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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Boris Johnson leads Tory leadership race with 114 votes; Leadsom, McVey and Harper out – live

Afternoon summary

Here are the results in full:

  • Downing Street has said it is “categorically untrue” to say Sajid Javid was not invited to the state banquet for Donald Trump because of his Muslim background. The denial came after Javid, the home secretary, suggested he was not convinced by the official explanation for him not being invited, which was that home secretaries are not automatically on the list.
  • Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has written to all the remaining leadership candidates asking them to pledge to keep reducing the national debt every year.

That’s all from me for tonight.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Conservative party plans to hold 16 hustings for members

The Conservative party has said there will be 16 hustings, in every part of the UK, once the parliamentary stage of the contest is over. It said:

There will be 16 leadership hustings hosted in every region and nation of the UK. The first hustings will take place in Birmingham on Saturday 22 June. The final hustings will take place in London in the week commencing 15 July. There will also be an opportunity for the public to question the final two candidates online during the hustings period.

Conservative party members should receive postal ballots between 6 and 8 July. The result of the ballot will be announced in the week commencing 22 July.

The campaign spending limit for each candidate is £150,000, commencing from 7 June.

Updated

David Mundell, the Scotland secretary, has said he will never vote for Boris Johnson as Tory leader, fearing Johnson’s apparent willingness to force through a no-deal Brexit by 31 October makes him a political liability.

Mundell told reporters in Edinburgh, as he officially took possession of a new multimillion-pound UK government office, that he also believed it would be extremely difficult to deliver Brexit by that deadline.

I want to see someone who is focused on achieving a deal in relation to Brexit. Mr Johnson says he is focused on achieving a deal, but he’s very clear that he doesn’t have any reservations about leaving without a deal, and I have been very, very clear about my position on a no-deal Brexit given how difficult that would be for Scotland.

We are in a very challenging circumstance and it may not be possible to deliver a deal, certainly a deal within the timescale Mr Johnson has set, which is a very, very tight timescale to get a deal through, not just with the EU, but with parliament, by 31 October.

Revealing he had voted by proxy for Matt Hancock, the health secretary, in the first round of voting today, Mundell said:

I’m not ‘anybody but Boris’ in the sense of seeking to stop Mr Johnson. It’s just I have been clear in the past I wouldn’t support him in a leadership election.

Mundell denied ever saying he would not serve in a Johnson cabinet – contradicting previous statements to the media – but implied he believed Johnson may not win in the final round and could yet come unstuck as he faces tougher scrutiny.

We’re a long way from the conclusion of this race. Obviously Mr Johnson is the frontrunner. I didn’t support him in today’s ballot and I won’t be supporting him in the future part of this process.

But it would be complacent to assume that he is just going to win the exercise. I think it’s very important as we go through the television debates next week, as we go through the interaction with members, that all candidates are held to account, their positions [are] challenged and they make robust defences and set out further details of their policies.

Johnson is widely seen by the Scottish Tories as a highly problematic choice. As an ardent Brexiter known for his controversial remarks on ethnic minorities and women, his previously messy private life and privileged upbringing, a Johnson premiership could be readily converted into greater support for the Scottish National party and independence.

Mundell claimed Johnson was a “staunch unionist and he’s committed to keeping our United Kingdom together”. But challenged by the Guardian about Johnson’s previous attacks on the Barnett formula, which allows Scotland to spend £1,600 more per head on public services, Mundell said:

There is no suggestion he is coming into this race with a view to changing the Barnett formula or changing any of the arrangements that currently exist in relation to the devolved settlement.

David Mundell
David Mundell. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Updated

Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee, voted for Michael Gove because he thinks the “process is going to require some compromise”. He explained:

One of the problems Theresa May had was she voted for remain and never gained the trust of Brexiters.

It’s like Nixon going to China, somebody who voted for Brexit can get that compromise in the party. Only two candidates can do that and I think Gove is easily the cleverest and his achievements in the various departments as secretary of state has demonstrated that.

Updated

What happens next in Tory leadership contest

Here are the next key dates in the Conservative leadership contest.

Tomorrow 1pm: Deadline for candidates who want to announce they are withdrawing from the contest.

Sunday 16 June: Channel 4 News broadcasts a hustings for the candidates, chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Boris Johnson is not expected to participate, but other candidates, including Michael Gove and Rory Stewart, have said they are keen to be there.

Monday 17 June: Second round of hustings organised by the 1922 Committee, starting at 3pm. These take place in private.

Tuesday 18 June: The second ballot takes place between 3pm and 5pm, with the result announced at about 6pm. The candidate coming last will drop out, as well as any candidate receiving fewer than 33 votes. At 8pm, Emily Maitlis will chair a BBC hustings.

