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August 14, 2024 - 7:00am
Yesterday’s speech by Tom Tugendhat was strange. Was it a leadership launch? Not officially, although it was his first major speech of the Tory leadership campaign; there was only one topic (the riots) and no roller banners, logos or the other assorted paraphernalia of a campaign.
Was it then an official speech in his capacity as Shadow Security Minister? Again, apparently not. His team said it was his view as Shadow Security Manager, a formulation which has a distinctly “assistant to the regional manager” vibe.
Nonetheless, it was good leadership material: the UK needs to crack down on inconsistent strategies that look like two-tier policing, and be much more vigorous in policing public disorder. He also announced that he wants to set up a new national security police force with functions taken out of the Met (although despite the setting this would not, apparently, include public order).
It highlights the challenge Tugendhat faces: as the clear front-runner among the One Nation candidates in the contest, he should have a fairly clear path to the final two. But the traditional role of his faction in the final round is losing.
Thus, he needs to find ways to offer Conservative members what they want without either coming across as insincere or alienating the MPs who have flocked to his standard since Penny Mordaunt lost her seat.
Tugendhat clearly recognises that this is a vulnerability; his initial op-ed in the Telegraph hinged on the dubious claim that the leadership contest was not about policy, because Tories all agree on the important policies. Yesterday’s law-and-order pitch was much stronger, but the question is, how many other policy areas like it can he find?
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SubscribeThe new Tory Party has a very clear decision to make. Keep the snakey wets like Tom T and that cosy rabble of Lib Demmy Remainer Quisling progressives who totally bent the knee to the Blairite State & international legal Left on migration and green eco madness – or reject them, purge them and start again. Only one of the options will work. Kemi must lead. A new manifesto must be created built on the assumption of the breakdown of the Starmer Project by 2028.
If Conservatives are satisfied with 121 seats and 23% of the vote, they will maintain equidistance between the Lib Dems and Reform. If they want to increase their support they will need to move one way or the other. Lib Dem voters favour Labour over the Conservatives by a margin of 6:1. Reform voters favour the Conservatives over Labour by a margin of 3:1. This suggests appealing to Reform voters is likely to be a great deal more productive. But if the Tories want to shirk that choice, and continue with more of the same, they will opt for Tugendhat.
Nope, won’t work. For every Reform vote we attract, we lose two votes to the LibDems. We need to go forwards, not left or right.
According to YouGov polling, the residual rump of Conservative voters are evenly split on whether they prefer the Lib Dems or Reform. So that’s 3.4m votes potentially at risk if the party moves right. 75% of Reform voters prefer the Conservatives to Labour, so that’s 3.1m potential converts (and many 2024 stay at home Tories are in the same camp). But the Conservatives have to do something; staying where Sunak has left them on the political spectrum, and with their existing demographics, will just see them drifting into irrelevance, rather like the Liberals in the 1920s. “Neither Left nor Right, but Forward” is a recipe for meaningless sloganeering, not a philosophy for developing credible, coherent and mutually consistent policies for improving people’s lives.
Yes forwards into a radical New Conservatives shedding the snake skin of their grotesque Socialist/Progressives Quisling leaders 2010-24 like the Fool Johnson and Car Crash May. And all the tanks on that march to victory in 2030 (maybe with a renewed tactical alliance with Reform in the Red Wall) will be heading Centre Right only. We cannot make any assumptions based on the chaotic state of play in 2024 and the crash landing after 14 Years. The Starmer Government is going to set our economy aflam. TT and his cold eyed ideologues arw going to hound and batter the SME sector and silent small c conservative majority as if they were drunk police bashing raycist bingo players. Just as 2019 saw the nation react with total horror to the dim Hamas/IRA loving Union Jack hating Leftism of Corbyn (..served with aplomb by his Rejoiner lieutenant Starmer), so by 2029, surveying the ruins caused by Rachel Thieve’s Big State Anti capitalist Progressive/Socislist Eco nuttery, a harrowed cold horsewhipped numb and squeezed electorate will desert Starmer in droves..so too the limp hippies of Lib Dems. New Tories must prepare for that Doomsday scenarios. Two months in, we are well on track. Go Kemi.
