‘Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played, the red crashing game of a fight?’ Jessie Pope’s paean to the glories of war might equally be applicable to the internecine slaughter of the Tory party as its MPs gear up for yet another brutal leadership battle. But in war you can only be killed once; in politics many times. And few know that mantra better than the two leading contenders to become PM: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Both men a thing or two about political mortality: Johnson was forced out in July and Sunak lost to his successor in the subsequent contest.
This time though, the leadership contest rules have changed: no whacky racer fringe candidates this time as the threshold for nominations has jumped from 20 to 100. So, with only three candidates mathematically able to hit that number in a party of 357 MPs, Tory big beasts have an unappetising choice of who to back. Do they go for Boris, whom they betrayed at the end? Or Penny, about whom they, er, remain unenthusiastic? And then there’s Rishi, who had to endure some pretty scathing briefings from his former Cabinet colleagues during the last race…
It’s in such circumstances that Mr S muses what Ben Wallace must be thinking. The Defence Secretary may be the toast of the Tory grassroots, thanks to his handling of Ukraine, but he only kept his role under Truss after ridiculing her rival. Wallace attacked Sunak for quitting the cabinet, writing in the Times that the British public public would never have forgiven the Conservatives if the financial markets had crashed upon his resignation: a charge that hasn’t exactly aged well. He also accused Sunak of trying to block ‘vital’ defence money during his time in the Treasury and suggested that his policies had undermined entrepreneurs.
Sounds like that’s one endorsement Rishi can’t rely on…
Update: Ben Wallace has now come out for Boris Johnson. Getting the band back together?
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