VOTE 24

AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

VOTE 24: Conservative Party Conference

The big test for the four remaining Tory leadership contestants is here, writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

This year’s Tory Conference is a leadership parade between Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, and Tom Tugendhat will be across the airwaves and hitting the conference events – which can be found in the bullet points below – not to forget the fringe events and interviews that will take place across the conference. Whilst the betting has a clear hierarchy, According to ConservativeHome, less than half the parliamentary party – 55 of 121 MPs – have openly declared who they support, and the race is still very much on here. Remember that Tory MP’s choose the final two – and they have two more bites of the cherry.

Sunday: Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch will be on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday programme. Each of the candidates will also be on GB News with Tom Harwood, and they will all be invited to make a three-minute speech to the voluntary party and then take part in an individual eight-minute Q&A with members.

Monday: Each candidate has an hour-long interview with Christopher Hope of GB News, and then questions from the audience (pre-vetted by CCHQ).

Wednesday: In place of the traditional leader’s speech, each of the candidates will make a 20-minute pitch for votes. The order – as reported by Sky News’s Jon Craig – is expected to be Mr Tugendhat, Mr Cleverly, Mr Jenrick and Ms Badenoch.

Here are the live prices:

Current Prices:

🔵 Robert Jenrick: ?
🔵 Kemi Badenoch: ?
🔵 James Cleverly: ?
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: ?

⭐ TORY LEADERSHIP BETTING ⭐

🔵 Round 2

And here’s a refresher on the last round of voting and the candidates themselves:

🔵 Robert Jenrick: 33
🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 28
🔵 James Cleverly: 21
🔵 Tom Tugendhat: 21
🔵 Mel Stride: 16 – eliminated!

🔵 Day 3

Good evening from Birmingham, where the penultimate day of the Tory Party conference has taken place!

Today we’ve seen Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly put through their paces by Christopher Hope, who’s also asked a number of questions from members of the party. See the whole thing below:

💬 Confirmed that he gave his daughter the middle name of Thatcher – due to his admiration for the former PM, and because she died the year his daughter was born.

💬 Told the audience that he managed to get Rishi Sunak to agree to tougher policy by threatening to resign:

“Without lifting the veil entirely on what happened, the reason that we got the changes was because I sat in the prime minister’s office late at night and said to him, I’m not going to continue in this government unless we do this, because it felt was so important to me.”

💬 Defended his comment in a video released yesterday about special forces killing rather than capturing terrorists because of human rights law:

He (former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace) said that he would think it was difficult for the UK, our armed forces, to conduct a similar operation to the one that the United States did to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

That’s wrong. I don’t want our human rights apparatus to be standing in the way of taking the right operational decisions for our national security and for protecting the lives of the brave men and women who serve in our special forces.

💬 Said that it was a “bad decision” to schedule the end of the Tory leadership contest for after the budget, meaning that the new leader won’t respond to Keir Starmer in the commons at the end of the month

💬 Told members that the Tories ought to be ‘obsessed’ with NHS reform.

“Our party needs to be obsessed with how we can reform the NHS. Don’t treat it like a religion to be worshipped. Treat it like a public service to be reformed.”

💬 Said that he would keep the two-child benefit cap.

💬 Said that the police gave the appearance of two-tier policing, during the summer:

🔵 James Cleverly

💬 Took a couple of pointed jibes at Robert Jenrick. One could interpret that from his direct quotes about what members could expect if he was voted into office:

I do not pretend to be perfect, but with me, you know what you get and what I was, what I am and what I will be is consistent.
I don’t chop and change. I don’t U turn. I don’t flip flop.
If you like it, vote for me.
If you don’t like it, vote for someone else. But the point is, you know where you stand [with me].

💬 Attacked the delivery of the speech that Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave to the UN Security Council:

💬 Didn’t rule out accepting gifts if he was leader – pointing out that Keir Starmer’s problem was “not the accepting of gifts, particularly if those gifts are properly declared – but – problem is the stench of hypocrisy because whilst [Starmer] was accepting those gifts, he was attacking us for what he did”

💬 Backed replacing the BBC licence fee with a subscription model, referencing the popularity of Peppa Pig in China (annoying note here – but Peppa Pig was made for Channel 5, who would get the money!)