Wednesday 19 June: The third ballot will take place, with voting between 3pm and 5pm and the result due at about 6pm. The candidate coming last will drop out.

Thursday 20 June: Two further ballots will take place, if needed, the first in the morning, with the results announced at about 1pm, and the second in the afternoon, with the results announced at about 6pm. By the end of Thursday, the 1922 Committee hopes to have whittled the list down to two for the ballot of party members.

Week beginning Monday 22 July: The winner of the election is due to be announced this week. The Conservative party has not yet said exactly when that will be, but Wednesday 24 July is likely to be the new leader’s first PMQs, or Theresa May’s last.

Updated

Rory Stewart using his phone
Rory Stewart on the phone outside parliament after the results of the first round of the leadership contest were announced. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Updated

The Conservative party has its problems – Rory Stewart came close to predicting civil war earlier (see 3.14pm) – but at least it knows what it is called. Change UK, the new party that started life as the 11-strong Independent Group of MPs, has just put out a press release saying it is changing its identity again. It is now applying to the Electoral Commission to be known as “The Independent Group for Change”. It is doing this to avert a legal challenge from the campaigning organisation Change.org.

Updated

Here are two tweets on the Tory leadership and privilege.

From Sky’s Lewis Goodall

From the Times’ Esther Webber

Brexiters contemplating proroguing parliament for no deal guilty of 'hypocrisy on gold-plated stand', says John Major

Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, was speaking at a Chatham House event this morning, and he was scathing about the suggestion that a new PM might prorogue parliament to prevent it blocking a no-deal Brexit. These Brexiters contemplating this idea were guilty of “hypocrisy on a gold-plated stand”, he said. He seemed to be referring in particular to Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson, and to Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was the first Brexiter to float a version of this idea.

Major told the audience:

When you get people suggesting that we prorogue parliament because parliament may take a different view from a particular faction in the House of Commons, then you are heading in a very dangerous territory.

If I look back through British history, then I cannot imagine Mr Disraeli, Mr Gladstone, Mr Churchill or Mrs Thatcher, even on their most difficult moments, saying, ‘Let us put parliament aside while I carry through this difficult policy that part of my party disagrees with.’

It is fundamentally unconstitutional.

And to hear that argument come from people who in the Brexit debate talked about the sovereignty of parliament being at stake, it is not only fundamentally distasteful, it is hypocrisy on a gold-plated stand.

I don’t think that that could possibly be allowed to stand. I don’t think the House of Commons will allow it to stand. And, to be absolutely frank, I don’t think anybody who proposes that, or even lets it flit through their mind for a second, has any understanding of what parliament is about, what sovereignty is about, what leadership is about or what the United Kingdom is about. And the sooner the House of Commons stamp on this idea, absolutely, comprehensively and forever, the better.

Updated

The Tory MP Ken Clarke also said he agreed with Rory Stewart’s comment about how, if Boris Johnson were to suspend parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit, MPs would “bring him down”. (See 2.32pm.) Clarke said:

I agree with that … There would be absolute outrage if a new prime minister suddenly decided because he didn’t get a majority in parliament for a policy that he would close parliament down and use dictatorial powers … It’s a bizarre suggestion.

Clarke said that although we have an uncodified constitution, it is nonetheless clear that governments should only pursue policies for which they have parliament’s approval.

Updated

Just four of the 11 members of the foreign affairs select committee went on its road trip to Northern Ireland today.

Four of the five Conservative MPs and three of the five Labour MPs did not turn up in Armagh, where the first of two outreach events with local communities are taking place.

It is not clear why so few turned up, but the Conservative leadership vote was not a barrier, as the Tory committee chair, Tom Tugendhat, was able to attend and take part in the ballot by arranging a proxy vote.

The committee is meeting community groups, representatives from local businesses and elected public representatives.

Among those not attending are the Brexiter Priti Patel and Andrew Rosindell, who has said the stalemate over the border is a “red herring from day one” and the only way to resolve it is through bilateral talks between the UK and Ireland. Rosindell made the comments in Ireland last month, when he attended a session of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, which he co-chairs.

Updated

Some Tory MPs 'extremely fearful' of Boris Johnson becoming PM, says Ken Clarke

The Conservative former chancellor and veteran pro-European Ken Clarke has accused Boris Johnson of not knowing what he wants, and said some Conservatives fear the idea of him being prime minister. In an interview, he said:

Some are extremely fearful about the idea that he becomes prime minister. This isn’t some TV reality show … We’re not choosing the winner of the Great [British] Bake Off – we’re talking about government and policies.

