At the weekend, a so-called COBRA meeting took place in Westminster, the unit of the British government that always comes together when an emergency situation arises. The topic was the frightening weather forecast for the coming week, up to 41 degrees are expected in some places in Great Britain on Monday and Tuesday. However, the meeting had to do without the Prime Minister, unfortunately Boris Johnson did not have time, as Downing Street announced. He visited an air force base on Saturday, and photos were taken of him in full gear, including a helmet, in which he wished he could have looked like Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun.’ On Sunday he threw a farewell party at Checkers, the country home of the British Prime Minister.
Labor deputy leader Angela Rayner has criticized the shift in priorities in Johnson’s life, saying he “prefers to celebrate while the country cooks”. After all, Johnson is “Caretaker Prime Minister”, he will hold the post until the successor has been decided. And that takes time. The Tories don’t want to announce their new party leader until September 5th. The field of applicants is now reduced daily until two remain, which are then proposed to the party members for election.
The favorite, both among MPs and in most polls, is former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak. Behind them, a fierce battle for second place in the final has developed. Tom Tugendhat, the only white man in the field, probably only has outsider chances. The race will be decided between Liz Truss, Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch.
When David Cameron took on David Davis and five other rivals in 2005, the Tories were far from having as diverse a field as they do now. All seven candidates were younger or older white males, although things weren’t much better in Parliament: Of the 196 Conservative MPs, just 17 were women. “We, the oldest political party in the world, looked exactly like that,” writes Cameron in the Sunday Times. In Cameron’s first shadow cabinet as leader of the opposition, there were more Davids than women.
Kemi Badenoch is seen as a representative of the right wing
He himself tried vehemently to change that, writes Cameron, and emphasizes with a certain degree of pride that in its 122-year history Labor has elected only white men to chair it, while the Tories have already had two prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. And even now, on September 5th, very likely to either elect a black prime minister or a woman. Or, as in Kemi Badenoch’s case, both.
What that means politically, there are quite different views in the country. Representatives of women’s rights groups, for example, point out that “only” 88 of the 358 Tory MPs are currently women, while Labor is made up of 104 women and 96 men. Also, neither race nor gender necessarily determine the political direction a prime minister represents.
The 42-year-old Kemi Badenoch, for example, who is currently in first place in individual polls among the members, is considered a representative of the right wing. Born in Wimbledon, London, to Nigerian parents, she spent her childhood in Nigeria and the United States before moving back to London at 16. A few years ago she said the Daily Mail, “the assumption that we are all treated unfavorably just because we are black is typical of the left”. In the first TV debate on Friday evening, Badenoch also described Penny Mordaunt’s allegedly liberal position in the debate on transgender rights as “difficult”.
Favorite Rishi Sunak is abused as “Judas” and “snake”.
Mordaunt, in turn, is trying to placate the Tory base with old Thatcher quotes, mostly about who can and can’t have a penis and what that means for lawmakers. The “Leadership Race” has long since become a personalized mud fight, with journalists being fed details about the competitors from different camps. time comes in the Mail on Sunday the ex-wife of Penny Mordaunt’s ex-boyfriend with disparaging remarks, sometimes it’s about a helicopter flight for which she is said to have spent 1500 pounds.
The left-oriented Independent reports, citing internal sources, that Liz Truss has submitted her Amazon Prime membership (£79 a year) as an official expense, and that Rishi Sunak has been repeatedly insulted by Johnson loyalists on various platforms, alternatively as “Judas”, “snake”, “treacherous snake”, “rat” or also as “Fishy Rishy”, dubious Rishi. The party is in danger of tearing itself apart in front of the nation, senior Tories warn.
Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, is watching all this with barely concealed amusement. Starmer has been in Berlin in the past few days, and he also spoke to Chancellor Olaf Scholz about what his party could learn from the SPD’s electoral success. It’s quite possible that the Tories will do it for him.