Quote of the week
“To the people who say fuck business, I say fuck fuck business.”
Matt Hancock’s attack on Boris Johnson’s attack on industry.
Gimmick of the week
Twitter hashtags
Finding a short, snappy and preferably completely vacuous phrase for their Twitter campaigns has been a must for any serious candidate. Rory Stewart has #RoryWalks (which confusingly features tweets of Rory travelling by car and train). Raab has #FairerBritain. Michael Gove has #ReadyToLead. Matt Hancock went for the more edgy #LetsMoveForward – the missing apostrophe ranking as the most interesting element of his campaign so far.
Less catchy, yet more entertaining, is the idiosyncratic hashtag used by Sir Nicholas Soames, the 71-year-old Tory MP and grandson of Winston Churchill. Responding to demands for TV debates between the contenders, he replied with the eye-boggling effort: #ohmygodmusntmisssucha festivaloffun. Not sure that will trend, Nick.
Tweet of the week
“Twitter can be funny ... Someone has mischievously photoshopped Dominic’s head on to a photo of my body #FakeNews”
MP Eddie Hughes comments on a picture of a muscle-bound Dominic Raab, taken in his university days. Raab had graciously allowed the picture to be used by a broadcaster covering his campaign.
Claim of the week
Former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, who has previously complained about “flagrant discrimination” against men and described feminists as “obnoxious bigots”, shocked the nation by suggesting that he was “probably not” a feminist himself.
However, he completely repaired the damage by adding that he was “all for working women making the very best of their potential”.
The women of Britain will be grateful.
Bad week
Tory MPs not running
It must be a lonely place to be one of the few Tory MPs not attempting to become the next prime minister. Luckily, they barely have a moment alone to mope, as they are inundated with requests for chats with Andrea Leadsom, coffees with Mark Harper (me neither) and promises of ministerial office. Spare a thought for them.
Gaffe of the week
There have been highs for gaffe fans this week, not least from Rory Stewart, who offered an apology for smoking an opium pipe at a wedding in Iran. He went on to insist that the opium had no effect “because I was walking 25-30 miles a day”. It came days after Jeremy Hunt’s bid to find the most appropriate way for a Tory MP to consume narcotics, admitting he once had “a cannabis lassi when I went backpacking through India”. It is currently unclear what some of the other candidates have been smoking, although illicit substances may explain some of the more obscure bids to replace Theresa May.
Good week
Boris Johnson
The favourite pleased his team by doing precisely nothing – a move that helped his campaign enormously. A week which has merely seen him summoned to court accused of misconduct in public office counts as a win for those overseeing the efforts of the race’s most unpredictable contender. The frontrunner – Donald Trump’s choice, let’s not forget – is rumoured to be starting campaigning in earnest this week. What could go wrong?
Theresa May
After months of derision, anger and opprobrium from figures across her own party, the prime minister (she is still the prime minister) has had a much quieter time of it since announcing her departure. And all it took was the total implosion of her premiership. Why didn’t she think of it sooner?
The candidate markets – who’s up, who’s down
Michael Gove
The environment secretary has a lot of early support and has yet to really fire a shot.
Esther McVey
The Tatton MP upset many in her party by saying it should be up to parents if they want to withdraw their primary-age children from lessons on same-sex relationships. The move proved the huge reach of her campaign (all the way back to the 1950s).
Jeremy Hunt
The foreign secretary is probably the candidate to have lost the most momentum since announcing his candidacy, although a couple of endorsements late last week stabilised his campaign.