The father of the house, who supported Rory Stewart in the leadership vote today, said Johnson muddles through, often forgetting what he believes in from one day to the next.

He doesn’t have any policies, certainly none that are consistent from day to day in the way he puts them. I don’t actually think he knows what he would do to get us out of the Brexit crisis.

He doesn’t always say the same thing, partly because he doesn’t always remember what he said the day before.

He tends to work day to day and just get his way through it – he’s not a man who’s interested in detail.

Ken Clarke
Ken Clarke. Photograph: Sky News

Updated

Here is more from the Rory Stewart interview with Sky News quoted earlier. See 1.42pm.)

  • Stewart said Boris Johnson would be acting like Charles I if he prorogued parliament to facilitate a no-deal Brexit. King Charles’s confrontations with parliament led to the civil war.

Somebody who attempted to subvert our constitution, our liberties, our parliament, this place, who dared to stand as prime minister and claim that they could lock the doors on parliament, would not deserve to be prime minister. And this parliament would meet, whether he locked the doors or not, and we would bring him down.

If he locked the doors of parliament, he would be doing it because he knew that parliament was entirely and completely against the central plank of his policy. And he would try to stop parliament from bringing him down by not allowing parliament to sit. That’s what Charles I did. That led to very, very disturbing things in this country. I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. I’m sure, like his taxation policy and his employer national insurance policy, he just hasn’t thought it through. So please think it through.

  • Stewart said it was important for politicians to be straight with people. He said:

I’m very worried if [Johnson] will not tell us what he stands for. Because in the end we have had too much politics where people don’t trust politicians, people have been afraid to speak about reality, to be straight with people. People said, when I began this campaign, that you are never going to get anywhere because you are being straight about parliament, about the problems in Europe. People said you are not going to get anywhere because you are not making tax and spending pledges. What I have discovered is it’s immensely popular to be straight with people, and that’s why I think we can win this.

  • Stewart said he was beginning to think he might just make it on to the final ballot of Tory members.

Updated

Andrea Leadsom has tweeted this about her departure from the leadership race.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has coined a new and very useful term for Tory MPs who back Rory Stewart – but are unwilling to come out and say so.

Updated

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, who came third, says it’s “all to play for”. He is probably the best debater in the House of Commons, and seems to be looking forward to the Channel 4 hustings on Sunday.

Updated

And this is from Dominic Raab, who came fourth today.

These are from Mark Harper, who was eliminated from the contest today.

Updated

The odds on Boris Johnson becoming the next prime minister are now 1/5, down from 4/7 this morning, the betting website Oddschecker says. That’s an implied probability of 83.3% that he will win the Conservative leadership contest.

Updated

Here is the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, on the results of the first round of voting.

Updated

Rory Stewart says he would 'bring down' Boris Johnson if he tried to prorogue parliament

This is what Rory Stewart, the international development secretary who is standing to become Conservative leader, said about bringing down Boris Johnson if he tried to prorogue parliament to facilitate a no-deal Brexit.

Asked what he would do, Stewart told Sky News:

Number one, let’s get Boris to be straight. Does he or does he not consider locking the doors of parliament to be acceptable? That is an unconstitutional, improper, really disturbing suggestion that you try to get something through by locking the doors of parliament. Answer us. I’ve been asking for a week, ‘Boris, are you going to lock the doors of parliament?’ If so, tell people, because we want to know what kind of leader or prime minister we are voting for.

But he won’t be able to. I guarantee you, if he were to try, I and every other member of parliament will sit across the road in Methodist Central Hall and we will hold our own session of parliament and we will bring him down, because you do not, ever, lock the doors on parliament in this country, or in any other country with any respect in the world.

Dominic Raab is the Brexiter leadership candidate who has publicly floated the idea of proroguing parliament to facilitate a no-deal Brexit (because sending MPs away from the House of Commons would stop them legislating to prevent a no-deal departure). Raab is not actively advocating this, but he says it would be a mistake to rule it out.

Johnson has said he is not attracted to the idea of using prorogation in this way, but today’s Times reports that, in private talks with Tory Brexiters, he has not ruled out the idea. Here’s an extract from the Times story (paywall).

The former foreign secretary was said, however, to have privately assured the hard-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of backbenchers that he would not explicitly rule it out.

Some Brexiteers have urged the next prime minister to end the parliamentary session – known as proroguing – so MPs are unable to stop a no-deal exit from the EU on October 31, which would require the Queen’s permission.

“He’s told the ERG he won’t take prorogation off the table and that he’s signed up to their plan for a ‘managed no-deal’,” a source on another campaign said.

A senior Brexiteer confirmed last night that Mr Johnson had discussed the option of suspending parliament at a private meeting late last week. Another said: “I didn’t hear him rule it out.”

