Thursday 9 June 2022

After Boris: Runners, Riders & the Momentum Thing

Who he?
I am a long-time amateur student of how the big parties change their leaderships.  If there's one iron rule, it's that the long-term heir apparent rarely gets the prize - and when they do, everyone quickly knows it's a big mistake (Eden, Brown).  Generally speaking, heirs apparent come and go: think of Thatcher's time:  Cecil Parkinson;  Norman Tebbit;  John 'golden boy' Moore;  Michael Portillo ... come 1990, nope, none of them.  John Major!  Wouldn't have been on any serious list of predictions 18 months before it happened.  Ditto Thatcher herself, of course, in 1973.  Or May in 2015.  Or Corbyn in 2014.  Or Blair in 1992.

And so it goes on:  parallel instances are legion.

Michael Crick, an old chum of mine and very professional student of these things (no man more so since the late, lamented Vincent Hanna), developed some advanced theorising about what he called "limited electorate" elections (like when MPs choose the leader), honing his observations on frequent, bitterly fought contests in student politics.  In his theory, when everybody involved essentially knows everybody else, and when there's a lot of serious ambition in play, i.e. the post is much sought after**, there is no merit whatever in being an heir apparent.  Quite the reverse: the key is to be accelerating like crazy up the rankings in a shortish period before the election, maybe even coming from nowhere.  That's "nowhere in people's reckoning", not "who the hell is this?" - because, ex hypothesi, everyone knows everyone.  Or, to translate into American political vernacular, it's the candidate with the Big Mo at the exact time of the poll.  Fresh, novelty value.  We've all made a discovery.  "Hey, you know what?  Maybe ... Fred !"

These days, of course, the leadership elections are technically thrown open to t'membership - but only on some shortlist basis.  In other words, the informed, limited selectorship (where everyone knows everyone) gets to pre-qualify what t'membership will find on the ballot.  A bit of a hybrid, but it doesn't significantly invalidate the theory, I suggest.

Anyhow.  By way of calibration, here's the complete list of runners and riders as listed A-Z by Conservative Home back last December, another time when Boris was on the rocks.  (It's not new.)

Badenoch;       Baker;      Brady;      Gove;      Harper;      Hunt;                             Javid;     Mordaunt;      Patel;        Raab;        Rees-Mogg;                                     Sunak;      Trevelyan;           Truss;      Tugendhat

Who is Harper?, I hear you mutter.  And Badenoch .. and Trevelyan ..?  But that's not the point.  Now: here's this week's YouGov opinion poll list:

Gove;          Hunt;          Mordaunt;  Patel;      Sunak;      Truss;                                     Tugendhat;          Wallace;          Zahawi

Read these lists and weep.  But note how things change: and while Gove has apparently now ruled himself out, Wallace - nowhere in December - came top of the poll!

Yes, folks - Timing is everything in these matters, with Events running a close second.  If Boris staggers on into the New Year (a very big If), it'll be someone nobody is even considering right now.

ND

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** Obviously this isn't meant to be relevant in elections where generally there is a dire paucity of candidates, e.g. for the chair of the local WI.  Though sometimes it might.

6 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

e'll do I, as we say down our way

"Former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost says he's thinking about standing to be a MP."


https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1534978303047745538

Elby the Beserk said...

And the rest, well. God help us

Anonymous said...

Agree Elby. There seems to be quite a gathering of momentum behind Frost.
M.

Nick Drew said...

Might be a convenient seat becoming available ...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/08/alok-sharma-in-running-to-be-uns-global-climate-chief

still gotta win it first ! There's many a slip, at times like this - the anti vote would be strongly marshalled

Bill Quango MP said...

Ellswood has an 8,000 majority, in a 55% leave seat of Bournemouth east.

Guido believes if Tobias doesn’t pipe down, he might not be selected. I would suggest that is very unlikely. UNLESS Frosty was seatless and looking at the election.

Don Cox said...

I'm reading Plutarch's long essay on "Rules for Politicians". Not much has changed since 100AD.

It's in a selection of his "Moralia" in the Oxford World Classics paperback series.

Don