💬 Also backed shortening the leadership contest so that the new leader could respond in time for the Budget.

💬 Claimed “dozens” of asylum seekers would have been sent to Rwanda by now under the Tory deportation scheme if the election had not been held in the summer.

Takeaway: A strong outing for James Cleverly, who had a lot of notable crowd support and plenty of smart comebacks to tricky questions to boot. Some of his positions contrasted nicely to Robert Jenrick’s – and whilst Jenrick did not do badly, it’s hard to think that he gained any ground on Cleverly.

 

YouGov have polled the Tory membership, with head-to-head scenarios comparing the top two:

Survey date: 20-29 Sept
Final round scenarios:
📊 Jenrick 48% – Badenoch 52%
📊 Jenrick 52% – Cleverly 48%
📊 Jenrick 58% – Tugendhat 42%
📊 Badenoch 54% – Cleverly 46%
📊 Badenoch 58% – Tugendhat 42%
📊 Cleverly 55% – Tugendhat 45%

The most notable result is the head-to-head between Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch, with Badenoch now just 4% ahead – essentially almost level considering the margin of error. Jenrick is also not home and hosed against James Cleverly if he was to make the final two, as he holds the same lead over Cleverly that Badenoch does over him. Kemi Badenoch wins all of her head-to-head scenarios, and is favoured by a good margin over Cleverly and Tugendhat, although over a frantic period of campaigning none of these leads are insurmountable. Tom Tugendhat struggles in his head to heads, being down by 16 points.

Cleverly Money?

The big mover through conference has been James Cleverly, who is now 9/2 at the moment of writing from 15/2 yesterday when this blog was closed for the night. Rumours of a ‘Stop Kemi’ movement have fuelled some of this talk but there’s no doubt that he would be competitive against Jenrick if he was to make it through, which is an interesting dynamic for those who are attempting to engage in any horse-trading.

We have a market on the final two to make it to the members below:

🔵 Robert Jenrick & Kemi Badenoch: ?
🔵 Robert Jenrick & James Cleverly: ?
🔵 Kemi Badenoch & James Cleverly: ?
🔵 Robert Jenrick & Tom Tugendhat: ?
🔵 Kemi Badenoch & Tom Tugendhat: ?
🔵 James Cleverly & Tom Tugendhat: ?

Earlier on….

Robert Jenrick released a video claiming that that UK special forces are “killing rather than capturing” terrorists because of fears that European laws would free any detained assailants. He was condemned for saying this by Labour and by figures in the military, and received pushback from Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. Here he is in conversation with Mishal Husain from the BBC’s Today Programme:

Main Agenda:

2pm: Robert Jenrick takes part in a Q&A on the main stage at conference.
2pm: Tom Tugendhat takes part in an conversation event at a fringe organised by Onward. At 3.10pm he will be doing the same at a Centre for Policy Studies fringe.
3pm: James Cleverly does his Q&A on the main stage.
5pm: Kemi Badenoch takes part in an in conversation event at a fringe meeting with the outgoing Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson.

🔵 Day 2

🔵 What do the members think?

William Kedjanyi and cameraman Barnaby Nerbka went and asked the Tory faithful about their thoughts on the leadership contest:

Robert for Leader?

William Kedjanyi has casted his eye over the chances of Robert Jenrick:

Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch have been put through their paces by Christopher Hope on stage – and there was plenty to pick out from their sessions. We’ll start with Kemi Badenoch – and a link to the whole session is below:

Some highlights from the session:

It will not uprise you to learn that Badenoch likened herself to Magaret Thatcher – whilst defending her comments about maternity pay yesterday, saying that opponents deliberately misrepresented those remarks:

(Badenoch speaking) – Thatcher said: “Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

“When you are a leader, when you are a Conservative, when you are making the argument for Conservative principles, your opponents are going to try and turn it into something else. We need to decide who’s going to be leader of the party, not the left, not the Guardian, not the BBC, just Conservatives.”


She also said:

🔵 That free-at-the-point-of-use (regarding the NHS) is special in this country and the UK should keep it, but it doesn’t mean the NHS should be treated as a religion.