The idea of getting a shadow parliament to sit in Methodist Central Hall is not as novel an idea as it sounds. In 2002, the then Labour MP Graham Allen investigated the idea of hiring Church House at Westminster for an informal recall of parliament to discuss the threat of war with Iraq. In the event, Tony Blair did recall parliament, and Allen’s plan was dropped.

Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart. Photograph: Isabel Infantes/PA

Updated

Here is my colleague Rafael Behr on Boris Johnson.

And here is an extract.

One of the two Johnsons served as mayor of London from 2008-2016. He has liberal, metropolitan instincts – broadly pro-immigration, old-fashioned in his use of idiom, but a moderniser at heart. Then there is 2016-2019 Johnson, figurehead of the Vote Leave campaign, the ultimate Brexit-booster. He is a more aggressive, divisive figure – a partisan of nationalistic culture wars who has consorted with Steve Bannon. Both Johnsons are dispensing wild promises to Tory MPs behind closed doors. The self-styled “one-nation” Conservatives and rightwing ultras each seem to think the other side is being taken for a ride, which suggests they all are.

Updated

Matt Hancock surpassed expectations, a spokesman for his campaign said. The spokesman went on:

MPs have responded well to Matt’s energetic and positive campaign. His pro-business message, his focus on taking the fight to Corbyn and the Lib Dems, not just the Brexit party, and his argument that the Tory party “need a leader for the future, not just for now”, has gone down well with colleagues.

Updated

Here is a graph with the results.

Here is Jeremy Hunt commenting on the result.

“Serious leader” is, of course, code for “not Boris Johnson”.

This is from Rory Stewart.

Here is a Labour response to the Rory Stewart interview.

Rory Stewart has just given an extraordinary interview, PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield and BuzzFeed’s Alex Wickham report. I will post the quotes in a moment.

Rory Stewart told BBC News he was “completely over the moon” at securing 19 votes, saying a poll on the ConservativeHome website putting him as the second choice behind Boris Johnson among Tory members “must have been what turned around the final few”.

Asked how he could build on the still relatively low number, to reach the 33 needed to progress past the second round on Tuesday, he said:

You build on it by just saying this message, which is about being radical, about being brave in the centre ground, about getting out and listening to people, is extraordinarily popular. None of these other candidates at the moment are really tapping into this.

Stewart added:

What I’m discovering is that a Conservative message, delivered properly, and if you listen in the right way, is incredibly popular, and that’s what I have to get across to colleagues.

On Brexit, Stewart said he wanted to get across his message by asking colleagues to focus “on the practical issues – how do we get this done”, saying Johnson’s Brexit strategy was very hazy.

Rory Stewart with Larry the Downing Street cat
Rory Stewart with Larry the Downing Street cat. Photograph: James Veysey/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

Amber Rudd, who is backing Jeremy Hunt, denied that it was disappointing to see him so far behind Boris Johnson.

“Not at all,” she told the BBC. “He came a good second, he got more than Matt and Saj combined, and that’s what we were after – a clear lead in second place. It’s only the first round, there’s a few more rounds to go. I’m delighted.”

While Johnson was well ahead, Rudd said that once the race was down to a final two, it would “start again” in hustings to members, in which “anything can happen”.

Updated

First round ballot results – snap analysis

Here are the key points:

