The voting among Britain’s Tory MPs to select the next Conservative leader and (effectively) prime minister continues.
The BBC has details of the most recent round:
Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak has topped the third MPs’ vote for the next Tory leader and prime minister, with backbencher Tom Tugendhat eliminated.
Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt took second place, while Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was third and ex-Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch was fourth.
The four remaining candidates go to another round of voting on Tuesday.
The field will be cut to two on Wednesday, with Conservative Party members then having the final say.
The placings were the same as in the second round of voting last Thursday, but Mr Sunak picked up 14 more votes, Ms Badenoch nine and Ms Truss seven.
Ms Mordaunt’s support dropped by one vote, as did Mr Tugendhat’s.
More here.
Best guess is that Kemi Badenoch will be the next to go, which will be a shame. While her relative lack of experience means that she is something of an unknown quantity, risky in someone who could shortly become prime minister, much of what has emerged has been encouraging. Tory party members appear to like what they have been hearing.
Somewhat less unknown is Penny Mordaunt whose momentum has stalled (at least for now), but she still remains in a relatively strong position. Part of the reason that Mordaunt may have failed to gain ground in the latest round is that what’s been emerging about her has been, well, less encouraging.
There’ll quite a bit to be said about that if Mordaunt moves forward, but her comments on the current reckless “race” to net zero will not, I think, delight Tory party members.
Conservative Party members care very little about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, polling shows. Only 4 per cent of those surveyed said that hitting the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 was one of their three priorities for the next Tory leader.
Despite that, all the remaining contenders have endorsed net zero, including, most recently, Badenoch, which is depressing given that, as currently envisaged, it will have little effect on the global climate but is likely to prove extremely destructive to the British economy.
Mordaunt does not appear to agree on either count, and so, via the Guardian, we can read this:
“The net zero transition provides the opportunity to create millions of jobs over the next decade. Fast. Investing in the domestic renewable energy sector reduces the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels like gas, which are exposed to volatile global prices. Low carbon electricity already provides about 50% of the UK’s total generation on average each year.”
The U.K.’s own Energiewende has, in many ways like its even more disastrous German equivalent, been a massive, reckless, and rushed exercise in malinvestment. It is nothing the Tories can be proud of.
Quite how this transition will create “millions of jobs” remains a mystery, particularly if those millions are calculated — as they should be — on a net basis, after accounting for the jobs that will be lost.
Doubtless Mordaunt will be able to explain.