[Politics] Tory voters- where do you go from here?

Bry Nylon said:

Didn't Sunak (i) lose to Truss in a vote by the party membership, then (ii) became party leader (and PM) when Truss quit as he was unopposed so there was no vote?

I could be wrong; we've had so many PMs in the last few years its hard to keep track tbh

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No, you’re correct.

Cameron won against David Davies
May won when Andrea Leadsom withdrew
Johnson beat Hunt
Truss beat Sunak
Sunak was unopposed in taking over from Truss

Bry Nylon said:

Didn't Sunak (i) lose to Truss in a vote by the party membership, then (ii) became party leader (and PM) when Truss quit as he was unopposed so there was no vote?

I could be wrong; we've had so many PMs in the last few years its hard to keep track tbh

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Fair enough, yes, I just looked it up - you’re right. I apologise. She won 57% of the Tory membership votes against Sunak's 43%.

But I do think this thing about the 'shire Tories' hating black people, gays, and women blah blah is like some weird outmoded Little Britain caricature. Same with this idea that 'Labour always trash the economy' and 'Labour hates business'. All of these clichés may have foundations in truth from previous eras but by and large ALL of the big parties have modernised, and realised years ago that their traditional bêtes noires are now just as likely to be on their side as against them.

When you look at the list of Tory leaders and compare it to the list of Labour leaders, it must be hard (though clearly still possible) to assess the Tories as the ones who are prejudiced in favour of white males.

A pick between 2 absolute disasters.

I pity the members and the temptation must be to ballot spoil.

sparkie said:

A pick between 2 absolute disasters.

I pity the members and the temptation must be to ballot spoil.

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I repeat that I think it very likely that the next Tory leader considered even vaguely electable by the electorate at large will be someone we've not yet heard of. When that will be, who knows?

Professor Plum said:

Fair enough, yes, I just looked it up - you’re right. I apologise. She won 57% of the Tory membership votes against Sunak's 43%.

But I do think this thing about the 'shire Tories' hating black people, gays, and women blah blah is like some weird outmoded Little Britain caricature. Same with this idea that 'Labour always trash the economy' and 'Labour hates business'. All of these clichés may have foundations in truth from previous eras but by and large ALL of the big parties have modernised, and realised years ago that their traditional bêtes noires are now just as likely to be on their side as against them.

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I think you're right about the parties. Not so sure about the rank and file. I'm a Labour party member and the candidate lists for the national executive positions have few people I'd leap to support, and quite a few who have only recently dropped their support for Corbyn and have yet to embrace Starmer.

This doesn't bother me greatly because it is the leadership that interests me, not the rank and file (or indeed the national executive). The MPs have regained control over the leader election process, now like the tories being the ones who decide who can be on the ballot. Benn almost f***ed that one when he got changes that gave (too much) power to the membership and the unions. Thing of the past now thankfully.

But the rank and file gets the final vote. Same with the tories.....

The Tory leadership has always been pragmatic. They selected a woman as leader (before their rank and file had any say - who knows whether the blue rinsers would have backed Thatcher in a foot race against Heath), and there are many visible ethnic minority tory MPs (a f***ing rum lot, to be fair, though).

Anyway, the two candidates for Tory leader look like placeholders for the candidate who will come after. And possibly the one after that. In the race to regain power, that is.

dsr-burnley said:

When you look at the list of Tory leaders and compare it to the list of Labour leaders, it must be hard (though clearly still possible) to assess the Tories as the ones who are prejudiced in favour of white males.

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That is a fake argument. The MPs elect the leadership candidates and they can only vote for who is standing. The rank and file vote for whoever the MPs offer up to them.

My guess is that the rank and file of the tories may favour white males more than the rank and file of the Labour party (which has more of a streak of minority rights campaigning than is usual in the tory party). But these days I suspect most people in each camp don't think about this a great deal. We are probably looking at 10 to 12% in each party who care about this shit.

So you are making a judgement based on f*** all.