  • Boris Johnson is the runaway winner of the first round and is now looking unstoppable. With 114 votes, he is 31 ahead of the declared supporters he had this morning and well above the threshold of 105 he needs to ensure he makes it into the final two for the ballot of party members. For him not to get on the final ballot, he would have to start losing quite a number of MPs, which is almost unthinkable. Of course, in a campaign among the Tory membership, he could be overtaken by a surprise outsider, but this will be a short campaign (not a months-long contest as in 2005, which allowed David Cameron to come from behind) and postal ballots will be going out soon after the parliamentary phase of the process ends next week. In postal ballots, people often vote early, and there is clear evidence that a majority of members back Johnson. (See 9.46am.)
  • Jeremy Hunt came second, but it was a poor second (he had fewer than half the votes Johnson had) and he was only six votes ahead of Michael Gove, in third place. Hunt had six more votes that he had declared supporters this morning, and Gove three more. The main interest over the next week will be which of those two wins the contest to take on Johnson. Hunt is probably the favourite, but the two men are close enough for Gove to still be in the running.
  • Dominic Raab, who came fourth, Sajid Javid, who came fifth, and Matt Hancock, who came sixth, are probably all now effectively out of contention. Not one of them reached 33 votes – the threshold that will be needed to survive after the next ballot on Tuesday. They may decide to fight on (there are 30 votes from candidates who have been eliminated to be redistributed) but they will all have to decide whether it makes sense to continue, or whether they would do better packing in now and pledging support to a rival camp (on the basis that the sooner one gets on board, the better the rewards might be). Raab’s campaign was probably doomed as soon as Johnson tied up a large chunk of the European Research Group vote. Javid, who holds one of the top four jobs in cabinet and at one point was seen as a favourite to succeed Theresa May, will be wondering where it all went wrong. (“Strong fifth”, to quote one of his supporters – see 1.28pm – is an oxymoron.) And Hancock was always a longshot.
  • Rory Stewart will probably be pleasantly surprised with this performance, given he is standing in a Tory leadership contest on a non-Tory platform. This result will give him a slot in the Channel 4 hustings on Sunday. His non-conventional, bohemian campaigning style has struck a chord with the liberal commentariat (aka Twitter), but it is hard to see him picking up many more votes.
  • Andrea Leadsom, Mark Harper and Esther McVey have all been eliminated, coming 8th, 9th and 10th respectively. This is no great surprise, but the fact that the only two women in the contest did so badly does not say a lot for the party’s egalitarianism. Only three years ago, Leadsom was the runner-up in the leadership contest, and today’s result confirms how much her political stock has fallen since then. Many of the Leadsom and McVey (20) votes will probably go to Johnson.

Updated

As the results were announced, I was one of the people made to sit longingly in the corridor, as I wasn’t signed up to go in.

But I did as a result get to watch the results go live in the corridor with an influential Boris Johnson supporter. He laughed at Jeremy Hunt’s result – 43 votes – saying: “Well, that’s embarrassing, isn’t it?”

He said the Johnson team had not been bluffing when they estimated fewer votes for Boris (he got 114) but: “It wasn’t a bluff – his result was past expectations but obviously there is still a long way to go.”

Updated

Robert Halfon, the Harlow MP who is supporting Sajid Javid, said the home secretary had come in a “strong fifth place”.

“It’s all to play for,” he told reporters after the vote.

The public figures were 17 to 19 votes, and Sajid got 23. The momentum’s building up. We’ve got Ruth Davidson on our side, so we’re really happy.

Obviously Boris Johnson is well ahead, but Sajid has come up. He’s clearly a very strong candidate, building up momentum all week.

Updated

Esther McVey has issued this statement.

I am extremely grateful to those people who voted for me in this election and to the fantastic team who have supported my campaign.

I am pleased to have had a platform to make the case for blue-collar conservatism, a clean break from the EU and the need to invest money into schools, policing and a proper pay rise for our public sector workers.

I will speak to the remaining candidates to see who is best placed to deliver on that programme.

I wish the remaining candidates well and I hope that all Conservative MPs will unite behind whoever wins this contest, which is essential to prevent the disaster of a Marxist government.

Whoever becomes the new leader will certainly receive my support.

Updated

Leadsom, McVey and Harper eliminated – seven candidates left in contest

Gillan says seven candidates are eligible to go through to the next round, and three – Mark Harper, Andrea Leadsom and Esther McVey – have been eliminated.

Updated

Cheryl Gillan, the joint acting chair of the 1922 Committee, is now reading out the results.

All 313 Tory MPs voted, she says. There were no spoiled ballot papers.

Boris Johnson – 114

Jeremy Hunt – 43

Michael Gove – 37

Dominic Raab – 27

Sajid Javid – 23

Matt Hancock – 20

Rory Stewart – 19

Andrea Leadsom – 11

Mark Harper – 10

Esther McVey – 9

Updated

From the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman

From the New Statesman’s Patrick Maguire

From Sky’s Beth Rigby

While we are waiting for the results, you might enjoy this Twitter thread from my colleague Marina Hyde.

It includes this tweet.

A few minutes after Marina posted that, the Tory MP Johnny Mercer posted this.

From the Sun’s Steve Hawkes

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and a Boris Johnson supporter, played down the prospect of Johnson taking part in the two televised hustings planned within the next week when he was interviewed on the BBC a few minutes ago. Duncan Smith said:

My sense about the live television debates is I’m not sure that they have any effect at all on MPs. MPs probably watch less television than most others do, and they tend to want to do this internally.

Channel 4 News is planning a televised hustings for Sunday night, and the BBC has one planned for Tuesday.

Duncan Smith said he would expect Johnson to take part in TV events once the contest gets down to the final two, and party members are voting.

Updated

This is from BuzzFeed’s Alex Wickham.

And it’s true, according to a source from one of the Tory leadership campaigns.

This is from the Independent’s John Rentoul, who has been running a sweepstake on the results. It is obviously a classy sweepstake if Rentoul is differentiating between the mean and median Boris Johnson score.

