It’s decision time.
Members of the Conservative party up and down the country should now have received the letter that gives them a say in the leadership contest. It may even be the next thing on your weekend agenda – after reading this.
Will members be staring hard at their ballot paper trying to make up their mind, or waiting to hear from Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch a bit more, to help them?
I suspect not.
On Thursday the two candidates appeared on GB News in a format more ‘town hall’ than debate. Despite Robert Jenrick’s team wanting more, and more like the latter, it seems now that will not happen.
ConservativeHome’s William Atkinson reviewed the encounter for readers, and I reviewed it on a Spectator podcast, so I will only mention here, that I don’t think it will have changed many minds, that most members have already decided, and my hunch is that the majority of ballots will be filled in within the next three or four days.
The ballot actually closes in eleven days’ time.
One aspect that has struck me about this latter stage of the race is the psychology behind how Jenrick and Badenoch have tried to persuade members to put the cross in their respective named box.
Robert Jenrick has laid out in detail plans, policies and people. He has genuinely thought about them himself for some time. He’s detailed what he would do as a Prime Minister as much as leader of the opposition. There should be little doubt now about what you get if you choose him.
So why is there a little doubt?
He knows he was the least known of the six that stood. He knows he’s been on a political journey, and he’s almost tried to paint on what some have felt was a blank-ish canvas a picture of arresting political multicolours. He’s produced the evidence, he’s laid it all out and yet he and his team know there are many Conservatives who don’t quite feel it, don’t quite believe. It’s not that they don’t like him, there’s just a nagging feeling about authenticity.
Kemi Badenoch has gambled on belief.
In contrast to her rival, she has produced very little policy even when pressed. She has asked members to believe in her and thereby regain belief in themselves with little evidence of how that might occur, but simply the force and conviction of her personality. She has appealed to the heart and soul of Conservatives that she simply has what it takes to make them feel good about being Conservatives again, and thereby win again. She’s stating boldly she is running to be leader of the opposition. She doesn’t mention being Prime Minister. Not yet.
She knows there is doubt about what exactly you will get if you choose her. And that some of it some members might not want or like when they find out.
So why is she consistently ahead in our ConHome surveys? Why did the GBNews studio audience overwhelmingly show their hands for her? Why are her odds better? Why do so many Conservatives I talk to say privately, even if they support Jenrick, they think she’ll win?
Let’s be clear, none of this means she will definitely win. Look what happened to James Cleverly. But, there is a sense she’s got momentum. To be fair to Jenrick he has always been the insurgent candidate and has made it to the final two, so he’s used to doing the chasing. The GBNews audience was very representative of London Tories, as Jacob Rees Mogg pointed out. That may have skewed things. It’s not over for Jenrick.
However, all that aside I can’t get the Aesop’s fable of the sun and the wind out of my head.
I’m not literally suggesting Robert is the wind and Kemi the sun, but there is a small element of this tale in how they’ve recently chosen to pitch themselves. It may prove the slight edge in where members puts an X in the relevant box.
Robert Jenrick is clear, passionate and unapologetically straight with people that if the party doesn’t follow his prescription to recover, particularly on immigration where he undoubtedly does well with members, then that is really it, over – the Conservatives won’t win again.
You can almost hear the voices of Reform voters on the wind whispering “He’s right”.
He’s made this argument in private, and for a long time, so I’ve no doubt he means it, but whilst he’s set out a stall that points to a lot of thought and conviction, he also suggests if you walk away without buying, you’ll be making a mistake.
Kemi Badenoch is eloquent and passionate that Conservatives can win, will win, if they both believe in themselves as Conservatives and in her to remould that belief into a winning formula. Her campaign is called ‘Renewal’. She’s decided not to tell members how it’s going to be but seems to be asking them to decide how it can be.
It’s more seductive. It appeals to the heart. It’s also a gamble by her, and a gamble for the party. A gamble, by its nature, risks loss but can bring big rewards.
You can see her trying to warm the party by telling them it’s been awful, that the parliamentary party let you down, but the sun can and will shine upon you again, and she can make that happen. You just need to believe.
Politics is a persuasion game and as the American politician and writer Claiborne Pell once said – in an era when women weren’t often leaders – “The secret is to always let the other man have your way.”
So has Robert Jenrick persuaded members that they also think the risk is losing again without his plan and he at the helm, or has Kemi Badenoch shone enough that, with less to go on, a choice for her just makes members feel better about the future?
Conservatives have their choice, their pens and hopefully their ballot, and eleven more days to get on with it.
