Not sure. If it went to a public vote I can see Boris winning it, but this will be an election for leader of an incumbent party so the public don't get a look in. Raab's a strong contender and has been mooted as the person to bring the party back together into cohesion.

Wikipedia says there are only actually four declared candidates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Conservative_Party_(UK)_leadership_election#Declared

Out of those, three are definitely arseholes, but I don't think I've ever heard of Rory Stewart, who seems to be a curious character.

He seems to want to focus on rural areas and communities, and doesn't mention any contentious policies.

But at the same time can you trust anyone who chose such a shit photographer for his "look at me being prime-ministerial" photo...?

"I’m a shareholder in far more local community pubs than I would like"

Um...

He does seem curious and the few times I've seen him interviewed he was rather less obnoxious than most Tory MPs. The thing is, I can't help wondering what went wrong in his life, or what character defect he has to end up as a Tory MP at all.

There's a 40 minute BBC4 interview from 3 weeks ago where he apparently discusses it, but it doesn't have a transcript (what happened to BBC accessibility?) and I don't know if I can be arsed listening.

There's also a Guardian article saying:

He shows a Cameronesque irri­tation with government: "Excessive regulation, red tape, all the stuff people complain about. You have got more hope with the Tories of having people who speak that kind of language; you can say that sort of thing without them getting defensive . . . I found student politics when I was at university a bit uncomfortable," he says. "I think the Conservative party has changed and I have changed."

That's from 2010 when he first became an MP, so I am wondering how his position has changed, but also whether he's relevant - the Wikipedia article has been updated and Rory's the only candidate showing zero endorsements.

I gave it a listen (the interview doesn't begin until nearly 6 minutes in). I thought he came across as a bit insubstantial although that may be the style of questioning. I think he's in love with the traditions of a Tory Party that doesn't exist any more.

isn't it up to the Conservative MPs until they get it down to 2 candidates and then all their members get to choose? If he gets that far, it'll be Johnson.

Anyway, think they're up past 10 candidates now, largely incompetent evil scum to a person but some of them are slightly less incompetent than others I suppose.

Yes, the 1922 committee has a batshit crazy system in which they poll Party MPs on all the candidates and the one with the lowest score is chucked out. The shortening list is put to MPs every Tuesday and Thursday(?!) until only two are left, and then it's put out to a vote by all members.

As you say, if Johnson gets that far, his win is a given. But the 1922 Committee don't like him, and neither do many MPs - no Remainer Tory would ever vote for him, and neither would any MP who can't countenance the real possibility of a no-deal.

I'd also be really surprised if Osborne's Standard isn't holding something on him, too. So the 'if' in '...if Johnson gets that far' is a real and significant 'if'.

With two weeks until nominations close, by endorsement counts Hunt and Gove are the top two front-runners. No idea how popular they are with Conservative membership.

28 Jeremy Hunt
25 Michael Gove
24 Boris Johnson
21 Dominic Raab
12 Sajid Javid
8 Matt Hancock
6 Esther McVey
4 Andrea Leadsom
3 Kit Malthouse
3 Rory Stewart

Kit is another unknown to me, he seems boring but relatively inoffensive. No surprise that he's keeping Rory company at the bottom.

I've had £40 riding on Gove to be next Tory leader for over a year. They were offering 12:1 at the time and even though I didn't (and don't) think he's likely to win, I thought they'd got the odds wrong so I took a punt.

Malthouse and Stewart are relative unknowns to me as well. Malthouse loned his name to a Brexit proposal that was supposedly better than Theresa May's or the usual ERG solutions, because instead of Unicorns, the Malthouse Compromise was fuelled with Sooty's oofle-dust. Rory Stewart walked 10 times around the world to be a diplomat or something.

The rest are as repellant a bunch of self-promoting, vain, avaricious*, entitled vermin as you could ever hope to avoid.

*because sometimes greedy just won't do.

Stewart is the guy who made up a good stat during an interview.
 

A bit fucking dim to think nobody's gonna call him on saying 80%!

Oh, that was him! What a twat. So that's a full set of candidates lacking any ability whatsoever to be a Prime Minister (along with any compassion for or understanding of the lives most people live). The addition of Cleverly to the list doesn't change that. What a perfect bit of misnaming btw.

Anyway, Boris has a date with m'learned friends in due course...

He's now also the guy who put a video on twitter where he tried to make it look like he was holding his phone and recording it himself, but he wasn't and someone else was. Very odd.

Lying ain't a good look, unless you're an aspirational populist.

For some reason I thought you had that on Philip Hammond, though it appears there's no mention of him even possibly standing in this or previous leadership elections.

Heavens no! They'd have had to offer astronomical odds for me to have taken a punt on him. Even backing Gove was an act of laughable optimism spurred on by greed.

Rory Stewart looks as if he was born without a face and has borrowed one of Mick Jagger's old ones, even though it doesn't quite fit.

Nominations have closed, down from 13 candidates to "just" 10, with Boris as front-runner based on MP public support - three days until the first ballot gives the real numbers.

64 Boris Johnson
35 Jeremy Hunt
35 Michael Gove
24 Dominic Raab
19 Sajid Javid
14 Matt Hancock
 7 Mark Harper
 6 Esther McVey
 6 Rory Stewart
 5 Andrea Leadsom