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.
Quote:
Speaking to presenter Emma Barnett, he claimed 80% of the British public supported the prime minister’s Brexit deal. Pressed by Emma as to where he had got the information, he said: “I’m producing a number to try to illustrate what I believe.” He later added, “I totally apologise and I take that back"
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.
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
I guess Hunt will be the final girl to lose against Johnson.
If the Tories had an ounce of bottle (or imagination) they'd go for Stewart and the (faint) possibility of a cross-party solution. But they don't.
Meanwhile, the Summer of Gove owes me £40. He can pay me back in crack.
Rory Stewart is just as bad as the rest. Seems much more personable, but his voting record is that of a Tory. Unsurprisingly.
And he said he'd never let no deal happen, yet voted against the bill yesterday to help try and prevent it.
The brinkmanship involved in this exercise is breathtaking, to say the least.
Yeah, I wasn't defending his morality, just suggesting that his position on Brexit isn't so far from Labour's (well, Corbyn's) - perhaps close enough to arrive at a cross-party deal.