Neither Badenoch nor Jenrick can save the Tories, says polling guru
Neither Kemi Badenoch nor Robert Jenrick can reverse Tory fortunes following the party’s historic election defeat, Britain’s foremost polling guru has said.
Prof Sir John Curtice suggested that the final two Conservative leadership candidates would be unable to win over the public or unite the Right after millions abandoned the party for Reform UK.
In an article for The Independent, the election expert argued that neither contender to replace Rishi Sunak had “an adequate understanding of why their party suffered its worst-ever electoral result in July”.
He said they both appeared to believe the Tories’ downfall could be put down to a failure to be “truly Conservative”, when the party had actually haemorrhaged support over partygate and the turmoil of Liz Truss’s mini-Budget.
It is now up to Conservative Party members to pick their new leader from the remaining two candidates after James Cleverly was knocked out of the contest in the final round of parliamentary voting last week.
In a shock result, greeted with gasps in Parliament, Mrs Badenoch, the former business secretary, came top with 42 votes, while Mr Jenrick, the former immigration secretary, finished second with 41.
Mr Cleverly, the former home secretary, had come first in the previous ballot but slumped to last place in the final vote on Wednesday, backed by 37 MPs.
The final two will now aim to woo the grassroots, with the winner announced on Nov 2. They will face off in a televised question and answer session on GB News on Thursday.
In his article for The Independent, Sir John, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said Tory members would have to “guess – and hope” at the best person for the job, as neither candidate has “much of a public profile”.
When it comes to winning back Reform UK voters, he said the polls suggested Mrs Badenoch has a “slight edge”.
But he warned that this appeared to be counterbalanced by “a greater risk that some of those who are currently still in the Tory fold might defect”.
He said: “In short, despite their ideological stances, neither Ms Badenoch nor Mr Jenrick is necessarily well set to heal the electoral divide on the Right.
“But the more fundamental question is whether they have an adequate understanding of why their party suffered its worst-ever electoral result in July, and thus are likely to take the steps needed for their party to regain voters’ trust.”
He said both candidates “appear to believe the fault lies in a failure of the last government to be true to Conservative values”, but argued that an analysis of the party’s performance in the polls revealed that this was not the culprit for its “precipitous fall from grace”.
“The first key event that cost the party support was partygate, which cast doubt on the honesty and ethics of those who had been leading the party.
“The second was the Liz Truss fiscal event, which severely damaged the party’s reputation for economic competence,” he said. “No reversion to ‘true’ Conservative values is going to erase these stains on the party’s copybook.”
He added that, as “largely unknown quantities”, Mrs Badenoch and Mr Jenrick may still “prove able to surprise us”, but said: “In order to do so, they are both certainly going to have to reveal a wider range of political talents than they have so far.”