🔵 She might review the 2050 net zero emissions target, telling the members that other countries like India and China have a “far bigger impact than we do.”

🔵 That she’ll never introduce All Women Shortlists for parliamentary elections. (“Labour women need help, Conservative women can do it on our own…we’ve had three women prime ministers.”)

🔵 The Conservatives should apologise to voters for not reducing immigration.

🔵 That she does not favour having an elected party chair – but she thinks CCHQ needs reform.

🔵 She wouldn’t block Boris Johnson being selected as a Conservative candidate.

🔵 That the Tories will look ‘not serious’ if they change the timetable for the leadership contest.

🔵 That the saddest moment of her career came when she had to resign from Boris Johnson’s government.

🔵 That if she becomes PM, she will remove VAT on private school fees.

Tom Tugendhat went earlier, with one of his main calls being for the Tory leadership contest to be brought forward so the new leader can respond to Rachel Reeves’ Budget in October.

Explainer: By convention, the leader of the opposition responds to the chancellor’s statement. But with the new Tory leader not due to be announced before 2 November, that would mean former-PM Rishi Sunak will respond just before his term as leader ends.

He also:

🔵 Distanced himself from Kemi Badenoch’s comments on maternity pay (“it is incredibly important that women have the ability to choose how to live their lives”.)

🔵 Called for a maximum level for net migration of 100,000 people a year.

🔵 Rejected a characterisation as a Tory ‘wet” – to mean being on the left of the party.

🔵 Told members it was not his job “to make the Conservatives like Reform UK.”

🔵 Made plenty of references to his military career, telling members that “I won’t hold against them (his rivals) the areas where they didn’t serve their country and put their lives on the line. They have served in other ways, and I think we should respect that.”

🔵 Called for ECHR Reform, “Opt out of the bits you can, reform the bits that aren’t working, and if that doesn’t work, be prepared to leave.”

🔵 In Liz They Still Truss

Liz Truss – remember her? was on stage with Tim Stanley of the Telegraph earlier today. Find a link to that below:

Hello from Birmingham, on the second day of the Conservative Party’s first conference in opposition in 15 years as they choose their next leader. Here’s a livestream below, carried by Sky News:

Watch out for:

⏰ 12.30pm – Former PM Liz Truss will make an appearance at an ‘in conversation’ event

⏰ 2pm – Leadership contender Tom Tugendhat will answer questions on the main stage for around an hour

⏰ 3pm – Leadership contender Kemi Badenoch will answer questions on the main stage for around an hour

🔵 Could it be Kemi?

🔵 Flows of the Votes

There’ll be plenty more to come on this subject – and undoubtedly plenty have already analysed it – but it’s worth considering where the votes that cost the Tories in the last election went, especially considering that depending on the result, a new Tory leader could appeal to different groups of voters, with Labour already under major pressure and Reform staying solid so far in the early polling of this Parliament.

The top election analyst Dylan Difford has put some data from the British Election Study team which adjusts the actual vote shares in July for who voters really favoured – in other words, an adjustment to undo tactical voting. The results are below:

Below are the largest movements between those who votes for one party and preferred another:

🔴 > 🟢 800,000 voted for Labour, but prefer the Greens
🔴 > 🟡 500,000 voted for Labour, but prefer the Liberal Democrats
🟡 > 🔴 500,000 voted for the Liberal Democrats, but prefer Labour
🔵 400,000 voted for the Conservatives, but prefer Reform UK
🟡 > 🟢 250,000 voted for the Liberal Democrats, but prefer the Greens
🔵 100,000 voted for Reform UK, but prefer the Conservatives
🔵 > 🟡 100,000 voted for the Conservatives, but prefer the Liberal Democrats
🔴 > 🔵 80,000 voted for Labour, but prefer the Conservatives

Adding those totals up, you see that only 180,000 preferred the conservatives whilst voting for other parties, with 100,000 of them voting for Reform, and 80,000 voting for Labour. Not how the Liberal Democrats – who themselves benefited from a very efficient vote – don’t come up on that list despite the fact they did immense damage to the Tories in the South West and South East.

