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Before discussing the latest developments among the candidates for Conservative Party leader, let’s look at the weather here in England.
The weather presenters have been going on for a week about how hot it’s going to get here. From the beginning, they forecasted 40°C temps, roughly 100°F. Weather maps have been given a deep red colour, as if we’re going to burn alive.
Monday and Tuesday were going to be the hottest days of the week. Monday’s high was 38°C, reported in only five places, two of which were airports, so I discount those.
The other three were Cambridge University Botanical Gardens, Cavendish, Suffolk and a village called Sancton Downham.
One of Guido Fawkes’s readers posted a photo of the Cambridge location, which makes it suspect. The first photo shows the area when the weather station was first installed. The photo on the right shows what the area looks like today:
Guido’s reader commented (emphases in purple mine):
… the siting of Stevenson screens is crucial when recording temperature change. As I type the Cambridge station is now recording the highest temperature in the UK but it has been surrounded by new buildings which invalidates its scientific accuracy. It certainly must not be used to claim all time highs.
The unit and sensors should also be positioned in open space away from any nearby potential sources of heat such as buildings, airports and brick walls, where free circulation of air can occur, and over a natural surface, grass is recommended as other surfaces such as concrete can cause significant error leading to all time high temperatures being recorded inaccurately.
Was it warm yesterday? Yes.
Was it pleasant? Of course. I did some heavy duty gardening.
I do not understand why the British panic over summer temperatures, especially since most of them go to scorching hot climes on holiday. This graphic sums it up well:
It’s hard not to agree with this university lecturer, who wonders how ever created an Empire when we are such Moaning Minnies about heat. Were the British made up of sterner stuff in the 18th and 19th centuries? Perhaps so:
Now on to the Conservative Party leadership contest.
Monday’s vote: Tugendhat’s out
Conservative MPs voted again on Monday, July 18, 2022.
Tom Tugendhat, our Army superhero, was eliminated from the contest:
Was this his mode of transport home?
Here’s Tom in an Army sweater:
He made a video thanking his supporters:
Guido Fawkes gives us Tom’s main statement:
I have been overwhelmed by the response we have received across the country. People are ready for a clean start and our party must deliver on it and put trust back into politics.
No doubt the ladies at Mumsnet enjoyed it:
The final four
Going into Tuesday, these were the final four candidates:
Guido has Monday’s vote tally. Results went down as well as up (red emphases his):
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- Rishi Sunak – 115 (+14)
- Penny Mordaunt – 82 (-1)
- Liz Truss – 71 (+7)
- Kemi Badenoch – 58 (+9)
- Tom Tugendhat – 31 (-1) OUT
Penny’s lost support, Kemi is still in contention. Liz is now second favourite at the bookies. All to play for…
Guido had more analysis later in the day:
Whilst tonight’s leadership vote-off is unsurprising in that sense, the way the votes have gone for the remaining candidates are much more interesting.
Penny has gone down one vote, totally stalling. While she still leads Liz Truss, this trajectory will kill her momentum. Kemi has done very well; gaining nine backers to Truss’s seven. While tonight’s result in terms of eliminating Tugendhat may have been predictable, the remaining results make the final two more uncertain than ever. Though Rishi is now guaranteed a space in the final two…
The next vote took place on Tuesday afternoon. I will have an analysis of the results on Wednesday.
Conservative Party members see things differently
After Conservative MPs whittle their choices down to two candidates, the Party will send ballots out to members to vote for their choice, with a new leader — and new Prime Minister — to be in place by September 5, when Parliament reconvenes.
Note the latest polling from the Grantham and Stamford Conservative Association, which I featured last week. Kemi Badenoch was — and is — still in the lead. Rishi Sunak comes in a rather distant third:
Guido says:
The slick Rishi machine has to move the dial with the membership in a big way…
Rishi Sunak
Rishi is in a bit of a pickle, which gives Labour a lot of ammunition should he be our next Prime Minister.
The pandemic turned a lot of Britons into supporters of big state government, as Lord Hannan points out:
On May 26, the then-Chancellor announced a handout of £400 to all households in order to help them with rising energy costs:
The financial support has now been distributed.
Is it a good plan? Guido reported on the reaction from various think tanks.
The one from Taxpayers’ Alliance resonated with me most:
The TaxPayers’ Alliance isn’t impressed either, claiming the move is “little more than the government taking with one hand and giving with the other“. Chief Executive John O’Connell said:
Taxes are the single biggest bill families face and these huge handouts will see politicians hoovering up the incomes of struggling taxpayers, creating a cost of government crisis. If the chancellor wants to boost growth and help households, he can deliver both right now by bringing forward the planned income tax cut and slashing costly levies on energy bills.
But that was not all.
Rishi outlined other plans, altogether resulting in a £15bn bailout:
Guido has a summary:
As expected, Rishi has fired up the money printer once again to combat inflation. The Treasury claims it’ll cost £15 billion, with £5 billion a year supposedly coming from the newly-announced windfall tax “energy profits levy“. Here’s what to expect:
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- Windfall tax on oil and gas companies. Projected to raise £5 billion a year.
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- One-off ‘cost of living payment’ of £650 to approximately 8 million means-tested households. Two lump sum payments directly to bank accounts.
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- Households already receiving winter fuel allowance will also get a one-off payment of £300.
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- Those on disability payments will also get of £150. Many of those in receipt of this payment will also be eligible for the £650 sum, bringing their total support to £800.
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- Universal grant of £400 to all households. Doubling the £200 energy bill loan, and turning it into a full grant.
Rishi boasted when making the announcement that his plan is more generous than that proposed by Labour’s Rachel Reeves. The levy will raise £5 billion a year, and this will cost £15 billion. The difference will have to be financed by borrowing repaid by taxpayers…
People were shocked.