Yes indeed Go Kemi. I recently had a disagreement with the lefties on MSN. I said that she doesn’t take any truck from the Labour Loonies. She tells it like it is, unlike the insipid wet Tories? we have had to endure. That the Guardian trash has to mealy mouth her means they they are frightened of her. Hopefully she will give Ange Rayner a hard time in the Commons. Good practice for when she becomes PM hopefully.
She has voted consistently for raising immigration numbers.
The Conservative Party should move neither right nor left but in both directions at once. They should support free speech ( a traditionally left wing policy abandoned by Labour). They should support slashing immigration ( a traditionally Labour policy abandoned by Labour). They should support a crackdown on lawlessness without discrimination between communities (a traditionally right wing policy abandoned by the Conservatives) They should abolish racial discrimination (a traditionally left wing policy abandoned by Labour). They should slash red tape and lower tax on enterprise ( a traditionally Conservative policy abandoned by the Conservative Party) They should cut waste in government, local government, Quangos and the NHS ( a traditionally Conservative policy abandoned by the Conservatives). Etc etc
Forget left and right just adopt sensible policies that will be broadly welcomed. Not by everyone as leftist commentators who accuse recent conservative governments as being right wing will continue to do so whatever policy is adopted.
I don’t know if Kemi is the woman to adopt such policies but it would be good to rub the Labour bigots noses in a bit of real diversity in place of their fake version.
Right now, it’s in the hands of the MPs.
In the last leadership contest, MPs gave party members a choice between two candidates. One had the emotional maturity of a sulky teenager. The other had never in his life before, fought a competitive election outside the confines of the Conservative Party. It did not end well.
Let’s hope MPs can raise their game.
I like Kemi very much and think she is the only candidate with star quality. I think the contrast between her and the slow-witted Starmer will be evident for all to see.
However that migrant cap video is very damning and she needs to explain herself. To my mind, the capping of immigrant numbers (and its enforcement) is the most pressing problem in UK politics and no candidate can win supporting uncapped immigrant numbers.
No.
Next question?
Hard core Libdem supporters will NEVER vote Conservative, however Libdem ‘protest voters’ will revert to the Conservatives to defeat Labour as this becomes the pressing issue, irrespective of whether the Conservatives lean centre or right.
The thing that depresses ALL Conservatives, including those who failed to turn out or defected to “Reform”, is the failure to roll back Blairism and enact genuine Conservative solutions. After 5 years of Sir Keir ‘long-march-through-the-institutions’ Starmer at the helm, the need for an active Thatcher-syle roll back will be a political necessity and the way to win.
So sorry, Col Tom MC might have some of the ‘right stuff’, but his record over Brexit (although he is no longer a “remainer” and certainly not a “rejoiner”), his record re Roger Scruton (although he apologised and this apology was accepted) and record of weakness in the face of the centre being moved leftwards, makes him unacceptable as a leader to the majority of Conservative members.
It looks like Jenrick or Badenoch, or long shot, Priti Patel.
“Can Tom Tugendhat win over the Tory Right?”
No 🙂
Jenrick has stated that the Tories must “repent” their betrayal of their promises on immigration. “Repent” – that’s a strong word and exactly right.
Without some sort of accommodation between Conservatives and Reform we are in for a very long, and ruinous spell of left-wing rule. Now that Suella has ruled herself out, Jenrick is the only one capable of reaching such an accommodation.
After the revelation of Badenoch’s attitude towards a cap on immigration, she’s out, and as Patel was the one who steered Boris’ ruinous post-Brexit immigration policy through Parliament, she’s out too. So Jenrick it has to be.
The Tory membership will choose the direction of the party. So they should recall that Kemi Badenoch’s voted consistently for mass immigration.