What the rough numbers do tell us is that the Conservatives have a stark choice in terms of their strategy and approach to make, and that there may be less votes to be squeezed from a rightward turn than some in the party are arguing. It’s worth remembering that the political atmosphere will depend on how the Government performs on a range of areas, but the last election saw several parties take ground whilst the Conservatives retreated – and winning it back won’t be easy.

Difford has also been able to track the voter flows from the 2017, 2019, and 2024 elections – which you can see below. The thread makes for fascinating and essential reading:

The Tories and Lib Dems held onto just half their 2019 voters, something which did immense damage to the Tories due to various factors, although we have to acknowledge that the two elections took place under radically different circumstances.

🔵 We Have News!

We have our first story!

Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has suggested that statutory maternity pay is “excessive” on a Times Radio interview with Kate McCann! Clip below:

Here’s the Badenoch response:

🔵 Meet The Tories

Here are the remaining contenders left in the race:

🔵 Robert Jenrick (MP for Newark and former secretary of state for housing and communities)

Now very much the front-runner in the betting after topping both rounds of leadership voting with a solid increase between rounds 1 and 2, Jenrick’s allies – who are furious at a timed limit of just 20 minutes for Wednesday’s feature speeches – believe he’s got one leg in the final pair. He is exuding confidence and hoping to avoid any major mistakes this week – as these races have changed on the basis of single events, which Conference is sure to provide plenty of. Would be a very strong favourite to beat anyone who wasn’t Kemi Badenoch with the members.

Round 2 votes: 33

Odds with Star: ?

🔵 Kemi Badenoch (MP for Saffron Walden and shadow secretary of state for housing communities and local government)

Lost a small bit of ground on Jenrick between rounds 1 and 2 but had an advantage of 7 over Cleverly and Tugendhat which puts her in a strong position to qualify on paper. Often led polls and surveys of members – she’s been ahead in five of the eight conducted so far and has a strong record in the head to head polls, albeit with the last of them taken a month ago. Will be last on Wednesday to give their speech.

Round 2 votes: 28

Odds with Star: ?

🔵 James Cleverly (MP for Braintree and shadow home secretary)

The most experienced contender of the six, having been Home Secretary at the point of the election, and also a former foreign secretary, education secretary and party chairman. His time at the head of the party will help with grassroots members and his pitch as the party’s great unifier could help him through the votes this week, although it’s possible that being moved to the Home Office could provide a blow to his aspirations given the party’s struggles with immigration. Round 2 tally was below market expectations but

Round 2 votes: 21

Didn’t progress from Round 1 to Round 2 with MP’s which may be a cause of concern for his camp, although the redistribution of votes from Mel Stride may give him some momentum. Could also benefit from potential vote trading if rival camps are aiming to keep Badenoch out of the final two, although that would come with a membership backlash. Experience is a major benefit for him.

Odds with Star: ?

🔵 Tom Tugendhat (MP for Tonbridge and Malling and shadow minister for security)

Seen as the outsider by betting markets and has drifted, perhaps due to lower than expected tallies in the first two rounds. Was talked about as being the One Nation candidate – a possible advantage given the makeup of the MP’s left after the election – but looks set to fight it out with James Cleverly for Mel Stride’s votes whilst hoping to win over uncommitted MP’s with one eye on winning back Lib Dem voters and those disillusioned with Labour.

Round 2 votes: 21

Odds with Star: ?

🔴 Trouble in Government

Labour’s conference was not the celebration that many hoped or thought it would be. With a flood of stories over donations – and the brutal exit letter from Rosie Duffield, who quit last night – Keir Starmer and his Government are taking a big hit in the polls ahead of what looks sure to be a brutal budget, and due to popular demand, we’ve already made a market on his exit date. We’ll have more to share on that – but below are the live odds:

🗓️ 2024: ?
🗓️ 2025: ?
🗓️ 2026: ?
🗓️ 2027: ?
🗓️ 2028: ?
🌹 2029 or later: ?

Stay tuned for more updates and analysis throughout the week – keep coming back for the latest!

WILLIAM KEDJANYI 

⭐ LATEST STAR POLITICAL MARKETS ⭐

STAR PROMOTIONS

 

BABF2P_PSGvArsenal_800X418-4
SS_DTA_Social_Banner
SS_WeBelieveInBookmaking
previous arrow
next arrow
SHARE VIA

    Most Read