In the committee corridor, Rory Stewart says he’s got dozens of MPs who tell him he’s their man, but they owe too much to other candidates who they’ve served for in the past.

Is he trying to win them over in the corridor in the final minutes? “Yes – by looking deeply into their eyes, I hope so,” says Stewart.

Stewart says he’s polling higher than Boris and is the man to unite the country. He says liberal Twitter loves him so much because he speaks from the heart, he appeals to young people, people in cities.

Asked if he’d back Sajid Javid, the other candidate pitching himself as the change candidate who can appeal to new demographics, he says: “I’ll have to think long and hard about who I’ll pick. He’s a nice man.”

Updated

From my colleague Peter Walker

Andrea Jenkyns has tweeted a picture of her toddler son.

(Perhaps he should be standing. At least he’s got an excuse for believing in unicorns.)

It’s 12pm. Voting has closed.

The 1922 Committee is due to announce the results at about 1pm.

Updated

Ken Clarke, the former chancellor and Tory pro-European, has just strolled down the committee corridor casually to find an eager Rory Stewart awaiting him. Stewart walked him down the corridor declaring to journalists: “This is the man who’s going to save my life.” Clarke is due to vote for Stewart, but the Stewart team were starting to worry that he might miss the 12pm deadline, when voting closes.

Updated

Downing Street is pushing back against Sajid Javid’s criticism of the fact he was not invited to Donald Trump’s state banquet (see 9.37am), saying he was among many ministers to have been disappointed. Theresa May’s spokesman told journalists this morning:

This was a state banquet hosted by Her Majesty the Queen, so I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss in public who did or did not ask to attend. But as with any state banquet, only a limited number of places are available to the government. A large number of ministers who expressed a wish to attend were not able to do so.

No 10 are always wary about discussing royal-related matters on the record, but a Downing Street source said that the view of the White House or US embassy were “categorically not a factor” in deciding to not invite Javid, the home secretary.

There is, the source said, a “fixed list” of people who must attend, including the PM, chancellor and foreign secretary, and there were in total eight slots available for ministers. The source also pointed out that the then-home secretary at the time of Barack Obama’s 2011 state visit – one T May – did not attend the banquet.

There were, however, no answers on how the decision-making process took place, and its undeniable that the optics are not great when the one Muslim-heritage member of the cabinet, who occupies one of the great offices of state, cannot attend a state banquet for Trump, whose anti-Muslim view and policies are much chronicled.

Updated

In the committee corridor David Davis is refusing to make any bets on who will win, lose, or to speculate on whom Theresa May might be voting for. The two went for a drink last night, he says - but he insists he wasn’t campaigning for Dominic Raab when they met.

Updated

Another committee corridor tweet from Andrea Leadsom

David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, who is backing his successor and former chief of staff, Dominic Raab, also said he’s convinced his man will make it through this first round - and suggested he will then shine in the TV debates.

All the candidates should take part in the debates. The more you are clear about your policy, the stronger your mandate when you start as prime minister. The debates matter. I did five against David Cameron. Then the public know what you stand for – that’s quite important.

Updated

Blimey! Even the Conservative 1922 Committee is getting all jobsworth and surveillance state. David Davis, the former Brexit secretary (who was here shortly after the ballot opened at 10am) is backed and he said he was turned away from voting the first time because he did not have his parliamentary pass as identification. In the past MPs just turned up to vote, but now, under rules adopted for this contest, the committee is insisting they produce ID.

Turning back to Sajid Javid and the decision not to invite him to the Trump state banquet (see 9.37am), Jacqui Smith, who was home secretary for two years under Labour, says she was always invited to state banquets. Javid says he was told by Number 10 that home secretaries normally aren’t on the guest list.

Andrea Leadsom has posted a Tory leadership selfie on Twitter.

From the Sun’s Matt Dathan

The Evening Standard, which is edited by the former Tory chancellor George Osborne, has published an editorial today saying that there are two Boris Johnsons. It doesn’t like the hardline Brexiter version, but it approves of his liberal doppelganger and could even endorse him. Here’s an extract.

Add all these questions together and it amounts to this: is Boris Johnson going to succumb to the temptation to divide and play the little Englander, as this newspaper felt he did over his promotion of Brexit? Or is he going to be the big-hearted, optimistic, liberal leader who this paper backed twice to be the mayor of London? If it’s the latter, we can see ourselves backing him again.

Many observers would argue the liberal version of Johnson vanished some time ago but Osborne, a key figure in the Conservative leadership team that promoted Johnson as a candidate for London mayor in 2008, seems reluctant to accept that. If Johnson had never become mayor, (with the backing of Osborne and David Cameron), it is hard to see how he would be favourite for next PM today.