Labour won this round.
In Parliament, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said:
We pushed for the windfall tax. They’ve adopted it.
We said the buy now pay later scheme was wrong. Now they’ve ditched it.
This government is out of ideas, out of touch and out of time.
When it comes to the big issues facing the country, Mr Speaker, the position is now clear:
We lead. They follow.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was Boris’s opponent in the 2019 general election, was also pleased:
This was Jeremy Corbyn’s plan in Labour’s 2019 manifesto. It included a windfall tax:
Taxes in Britain are now at a 70-year high. Who was Prime Minister then? Labour’s Clement Attlee:
Lord Hannan, a former MEP, fears this will be a permanent development. He might well be right, unfortunately:
The plan made two front pages:
Cabinet members reacted the following day, including Jacob Rees-Mogg:
According to The Times, Rees-Mogg raised concerns in Cabinet yesterday, suggesting “the package would be better funded by reducing government spending on infrastructure projects.” The paper puts BEIS Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng in this camp as well, with him telling allies he’s particularly concerned by BP’s announcement that it’s reviewing its plans to invest in the North Sea. Guido agrees with the anonymous cabinet minister who said “The politics of this is just so bad. We voted against it, we marched the whole party up the hill and are now taking them back down again. It looks like we’re being dictated to by Labour”…
Conservative MP John Redwood said that taxation does not equal prosperity:
On May 28, Lord Hannan wrote an excellent editorial for The Telegraph, ‘The Tories have almost wholly given up on conservative principles. What a tragic waste’.
Excerpts follow:
The Tories have almost wholly given up on conservative principles. They used to argue that lower taxes stimulate growth and so lead, in the long run, to higher revenue; that countries, like families, should live within their means; that individuals spend their money more wisely than state bureaucrats; that arbitrary and complicated taxes are as much a deterrent to investment as high taxes. Not any more …
When George Osborne imposed a one-off tax on energy firms in 2011, the Treasury Red Book predicted that it would bring in £2 billion. Instead, oil companies cut their North Sea investments and tax revenues fell.
Again, Johnson and Sunak know this. As recently as three months ago, the Chancellor was telling us that the “obvious impact of a windfall tax would be to deter investment”. Both men understand that the only way out of our present predicament is through growth. Both understand that the way to achieve higher growth is to cut spending, scrap regulations, remove trade barriers, and ensure sound money. But these things are usually unpopular in the short term, and that seems to be their chief consideration.
We are thus in a negative feedback loop. When voters see the Conservatives, supposedly the party of fiscal responsibility, spraying cash around, they conclude that there must be plenty of depth left in the Government’s reservoir. When they see a Tory Chancellor promising to bring in extra revenue by hiking corporation tax – despite the experience of cutting corporation tax rates from 2011 and seeing revenues surge – they naturally believe him. All this then heaps pressure on ministers to spend even more …
It was all so unnecessary. Outside the EU, Britain could have become freer and more competitive. We had a Conservative Government with an 80-seat majority, for Heaven’s sake. We could have scrapped Brussels regulations, flattened and simplified taxes, embraced global markets, slimmed the civil service, decentralised powers and broken cartels. We could, in short, have made this the most attractive place in the world to do business.
Yes, the pandemic was an unforeseeable distraction – though, even then, some reforms could have been pursued. But nearly a year has passed since the end of the restrictions in Britain, and it is now depressingly clear that there is no plan to make use of our opportunities. After all their talk of buccaneering Britain, our leaders have shied away from almost every difficult economic decision. What a waste. What a tragic, needless waste.
Of course, Nadhim Zahawi is our current Chancellor. For how long remains to be seen. However, it will be difficult for him or his successor to roll back on Rishi’s plan. Labour won’t allow it. Either way, it will play to Labour’s advantage between now and the next general election.
Let us look at more recent developments.
When Rishi resigned as Chancellor, the press gathered outside the Sunak mews house in Kensington, London.
The Infosys heiress Mrs Sunak, in the tradition of other politicians, brought reporters mugs of tea:
One reporter expressed his appreciation:
Boris Johnson had only just stood down as Party leader when Rishi declared his candidacy to succeed him. Note that Channel 4’s poll participants still wanted Boris to stay in No. 10:
‘Ready for Rishi’ launched on July 8, complete with a video on his family’s arrival in Southampton on the southern coast of England. Rishi was born there:
Not surprisingly, Rishi’s promo did not include this clip from a 2001 documentary he participated in as a student at Winchester, one of the nation’s top public (very private) schools. This is from the BBC’s Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl, shown in March 2001.
Rishi glibly says he doesn’t know any working class people. His father looks on admiringly:
Bim Afolami MP, who is one of Rishi’s supporters, defended his friend’s quick launch. Afolami said that all the video clips were there for his team to sort through and compile in 24 hours. Afolami said that it was not unusual that Rishi arranged for his campaign website in …. 2020:
Staunch Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries told Dan Wootton on GB News that Rishi was able to launch his campaign because he wasn’t at work:
Wootton asked whether Rishi was ‘too duplicitous’ to be PM:
Ninety-two per cent of those responding to his poll said YES:
Patrick Christys added to the doubt that many have about Sunak, from the timing of his campaign launch to his Boris backstabbing:
At the launch of the candidates’ contest, the public reacted negatively to Rishi.
One person was incredulous that both Boris and Rishi received Fixed Penalty Notices for Partygate, yet Boris had to resign only for Rishi to run as his successor:
Another predicts that the Conservatives will lose the next general election. The Opposition will fire too much ammunition Rishi’s way:
This chap objects to all of the top candidates:
I will leave it there for now.
More to come tomorrow, including an analysis of Tuesday’s vote.
Churchmouse Campanologist 