Rod Liddle: UK Correspondent shares his thoughts behind the Tory Leadership race

The Conservatives annual conference in Birmingham – essentially one big job interview. By Wednesday afternoon the Conservatives should be a lot closer to knowing who their next leader will be.

The selected candidates are Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat with Rishi Sunak as the leader.

Tens of thousands of council homes sit empty as the waitlist grows.

Rod Little told Heather du Plessis-Allan that today it was Tugendhat who seems to be one of the outsiders.

Liddle states the general thinking is that this will come down to a final between Badenoch from the right and Jenrick from the centre left.

Liddle believes that it's looking more like the conservative MPs will try to get rid of Badenoch before it gets to the final.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
With us.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Now is Rod Little, UK correspondent, A Rod how are
you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Not for that? How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:05):
And very well? Thank you know what's the letters with
the Tory leadership right? How are we tracking?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Four left in it? And it's been the Tory conference
this week so they've had the chance to address the
faithful Conservative Party members and today it was Tom Tuganhat,
who is reckoned to be one of the outsiders I guess,
of the four remaining, and Kemy Badanock, who is one
of the favorites. The general thinking is that this will

(00:32):
come down to a final between Kemmy Badanock from the
right and Robert Jenrick or Robert Generrick as his enemies
call him, who is from the kind of center left.
But it's looking more and more now as if the
Conservative MPs will try to get rid of Batterannock before

(00:56):
it even gets to a final, because if he did
get to a final, Kerry Badenock would win on the
votes of the members of the party rather than just
the MPs. So these days people are reckoning you know,
probably Robert Jenrick, probably James Cleverly will be the two
in the final. We'll see how much damage do.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
You think Benlocke's maternity leave comments have done to her.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
It will have done a bit, no question about that,
because Bado have quite a constituency amongst amongst women Tory
activists and indeed some female Tory MPs, and that won't
have helped her one little bit. But in fairness to her,
it does put a It is bang on the sort

(01:43):
of thing she would say and would think. You know,
if bad A knock a hold of the Conservative Party,
you would kind of be looking at the Tories as
being one of those European hard to right parties, the
kind of party which is just well in Austria, which
is doing very well in Germany, which has the government

(02:03):
in Italy. You know, that's the kind of model that
bad enough he is looking at the rest of them
are far more like you know, European Christian Democrats.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, I see. James cleverly has come out as the
favorite for the Tory leadership amongst the British public. Why
would that be?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I don't know his he seems to bear his name.
Seems to be a flagrant uh rewriting of the trade
descriptive descriptions actually is not not not not the sharpest
tool in the book is a box. He's not bad Cleverly.
He's quite personable, and he did quite well for a

(02:43):
while as a as a as a defense minister, and
was quite liked for that. But you know that there
doesn't seem to be anything new that Cleverly would bring
to the role in the way that a liberal such
as Tom took an outward or someone from the right
Kenny bad awkward. I think if it got to a
final between Cleverly and Robert Generrick, as everyone calls him,

(03:09):
then I think the odds are that James Clubley will
probably wind.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Isn't this this is this is the age old thing
that faces a political party like this. Do you appeal
to your voting base with somebody like Kimmy Bednocke, or
do you appeal to the wider public with somebody like.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, no, nobody. That's exactly it. And of course the
Tories have this extraordinarily complex mechanism for choosing their leader,
which ensures that whoever they talk is the worst possible
one for the voters. It's always been like that. There Labarridge,
series of knockout steps, and then it comes down to

(03:48):
the activist deciding in the end. I mean, you're quite right.
And I think it's also the case that any party
which has been in power for a long period of
channel in this then really unceremoniously kicked out of power.
They tend to have two or three leaders before they're
anywhere near back to looking at gaining power seriously in

(04:11):
the country. That was the case for the Tourries in
ninety seven, and it was the case for the Labor
Party in seventy nine.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Hey, yeah, they're in a real picklelant they Rod. It's
good to talk to you, mate, Really appreciate look after yourself.
It's Rod Little, a UK correspondent.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
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