sunak going through without challenge could be spot on.

I doubt more borrowing is on the cards as current debt interest alone is £60.9 billion. It's expected to rise to £80 billion by the end of 2022.

They should have borrowed from the Bank of England at the minimal interest rate allowed.

Current national debt is £2,200 billion or 103% of GDP. That is seriously shocking.

So cuts it is. Bye bye "levelling up". And a summer (and beyond) of discontent beckons. And I agree different groups holding the rest of us to ransom isn't fair. But, thus far, the strikers are groups that took a battering through covid. So I'm a bit undecided. Only thing you can definitely say is, the current system for strikes decisions is Thatcherite. Pretty ironic.

The problem is you cant give all public sector workers a 10% pay increase, well you could but think of the cost. There are two many of them. But I would not be giving train drivers a pay rise as the average salary is £56,000

I will get slated for saying it but the NHS is a massive financial drain on the public purse and will only get worse. Sooner or later somebody is going to have to ask the question about people earning x amount taking out private health care. Its all very well people saying NO hands off our NHS but people retiring now never paid anywhere near enough money into it. Not directly blaming them as goverments set NI and Tax thresholds but it was designed in the 1940s based on the then population. Also, people paid no where near enough into the pot for state pensions, thats why they keep increasing the age threshold. Before long people will need to work until their 70 years old.

Ok, rant over but it seems to me that a great deal of money is being wasted in government, has been for the past 20 years. The last time the UK had a zero deficit was back in 2000/2001. Since then we have had the financial/banking crash, Covid and Ukraine and someone will be paying for those probably for the next 20 years or so.

I think times are going to be very tough for allot of people come winter / new year.

[Vaz0202]

Penny Mordaunt Is now fav which is rather interesting. She isn’t talked of much in the press (more Sunak and Truss) and I don’t really see where she will get the drop off votes from.

I’m going to guess this will end up as Sunak and Truss with the later winning when it goes to the membership. From what I’ve heard, she is particularly popular with the grassroots.

Will any of these candidates win a Con majority at an election? No. Like all governments that have served for a period of time, the talent pool is depleted (after the great BJ purge of the centre right) and many of the field standing are tarnished to some extent.