One is a blundering serial liar, the other accused of driving our NHS into despair – but Britain will now be saddled with either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as our next PM.
And the dire choice of which man ends up leading the country at one of its most critical moments in history as the Brexit crisis deepens will be down to a mere 160,000 middle-class Tory members, largely from the wealthy South.
Most of them are pro-Leave white males in their 50s. The majority favour bringing back hanging and want to slash public spending even further.
The final hurdle in the race to succeed Theresa May was also mired in accusations of scheming and plotting by Mr Johnson’s team in a bid to rig the result in his favour.
Shadow cabinet minister Andrew Gwynne said: “What a choice: The man who broke the NHS or the man who wants to sell it to Donald Trump.
“A handful of unrepresentative Tories should not be choosing our next Prime Minister. People should decide through a general election.”
And Labour chair Ian Lavery said the system that allows a new PM to be decided without any input from the population at large made a “complete mockery” of British democracy.
Mr Johnson is favourite to beat Foreign Secretary in the final stretch of the race for No 10 after Michael Gove yesterday dropped out in the latest round of voting.
But his furious rivals accused aides of “lending” just enough votes to Mr Hunt in a dirty tricks campaign aimed at guaranteeing his place in the last round as Mr Gove fell into third.
One insisted it was “vote-rigging” while another described the result as a “stitch-up”. Trade Secretary Liam Fox claimed he had witnessed vote-lending.
He said: “There’s more churn here than an average washing machine.” Mr Johnson’s campaign had wanted Mr Hunt to go through to the members’ round believing he would be easier to beat than Mr Gove.
Mr Hunt is a former Remainer who called for a second referendum and has been dubbed “Theresa May in trousers”.
And Mr Johnson has never forgiven bitter rival Mr Gove for knifing him in the 2016 contest. His supporters have been plotting to get their own back ever since.
One ally said after yesterday’s result: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
It will be alarming enough for Brits to learn our next PM will be voted in by just 0.2% of the population, but the political histories of both candidates is no doubt also a concern to many.
Mr Johnson has long had a casual relationship with truth, losing jobs as a Times reporter and as Shadow Arts Minister as well as going through two divorces as a result of his lies.
During the Leave campaign he claimed Brexit would be easy, there would be £350million more a week for the NHS and repeatedly raised the idea that Turkey – whose application to join the EU had stalled – could eventually join and its 80 million citizens be able to migrate to the UK.
All turned out to be false.
There are also the racist jibes about “piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”, branding Muslim women in burkhas “letterboxes” and homophobic slurs.
Then there was his bungled interference in the case of jailed British mum Nazanin
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was wrongly jailed in Iran on spying claims.
As Foreign Secretary he declared the charity worker was a journalist, a claim Tehran used to extend her sentence. And last week Mr Johnson ducked out of answering question about taking cocaine in the past.
As Health Secretary, Mr Hunt presided over the longest NHS doctors strike in history, refusing to budge on his hated new junior doctors contract.
A&E waiting times of more than four hours soared from under 60,000 to more than 190,000 during his six years.
When he took over, 95.4% of patients urgently referred were seen by a cancer specialist within two weeks. When he left in July 2018 the proportion had dropped to 91.9%.
Mr Johnson won 160 votes in yesterday’s round while Mr Hunt got 77 and Mr Gove 75.
The final two will come face to face at their first of 16 hustings of members in Birmingham tomorrow.
The winner will be installed by the end of July.
