Distressingly, the GB News stream I watched the Conservative leadership hustings on kept glitching out, meaning every time I went back in I had to watch the exact same ads for a blood pressure monitor and some body horror thing about draining ankle fluid. You hear a lot about “no-go zones” on GB News – on this evidence the channel is a no-go zone for advertisers seeking to reach the coveted 18-34 demographic. But look, let’s open the door to our walk-in bath and let the waters of the contest rise around us.
And you have to say that this week the race to be the person regicided by the Tory party in two years’ time has certainly warmed up. It is now almost tepid. The choice is between Kemi “I’m an engineer” Badenoch and Ozempic survivor Robert Jenrick, a would-be populist who on Wednesday had to be told live on air – the day after it happened – who the new England football manager was. Sort your life out, Jenrick.
Anyway: the debate, in which the candidates did not actually debate. In front of a truly overwhelmingly male audience of rank-and-file party members, Jenrick went first. He acquires principles like planning controversies, so it’s always mildly intriguing to see what he’s flogging this time out. Some Frankenstein catchphrases, certainly. He would like Britain “to be the grammar school of the western world”. Pressed on Nigel Farage, he explained, “I want to retire him.” (Well, that’s not hard. Farage retires every two years. It’s the chronic unretiring we need to focus on.) If Jenrick were the party leader and there were an election tomorrow, “we would be in a hung parliament. So before we begin the task of turning this around, we would be in a dramatically better position.” So tempting. Years of legislative paralysis caused by the Conservative party’s nutso trips down constitutional rabbit holes could be followed by some more legislative paralysis.
Physically, the look Jenrick seems to be going for is the Wolverhampton JD Vance. Speaking of whom … on the basis of having obsessively compared past and present Google images of Jenrick during the boring bits of last night’s broadcast (all of it), I am 49% floating the theory that he has started wearing eyeliner for public appearances. If he disagrees, then … what is it wannabe edgelords like him always say? Oh yep – “Debate me. You’ve never debated anyone like me.” Debate me about eyeliner, Rob. I’ll take all comers.
As for Badenoch, she affects smiley warmth but her vibe is very much Ministry-of-Magic-hardliner who’s been parachuted in to the Tory leadership contest. It’s her way or the highway, children – and if you don’t think everything said in the 1922 isn’t going straight back to Cornelius Fudge, then more fool you. That said, aspects of Badenoch’s pitch are genuinely surreal. At one point she defended herself against charges of being awol in the discourse by saying she only went “on media” when she has something to say. Suggesting that over the past few weeks, she just hasn’t had anything much to say. Then again, Badenoch is running on an amusingly original platform of having no policies. As she tantalisingly put it last night: “I have great policy ideas but I don’t believe that what’s in my head is going to get us out of the mess we are in.” Righto. The tactic would appear to be something of a missed opportunity, given that unlike Jenrick she does seem to believe in something other than saying literally any old shit if it would help you ascend a quarter of a millimetre further up the greasy pole.
Asked to name his favourite recent Conservative prime minister, Jenrick couldn’t pick one, saying only: “I served in the government of each of the last five of them.” And that’s the banter era right there – an unwitting reminder of the pure chaos his party put the nation through. Chaos for which Jenrick seems to have been present, yet not involved. “When I was minister for immigration,” he said at one point, “I saw things that made me angry.” Please guys, give him the chance to say, “When I was prime minister, I saw things that made me angry.” In the meantime, try this tack in your job and see how you get on. When I was typing this column, I saw sentences that made me angry, but seriously – what could I do?
In terms of the wider context, Badenoch’s day had already been enlivened by an intervention by Jurassic Tory backbencher Christopher Chope, who explained he was voting Jenrick because “much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children … Kemi spends a lot of time with her family, which I don’t resent at all”. Ironically, Chope is a man so many people desperately wish would spend more time with his family. I do actually resent that he doesn’t. Yet bear in mind that despite a 29.8-percentage-point swing against him at the recent general election, he still has a very healthy 7,455 majority. Great job, Christchurch!
I guess diehards gonna diehard – indeed, anyone still a member of the Conservative party these days may be considered so diehard they are potentially undead. Yet the odds and the polls still suggest Badenoch appeals more than Jenrick to the metaphorical Christchurch of it all. Perhaps any wavering member could decide on the basis of the biggest whopper told on stage on Thursday night – Jenrick saying “My values have never changed,” or Badenoch’s claim that “I don’t like fighting. I don’t look for fights.” Either way, not long to go now. The deadline for voting? Why, Halloween, of course.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
