Senior Tory: leadership candidates ‘too frightened of party membership’ to get to root cause of election defeat
Former justice minister David Gauke has cautioned that the current contest for the Conservative party leadership is failing to learn the lesson of why the party suffered such a huge defeat in the general election, and the crop of candidates are “too frightened of the party membership”.
In an interview on Times Radio, he told listeners “You want it to be a respectful leadership campaign. You don’t want lots of abuse. But the Conservative party suffered a massive defeat in July, its worst performance in its history, and there’s an awful lot of soul searching that needs to be done.
“And in the end, whoever wins this contest isn’t going to be able to lead on the basis of unity. You’re actually going to have to have a platform and demonstrate leadership, and hope to persuade people to fall in behind you. Appeals to unity aren’t going to cut it if you are not making progress in the opinion polls, if you are not looking like an alternative government.”
Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat are running to be leader.
Gauke was one of several MPs suspended from the party by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2019 over his votes on Brexit issues. He told Times Radio he had now rejoined the party in order to have his say in the leadership contest.
He suggested that one element in the contest might be people seeking to emulate “a very successful model deployed in 2020 by Keir Starmer.”
Gauke said “[Starmer] ran as a continuity candidate. Then about a year after he won, changed strategy, demonstrated some leadership, was a ‘change’ leader trying to modernise his party, and that resulted in success.
“At the moment, you feel that all of the [Conservative leadership] candidates are too tentative to do that, that they’re too frightened of the party membership. Maybe thinking get through on the other side, and then who knows what you can do. But at the moment, by and large, they do feel as if they’re just sort of wanting to get there first and then we’ll do the modernisation afterwards.”
“The difficulty with that strategy is that you don’t have a mandate, and that people will cry betrayal, and that you might not have the authority you need to do what I think has to be a very big, very ambitious modernisation of the party.”
Key events
A lot of MPs are on holiday or working in their constituencies during summer recess, but a handful continue to be very vocal on social media, including Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice. He has suggested this morning that the number of people crossing the Channel should constitute a “national emergency”.
Tice has also repeated his demand that there should be arrests over violence involving police at Manchester airport several weeks ago. Two police officers are under criminal investigation for assault, and police officers and members of the public were injured in an incident that was widely seen on social media.
Good to hear early charge for this brutal crime, within 24 hours.
When will those chaps who brutally assaulted police officers at Manchester Airport be charged? It’s been 3 weeks……. https://t.co/tjRRSdvDKv
— Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) August 13, 2024
UK unemployment falls as wages growth hits lowest in two years
Phillip Inman
The UK jobs market bucked predictions of a further weakening in June after official figures showed unemployment fell but wages growth slowed to its lowest for two years.
Unemployment unexpectedly dropped to 4.2% from 4.4% in the three months to June from the previous three months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, wage growth, excluding bonuses, was 5.4% year on year over the three months to June, slipping from 5.7% in the previous three months and represented the smallest increase since the period to July 2022, when it was 5.2%.
Adjusted for inflation, wages rose by 1.6%, meaning many workers will experience a continued improvement in their standard of living.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said: “Today’s figures show there is more to do in supporting people into employment because if you can work, you should work.
“This will be part of my budget later in the year where I will be making difficult decisions on spending, welfare and tax to fix the foundations of our economy so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”
Reeves will deliver her first budget on 30 October.
Read more here: UK unemployment falls as wages growth hits lowest in two years
You can also follow live coverage of reaction to those figures on our business live blog with my colleague Graeme Wearden:
As if to underline David Gauke’s point that the Conservative leadership candidates are yet to show their teeth in the contest, Kemi Badenoch has just merrily retweeted Mel Stride talking about today’s unemployment figures.
In his post, Stride said:
Figures out this morning show unemployment fell and employment rose in the second quarter of this year. More evidence that Labour’s claims of the ‘worst economic inheritance since the second world war’ are complete fantasy. They inherit an unemployment rate half what they left us in 2010.
Figures out this morning show unemployment fell and employment rose in the second quarter of this year. More evidence that @UKLabour’s claims of the ‘worst economic inheritance since WW2’ are complete fantasy. They inherit an unemployment rate half what they left us in 2010.
— Mel Stride (@MelJStride) August 13, 2024
Senior Tory: leadership candidates ‘too frightened of party membership’ to get to root cause of election defeat
Former justice minister David Gauke has cautioned that the current contest for the Conservative party leadership is failing to learn the lesson of why the party suffered such a huge defeat in the general election, and the crop of candidates are “too frightened of the party membership”.
In an interview on Times Radio, he told listeners “You want it to be a respectful leadership campaign. You don’t want lots of abuse. But the Conservative party suffered a massive defeat in July, its worst performance in its history, and there’s an awful lot of soul searching that needs to be done.
“And in the end, whoever wins this contest isn’t going to be able to lead on the basis of unity. You’re actually going to have to have a platform and demonstrate leadership, and hope to persuade people to fall in behind you. Appeals to unity aren’t going to cut it if you are not making progress in the opinion polls, if you are not looking like an alternative government.”
Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat are running to be leader.
Gauke was one of several MPs suspended from the party by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2019 over his votes on Brexit issues. He told Times Radio he had now rejoined the party in order to have his say in the leadership contest.
He suggested that one element in the contest might be people seeking to emulate “a very successful model deployed in 2020 by Keir Starmer.”
Gauke said “[Starmer] ran as a continuity candidate. Then about a year after he won, changed strategy, demonstrated some leadership, was a ‘change’ leader trying to modernise his party, and that resulted in success.
“At the moment, you feel that all of the [Conservative leadership] candidates are too tentative to do that, that they’re too frightened of the party membership. Maybe thinking get through on the other side, and then who knows what you can do. But at the moment, by and large, they do feel as if they’re just sort of wanting to get there first and then we’ll do the modernisation afterwards.”
“The difficulty with that strategy is that you don’t have a mandate, and that people will cry betrayal, and that you might not have the authority you need to do what I think has to be a very big, very ambitious modernisation of the party.”
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Tuesday. Here are your headlines …
It is Martin Belam with you today. We are very becalmed in summer recess at the moment, so it might be quite a slow news day, although we are expecting a speech from Tom Tugendhat this afternoon. Please do email me if you spot typos, errors or omissions – martin.belam@theguardian.com.