VOTE 24

AUTHOR: Star Sports Content

VOTE 24: The Finale Begins

After a seismic shock, we now have our final two in the Tory leadership race,  writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

After a resounding win in the third round of voting, James Cleverly was presumed to be a racing certainty to make the final two – indeed so much so that he was 50/1 to be eliminated with Star Sports. Yet he was beaten by both Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, both of whom must have taken a sizeable amount of the 20 votes Tom Tugendhat received in round 3.

Tugendhat – firmly on the One Nation wing of the party – was seen as much closer to Cleverly than either Badenoch or Jenrick, and the presumption that most of his 20 votes would go to Cleverly, putting him into the final two. That was not the case – with accusations and stories flying around of vote lending stories of miscalculation, skulduggery and more.

Later on, we’ll also look at the latest events in the Presidential race, with less than a month to go until polling day.

Here are yesterday’s results:

🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 42
🔵 Robert Jenrick: 41
🔵 James Cleverly: 37

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🔵 What happened?

There were a few theories flying around Westminster in the aftermath of yesterday’s vote, summed up below:

Not-so-Cleverly now: MP’s backing Cleverly had put their weight behind Jenrick to knock out Kemi Badenoch, who had an advantage in the surveys of the members which had been conducted so far. With a large amount of crossover from Tugendhat to Cleverly expected, it’s also possible that team Cleverly took their eye off the ball – he was at a book launch that evening – whilst Jenrick and Badenoch hit the phones.

One hell of a Jenrick: In reverse, Tugendhat’s supporters backed Badenoch to get rid of Jenrick due to the huge policy gap between the two as told to one reporter before voting took place.

Tom’s Troublesome Bunch: It’s possible, infact likely, that a number of Tugendhat voters switched to try and eliminate the candidate they most disliked to set up a final two they felt that Cleverly could win.

The short game: Jenrick supporters flipped to Cleverly in Round 3 to inflate his progress and hinder Badenoch’s, before then returning home. Plausible, if not very risky in a party of just 121.

Adrian Smith was with me for yesterday’s action, and has these reflections:

1) It’s not clear whether what happened was a deliberate plan that went wrong. or was the result of MPs simply doing their own thing without anyone telling them to.

2) Either way, it is a disaster for brand Tory – they had deliberately set out for a long contest that had set tested the candidates and inflicted natural selection on the worst, and demonstrated that they had internalised the election result and were serious about reforming and getting back on the road to credibility – up to now, the contest had low-key delivered. Not a sensation, but no disasters either – now everybody in Westminster is laughing at them again, and whatever the root cause, it has just demonstrated that they are still all-over-the-place.

3) By accident or design the moderate wing have been locked out. That means the relationship with Reform will start to become a larger part of the contest with the last two – and if the direction of travel is toward Reform to get back those votes, what is the long-term prognosis for the party. Does a split become inevitable??

🔵 The Final Countdown

The results are in and there’s been a shock – James Cleverly is out and Kemi Badenoch & Robert Jenrick are through to the final two!

Here’s some reaction from Adrian Smith outside – where else – the Red Lion!

🔵 Kemi Badenoch: 42
🔵 Robert Jenrick: 41
🔵 James Cleverly: 37

Here’s some analysis of the result – and we’ll dig deeper on that later!

As you might expect, Kemi Badenoch is our new favourite:

PRESS RELEASE: Badenoch new favourite in Tory race after shock Cleverly exit

The vote is almost here! For some last min analysis, please enjoy friend of the page, Adrian Smith:

Here are a couple of things you need to know:

https://x.com/StarSports_Bet/status/1844017298987979130

🔵 Analysis

At the moment – this is being written at about 10am the market has swung strongly in favour of Kemi Badenoch making the final two – she’s 13/8 from 3/1 yesterday, and Robert Jenrick has been cut into 4/7 to be the last eliminated from the race.

The results will be declared at 3.30pm today, when we will know the final pairing who go to the members.

🎥 Yesterday, Ranjan Balakumran filmed my reaction to the third-round vote:

🔵 And I discussed the chances of Robert Jenrick making the final two:

🔵 Along with Kemi Badenoch:

🥀 And last but never least, I looked at Labour’s various troubles at Number 10. More on that later:

Worth noting: Don’t take the membership results for granted – the last professional polling was conducted pre-conference and has a wider margin of error than most other polls. Cleverly is likely to have risen since, although he had a gap of eight points to make up on Kemi Badenoch according to YouGov’s pre-conference poll and four on Jenrick. Any race would be close – and there’s no time to lose, with many members voting straight away.

WILLIAM KEDJANYI 

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