Tory Leader Hopefuls - Bad News

They’re off! And so begins the race to succeed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as the next Tory leader, but not unelected Prime Minister, because that only applied to Gordon Brown. And the news is not good: rarely has a national crisis brought forward such a piss-poor field of candidates. Here’s the Zelo Street guide to the runners, or for most of them very soon, maybe not.

Jeremy Hunt Come on now, all together, and I’m looking especially at you, Andrew Marr, HUNT CULTURE HUNT CULTURE HUNT CULTURE. Hunt has the advantage of not being tainted by sitting at the Bozo cabinet table. He has significant experience. But he just shot his own campaign dead by declaring that his deputy PM would be the seriously unpleasant Esther McVey.

Kemi Badenoch Says “I want to set us free by telling people the truth”. That’s the same Kemi Badenoch who hounded journalist Nadine White for asking a straightforward question of her. Which matters. We can’t have a PM who loses their shit when confronted with journalists’ questions. No.

Grant Shapps This is a campaign with a keyword, and that keyword is SPIV. Who speaks when he opens his North and South? Shapps himself? Michael Green? Sebastian Fox? Was delusional enough to think he could succeed Young Dave in 2016. Also, one look at how his Twitter following was caused to become enhanced, and the denials, tell you what he’s like. We need a complete break from dishonesty, not a more constructive use of it.

Liz Truss How shall I put this? Imagine Liz Truss in 10 Downing Street. Then imagine all those world leaders, business leaders, media magnates and other interest groups trying not to laugh themselves into a premature heart attack imagining Liz Truss in 10 Downing Street. But she is a patriot and a democrat, and managed to think up both terms herself. Another no.

Rishi Sunak Ah, Brand Rishi, the early front runner. If only being PM were all one long PR exercise, all image and no substance. But sadly, we know it isn’t, as Young Dave proved and Bozo proved again. Talking the talk is all very well, but when push comes to shove, which it is bound to do in Number 10 (that’s what the PM is there for, remember), walking the walk is needed too.

Tom Tugendhat Tom Who? But he does have one big plus point: he has served in the military and done tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. One other plus for him is chairing the Commons Committee that blew the whistle on Russian money laundering via the UK. Which may not please everyone in the Tory party, because that party may have benefited therefrom. Outside chance.

Suella Braverman What would be an appropriate and catchy campaign slogan for her? How about “Too stupid to be Prime Minister - stupid enough to try”? Meanwhile, read Steve Peers’ point-by-point demolition of Ms Braverman’s credibility (HERE) and be relieved that she is most unlikely to win. The woman who said calling out Russian money in her party was racist.

Said Javid Did you know his Dad was a bus driver? You soon will. I worry about Saj because of his past tendency to being a bit Randian, but today on BBC Sunday Morning he came over as positively Keynesian, urging tax cuts as a first step to boosting economic growth (which he rightly prioritises). He has served with Bozo, but has been prepared to break with Johnson, and, indeed, knife the SOB when it needed doing. Could go all the way.

Penny Mordaunt Has been harbouring leadership ambitions since May 2019 - the date that pm4pm dot com was registered. Ms Mordaunt has the confidence and the presence, but whether she is as formidable a figure as she believes is another thing entirely. She comes across as sensible, but the problem is that much of her party is now infested with the batshit crazy.

Nadhim Zahawi Mr Expenses To Heat Stables threw his hat in the ring, only for the news to break that his tax affairs were under investigation. That smells of a dirty trick, and possibly not unadjacent to Bozo and his circle. The problem he has is that the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press may have more, and be prepared to use it. Don’t think he’ll make it.

But above all, remember as they all try and distance themselves from the nastiest Tory policies of the recent past, like deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda or that mildly inconvenient breaking of international law, or the more pointless ones like selling off Channel 4, they all voted for them. Including HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT. All of them complicit.

So we’re being offered what Neil Young once called “A kinder, gentler machine gun hand”. Which might play well with the target electorate: Tory MPs and then the party’s members. Also, the chance any of those candidates will reverse the screwing-up of the UK that Bozo managed is between minimal and remote.So the decline will continue. It’ll be the same piss in a differently labelled bottle. But there may be less lying and lawbreaking.

That’s a rather low bar to set. Because that’s how screwed we are right now.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton