There’s plenty of speculation in Westminster today that Philip Hammond is busy positioning himself as a future leadership contender. Last night he had some pretty strong words about the Government’s proposals for same-sex marriage, saying:
‘There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.’
Meanwhile the FT identifies him as a reluctant cutter of his own department’s spending in its report about George Osborne’s £9bn black hole.
Hammond certainly features on the list of names that I’ve compiled from conversations with Tories about who has either told their nearest and dearest that they would like to run for leader if a vacancy appeared – which is very different, of course, to someone who wants to be leader now and is prepared to stage a coup – or who already has infrastructure around an embryonic leadership campaign. Those names are:
Theresa May
Chris Grayling
Justine Greening
George Osborne
Philip Hammond
Andrea Leadsom
Liam Fox
David Davis
Adam Afriyie
Michael Gove
Liz Truss
Jesse Norman
Some of those names are more public than others. Theresa May had her moment in the spotlight in the spring, which led to Nick Clegg getting cross. Philip Hammond has been building up a power base as part of his opposition to further defence cuts in the 2015/16 spending review. Adam Afriyie’s ambitions are much-chronicled. But others, such as Greening, have stayed below the radar while quietly tapping up other Conservative MPs.
Now, the thing about these lists is that they are based on MPs nattering to one another, rather than an accurate representation of whose hats would appear in a ring when a leadership contest does kick off. But this sort of intelligence at least helps explain certain behaviour from certain MPs.
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