Updated

And Johnson has just come out, saying nothing to reporters - or shtum, as he might put it himself.

Boris Johnson has just gone in, hands sunk in his jacket pockets.

Journalists are not allowed to tweet pictures from the committee corridor – or, indeed, from many places on the parliamentary estate – but MPs seem to be allowed to get away with it. This is from the Conservative MP Robert Halfon.

Updated

The Tory MP Sir David Amess has declared for Dominic Raab.

I missed this from Rory Stewart earlier.

We don’t normally indulge in textual literary criticism on occasions like this, but the BBC’s Norman Smith had a go.

Rory Stewart said he thought he had enough support (16 other MPs, plus himself), to ensure he does not get eliminated.

Citing the ConservativeHome survey today (see 9.46am), he said his campaign had real momentum. He said this would put him in a strong position for the televised hustings on Channel 4 on Sunday night.

He also said he thought that the only people who could beat Boris Johnson were either him, or Johnson himself.

Updated

Theresa May has just arrived. She marched swiftly past a huddle of journalists talking to Rory Stewart (or a source close to Rory Stewart - I don’t think sourcing has been clarified) talking to journalists.

Michael Gove is out. Who did he vote for? “The best candidate,” he said.

Back in the committee corridor Michael Gove has just arrived, accompanied by John Hayes, one of his supporters. Was he feeling confident? Yes, he claimed.

Impact of Brexit vote on inflation has led to real income growth stalling, says IFS

Turning away from the Tory leadership contest for a moment, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has published an article this morning saying real income growth stalled last year, largely because of the impact of the Brexit vote on inflation. Here’s an extract.

Between 2011–12 and 2016–17, median incomes grew at a rate of 1.6% a year – faster than the 1.2% growth rate seen immediately before the recession (2002–03 to 2007–08).

However, median household income growth stalled in 2017–18, making it only the fourth year (and second non-recession year) in the last 30 where median income did not grow. This stalling is in large part because real earnings fell, due to a rise in inflation following the depreciation of the pound after the UK voted to leave the European Union. Rising inflation meant that the freeze in working-age benefits hit poorer households harder than if inflation had not risen.

All this means that median income in 2017–18 was only 5.6% higher than it was 10 years earlier, before the great recession.

Jeremy Hunt has just marched in, looking quite purposefully (and not wearing morning dress - see 9.30am), with Dominic Raab, another leadership candidate immediately behind him.

Sajid Javid has voted.

Here is a Sky News tally of declared supporters for each candidate. Their numbers are very slightly different from ConservativeHome’s.

MPs have to go in one door, and they exit another. Journalists aren’t allowed to film in this corridor and there is a policeman at the exit of committee room 14 (aka the Gladstone room). Most of the MPs voting are heading off quickly without hanging around to chat.

Zac Goldsmith and Jo Johnson have arrived together.

Some of the MPs were sent out to form a queue. We saw Leadsom re-emerge, but she is back in now, with Amber Rudd going in behind here. David Davis followed her in.

The door has just been opened.

Steve Brine led a largish group of Tory MPs through the door. Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom are the only candidates here and they’ve gone in. Steve Baker, the Tory Brexiter who at one stage was contemplating his own bid, is here too.

I’ve left my office in the Commons press galley and I’m now on a bench in the committee corridor, outside committee room 14, where MPs will he voting.

There are about a dozen Conservative MPs on the benches outside one of the doors to committee room 14 waiting to be allowed in to vote. Steve Brine seems to be first in the queue, followed by Sir Desmond Swayne. Other MPs here include Charlie Elphicke, Peter Bone, David Tredinnick.

The ConservativeHome website regularly conducts surveys of Conservative party members as to who they want to see as their next leader. In the past they have turned out to be reasonably good indicators as to what ends up happening in internal Conservative party elections.

It has published one today and it shows Boris Johnson apparently pulling ahead. More than half of members surveyed said they wanted him as leader.

But the real surprise is Rory Stewart who has come from almost nowhere and is now in second place.

Here is the chart.

Survey of Tory members for leadership
Survey of Tory members for leadership Photograph: ConservativeHome

And here is an excerpt from the write-up by Paul Goodman, the ConservativeHome editor.

Boris Johnson’s most recent scores in our Next Tory Leader surveys have been 33 per cent, 43 per cent – and now 54 per cent. That 43 per cent score was already a record for the survey in this question, as far as we can tell, and Johnson’s eve-of-poll rating sees him taking more than half the vote.

