Heard a nice quote this morning (not sure who said it): The tory leadership battle will be like bald men fighting over a comb
It will be a battle between those (Braverman)who want to cosy up to Reform and allowing Farage to do a reverse takeover and those wanting to take Reform head on to win back voters from them (Badenoch).
Akchewally it's an exceptionally pertinent comment - although the dimwit Tory who voiced it obviously has no idea of its origins nor its previous usage to describe the actions of a previous Tory administration: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/05/23/comb/?amp=1
Tories remaining include Sunak, Hunt, Braverman, Badenoch, Dowden, Cleverly. An absolute powder keg waiting to blow.
I would say Kemi Badenoch much more likely. She’s the one who is sufficiently barking for the Taliban membership but would also get support from the middle ground of MPs.
She really has no clue does she. About time she ****s off to the states and leaves us alone. 20K plus majority (IIRC) she dismantled. That's a pretty clear indication of what her constituents thought of her.
Yes. As we get the ‘Anglia’ news here, they were out & about in her (former) constituency interviewing people. The most common comments about her seemed to be ‘arrogant’ and ‘out of touch.’ Including not even turning up to her own hustings! Who’d’ve thunk it?
In fairness to her, she was helping out the council staff by going around seeing if anyone knew where Liz Truss was.
I suspect quite a few of them. What else will they do? It’s not for Braverman or Badenoch the life of an unassuming constituency MP. They want power and influence. This at least gives them the latter.
Now come on Sue-Ellen... you're out of government now, why not say what you really think? https://www.theguardian.com/world/a...lag-was-monstrous-thing-says-suella-braverman
While “disgusted with Tunbridge Wells” Tories like Ian Dale were never fans of Braverman. I see her comments as more of the start of her taking a slice of the Parliamentary Conservative Party over to Reform. She stands little chance of being one of the two candidates the PCP will put to the members, and she knows it. Of course as a Bushey Heath resident we should be supporting her and Priti Patel as ex Watford Girls pupil, as our l candidates with links to Watford.
Wasn’t Patel actually at Westfields? IIRC WGGS have repeatedly asked her to stop claiming she is an alumna of there.
She'll bugger off to Reform for a few £££ If the Tories want to rebuild a more central brand, probably do them a favor.
Don’t know. Harrow had Co-Ed middle school and FE colleges for A Levrks at the time. Unlike Herts with its primary, secondary school + 6th form system. Many parents sent children over the border to Hertfordshire to avoid that Harrow system. Lots of Asian parents preferred girls only secondary schools too. So maybe they did send her to Westfield. It was just a change of train at Watford High Street to Watford West for Tolpits Lane.
@Since63 is right. Patel didn't go to Watford Girls Grammar School. She went to Westfield School. I know someone who was looking into this (for professional journalistic reasons, not because they were a bit odd – although that could be true too) a few years ago and even the claim that she went to WGGS for sixth form doesn't seem to be true. To be fair to Patel, she doesn't seem to have been source of the information herself but she's done nothing to correct the record, which is a bit weird, especially when questions have been put directly to her constituency office.
And even more bizarrely, surely having achieved the success she has after going to Westfield rather than WGGS would play into any personal story she may choose to publicise.
Westfield when it was a girls only school had a good academic record in the 70/80s. Certainly had a decent sixth form. Patel of course liked to imply her parents were part of the generation kicked out of Africa by the Idi Amin regime. When in fact they left years before and came to the UK as economic migrants. Using the proceeds from the sale of their Ugandan business to start afresh in the UK. They did very well through hard work, and were able to thrive. Anyway looks like Kemi Badenoch is putting the boot in to Sunak and the woeful campaign. Can’t see him hanging around long once the 1922 have agreed the leader election timetable. So probably a caretaker leader through to the autumn equinox. Oliver Dowden also considered by many a buffoon for promoting the early election strategy. His days as an influential insider look to have ended once Sunak is replaced.
ISTR that it was that bastion of investigative journalism POPBITCH that broke the Westfields/Wags 'story'. Where it gets murky is who actually 'started' the Wags story. Patel has denied it was her & blamed an over- zealous staffer on her team - which is really odd as she's never came out and said "I didn't go to Wags" even after the school authorities requested she did so the could disassociate fully from her. So strong was the story that my, ex-Wag, oncologist maintained that Patel went to "...school..." as did all of her classmates when she brought it up on an old-girls night out. I've heard a theory that 'Wags' may have originated in the application for her (1st) job at CCO...
Maybe you’re correct re: Westfields in 70s & 80s, but that’s not the impression I formed when my sister went there from the mid-70s.
Liz Truss has had her say on why the Tories lost. Apparently, it’s because they weren’t Tory enough and just copied New Labour. Doesn’t appear to be paywalled. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ts-failed-to-roll-back-blairs-leftist-agenda/
Delusional nonsense. Anyone who can remember the Tory opposition between 1997 and 2005 will remember how rigidly right wing and reactionary it was. They put together some bonkers manifestos in an effort to force points of difference with New Labour. They got thrashed in the next two elections. It was only when Call me Dave took over and pulled them back to the centre that they became electable again. Ironically Truss herself benefited from that realignment as she joined Parliament in 2010.
This is nonsense - a lot of local conservatives didn't like Truss or the way that she was imposed on them by CCHQ. One of them stood as an independent (Conservative). He secured 14.2% of the vote. This is the reason she lost.......... https://www.newstatesman.com/the-we...n-mission-unseat-liz-truss-south-west-norfolk
