The bloodletting we know all about. Every Tory party leadership election resembles a Quentin Tarantino movie, full of grinning assassins and an insane body count. The only difference is the substantially less glamorous cast list. You get what you pay for. If there’s one thing Tories enjoy more than stabbing their rivals in the back, it’s the licence to stab them in the front. Repeatedly. With no need to even make a pretence of cleaning up after themselves.
A leadership election is that time when backbench dreams come true. A day when revenge can be served on colleagues at any temperature, from absolute zero to white hot. A day when there is no reckoning, no comeback. A day when nominal lip-service to a party line gives way to naked self-interest. A day when allegiance can be bought and sold for promises of ministerial preferment. A day when otherwise respectable politicians become unmedicated, unreconstructed sociopaths. A day when no one needs to ask whodunnit because everyonedunnit.
Where this election differed was that it had also become a Fast Show comedy sketch with Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind doubling up as two pissed old buffers chuntering away in a gentlemen’s club. Aka off-camera in the Sky News studios.
“Blurgh murgh nurgh Gove chappy blurgh murgh nurgh start a war with anyone blurgh murgh nurgh,” said a dishevelled and red-faced Ken.
“Bufton tufton mufton,” mumbled Rifkind.
“Blurgh murgh nurgh Andrea blurgh murgh nurgh fiasco.”
“Bufton tufton mufton.”
“Blurgh murgh nurgh Theresa bloody difficult blurgh murgh nurgh.”
“Bufton tufton mufton.”
“Blurgh murgh nurgh Crabb no idea blurgh murgh nurgh.”
Having trashed every single name on the ballot paper, Ken declared he was going to vote for Stephen Crabb. In this election, not knowing what someone stood for was a far safer bet than voting for someone whom you knew was a liability. Vote Crabb. You might be surprised. Though you probably won’t. Blurgh, murgh, nurgh.
Voting began at 11am in committee room seven, and Crabb’s, Theresa May’s and Liam Fox’s teams set up camp outside. There was no sign of anyone from Gove’s or Leadsom’s teams. Crabb’s minders were offering free biros left over from Chris Heaton-Harris’s 2010 MEP election campaign: Fox was offering free stickers. Both are likely to become collector’s items.
First of the candidates to vote was Theresa May who swanned in with a regal smile. When you’re the clear frontrunner, noblesse oblige. Next in was Michael Gove. “It was a difficult choice,” he observed, trying to affect a smile. Only it wasn’t a joke. Mikey is now so unstable he doesn’t even trust himself not to betray himself. Especially as there’s no one left for him to treach on.
By mid-afternoon there were only a few stragglers left. Hugo Swire walked by. “He’s one of yours,” said one of Crabb’s team. “Really?” replied Karen Bradley, minding the door for Theresa. “He hasn’t told us that.”
“My vicar sent me a link to a Slap Gove game,” said one MP with undisguised pleasure.
“Never bring a knife to a gunfight,” observed Mark Wallace, the MP who had promised to cut off Gove’s balls with a pair of scissors. Clearly the ante has been raised a notch or two in the past few days.
Then came the slow Boris plod. Earlier that day he had tried to be more statesmanlike and gracious by saying Andrea had “the zap, drive and determination”. The payoff – “… of a Reliant Robin” – was left hanging. Boris tried to cheer up when he spotted the media, but he is still a bruised man. “Democracy has been served,” he muttered after casting his vote. Just not in the way he had hoped for a week ago.
Shortly before 6.30pm, a beaming Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, bounded into a packed committee room six. He’d been waiting years for so much attention and he was going to milk every second. The votes were in: Stephen Crabb 34, Liam Fox 16, Michael Gove 48, Andrea Leadsom 66, Theresa May 165.
The announcements over, the spinning began. Kwasi Kwarteng, a pro-Brexit supporter of Theresa May, announced that Theresa had outperformed expectations. He then also declared that Gove and Leadsom had also outperformed expectations. Crabb’s supporters said he too had outperformed expectations. Not to be outdone, Fox’s men said he had totally outperformed expectations and their man was absolutely thrilled to have picked up such an overwhelming mandate to drop out.
This had turned out to be the most historic of all leadership elections: the first in which absolutely everyone had totally outperformed their expectations. It was the gameshow in which every contender could go home happy. It was the contest in which none of the Conservatives appeared to have realised there were 330 votes up for grabs.
As the corridor emptied, Mikey could be seen searching for someone other than himself to stab. Andrea was busy updating her Wikipedia page with details of her career as a lift attendant at Barclays. Theresa kept a discreet distance. Ken Clarke had called it right. The contest was a mutant Tarantino-Fast Show hybrid. And it would all kick off again on Thursday. Lucky us.