Rory Stewart’s brilliant campaign has taken him to second, but he is more than 40 points behind the front-runner. Dominic Raab, who was on 15 per cent at the end of May, has seen his rating almost halve since then. Johnson has clearly eaten into his support.

Michael Gove’s turbulent week sees four points knocked off his total – not all that much, but he had a small rating to begin with: 12 per cent. That none the less saw him second in our last survey: he is now fourth. Jeremy Hunt rises slightly from five per cent to eight per cent, and Sajid Javid does likewise from three per cent to five per cent.

Javid says he was not happy to be excluded from Trump state banquet

Sajid Javid, the home secretary, has said he was baffled and hurt by his exclusion from the state banquet for Donald Trump during last week’s state visit by the US president. As the Press Association reports, Javid told the Today programme he had still not received a proper explanation as to why was the only senior cabinet minister not to be invited to the dinner at Buckingham Palace. Asked why he was not there, he told the programme:

I don’t know. I have asked. I was just told that normally home secretaries aren’t invited. So I don’t know ...

I don’t like it. It is odd. My office did ask No 10 and they said ‘no’. You’d have to ask someone from No 10 why they made that decision.

Previously Javid criticised Trump after he tweeted his support for the right-wing Britain First group. Javid said the president was endorsing the views of “a vile, hate-filled racist organisation that hates me and people like me”.

Asked on the Today programme if he thought his exclusion was due to his Muslim background, Javid said: “I am not saying that at all. I really don’t know.”

As the BBC’s Ross Hawkins points out, there is precedent for the home secretary being invited to a state banquet.

Sajid Javid at his leadership launch yesterday.
Sajid Javid at his leadership launch yesterday. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

This is rather bizarre from Jeremy Hunt.

Presumably on the morning of his wedding Hunt was confident that he would be celebrating in the evening ....

And he was looking forward to spending the day with people he liked and trusted ...

And he did not have to worry about the prospect of his day being spoiled by Boris Johnson ...

UPDATE: The Independent’s Tom Peck has a much better take on this.

Updated

Sir Oliver Letwin, the Conservative former cabinet minister who was backing the cross-party attempt yesterday block a no-deal Brexit, has said that parliament had now run out of options for preventing the UK crashing out of the EU, my colleague Matthew Weaver reports.

There is nothing that excites Westminster more than a leadership election and today we have the first round of voting in the contest to replace Theresa May as Conservative leader and prime minister. The entire election will be a relatively long-drawn out process - we have got several more rounds of voting in Westminster, hustings, TV debates, and the membership ballot to look forward to - but today is going to clarify matters a bit. This is what we will find out.

1) Who’s out? There are currently 10 candidates in the race. At least one of them will definitely drop out today - the person with the fewest votes - but under new rules introduced by the Conservative 1922 Committee any candidate with fewer than 17 votes (5% of the parliamentary party) will also be out. Mark Harper, Rory Stewart, Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom all look as though they will struggle to hit this target, and so by the end of the day the field could be down to six.

2) Is Boris Johnson as far ahead as everyone thinks? The ConservativeHome website has been keeping a tally of how many MP supporters each MP has and it has Johnson well ahead, on 83, followed by Jeremy Hunt (37), Michael Gove (34), Dominic Raab (23), Sajid Javid (19) and Matthew Hancock (17). But - astonishing as the idea might seem - it is the case that occasionally MPs do not tell the truth about how they will vote in a secret ballot. Yesterday the politics academic Philip Cowley summed it up like this on Twitter.

Today we will find out if there are sizeable numbers of Tories doing a Cowley.

3) Who are Johnson’s main rivals? Hunt looks like the candidate most likely to join Johnson on the final ballot but, according to the ConservativeHome numbers, 75 Tory MPs have not declared for anyone and Hunt is only 20 declared votes ahead of Matthew Hancock. The results being announced at 1pm may well rank candidates in a different order to what people currently expect. Michael Gove and Dominic Raab have been struggling this week, and Sajid Javid seems to have had some last-minute momentum. By the end of today we should have a much better idea as to who might bag the number two slot.

4) Where will second preference votes start to go? At least one candidate, and perhaps up to four, will be forced out at lunchtime. It is possible that other candidates might pass the 17-vote threshold but decide to drop out anyway. Who will these people support? And where who will their supporters back? (Not always the same thing.) We may start to find out this afternoon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Voting starts in the first round ballot for the Conservative leadership contest. Conservative MPs vote in a Commons committee room. The poll closes at 12pm.

Around 1pm: The Conservative 1922 Committee announces the results of the first ballot.

5pm: Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, gives a speech to the Institute for Government.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web, although I will be focusing mostly on the Tory leadership contest and the Commons debate. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up at the end of the day.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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