My god, what an unprepossessing collection of rogues, chancers and buffoons! In order of bookmakers’ odds, here they are:
Boris Johnson The clear favourite at 4/7, even though his unsuitability not just to be PM but to occupy a responsible post of any kind is obvious: as Matthew Parris wrote in the Times (7 June) “he’s a habitual liar, a cheat, a conspirator with a criminal pal [Darius Guppy] to have an offending journalist’s ribs broken, a cruel betrayer of the women he seduces, a politician who connived in a bid for a court order to suppress mention of a daughter he fathered, a do-nothing mayor of London and the worst foreign secretary in living memory.” Only thing wrong with this assessment: he wasn’t a do-nothing mayor of London, because he claimed credit for “Boris Bikes” even though Ken Livingstone set the whole thing up and he contrived to waste many millions on vanity schemes (the new Routemaster, the “garden bridge” that was neither, the Emirates cable thing, the water cannon).
Jeremy Hunt: 4/1. Chief qualification seems to be that his wife is Chinese - or Japanese, he isn't entirely clear about it himself. Low point as Foreign Secretary: last year in a speech that earned universal disdain, he compared the EU to the Soviet Union.
Andrea Leadsom:. 7/1 Candidate for the absurd, on account of her comment that she could do the job better because she was a mum, and who announced a major speech on the economy but, when she delivered it, failed to mention the economy. Her main plank this time: believes the first cuts we need to make are to swearing (really!).
Michael Gove: 14/1 What can you say? Distrusted by many because he ratted on his friend Johnson last time so can hardly claim that loyalty is an asset, and snorted cocaine whilst writing an article criticising people who use drugs. A five-star hypocrite by anyone’s standards.
Sajid Javid: 22/1. Main advantage: his father was a bus driver. A publicity-seeking grandstander who will do anything to appear tough: he wanted to mobilise the Royal Navy when a few refugees were trying to cross the channel in little boats. And his father was a bus driver.
Dominic Raab: 25/1, who hadn’t realised that Dover was an important port, resigned in protest at the withdrawal agreement that he himself had negotiated and says he is happy to close down parliament to stop it preventing a no-deal crash out (not exactly parliament “taking back control”, that, is it?)
Rory Stuart: 25/1. The only moderately rational and considered candidate, on account of which he is absolutely certain not to get it. A shame, really, as he actually seems genuinely interested in the job rather than in his own advancement - but even he is wedded to Brexit as essential.
Matthew Hancock: 100/1. Nothing to say about him except that his campaign slogan is “Let’s Move Forward,” as if anyone would go for “Let’s Move Backward” - though it might go down well in the Tory shires.
Esther McVey: 150/1. No-hoper who either read her brief at DWP and deliberately distorted it, or didn’t bother to read it before spouting off and who was another who is ready to set aside parliamentary democracy whilst posing as a democrat,
Mark Harper: 150/1. (Who???).
Richard Carter ● 2710d