Conservative party

A fair few MPs felt there was no reason to come to today's Prime Minister's Questions, given the real action is in the Conservative leadership contest. There were spaces behind Theresa May as she took questions from Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader clearly hadn't put much effort into preparing for the session, either, offering a bizarre hotchpotch of questions ranging from no-deal Brexit to the government's record on renewables. Those Tories who had turned up weren't interested in asking May tricky questions: what was the point, when she has just weeks left as Prime Minister? Instead, they wanted to praise what existed of her record, with Peter Bone praising her 'superb' work on human trafficking, and Huw Merriman criticising his colleagues who had forced her resignation.

Boris Johnson is currently the quiet man of the Tory leadership contest, lurking in the shadows rather than courting media attention as he usually does. His campaign team has deliberately held him back from touring the studios to avoid gaffes or rows. They're even nervous about the limited exposure he has, joking that he is 'always one Monday column away from disaster'. Of course, it's easier to do this when your candidate has as high a profile as Johnson: he doesn't really need any more attention than he's already got. It is, though, not the greatest of compliments from those members of his campaign team that they seem to feel Johnson cannot be trusted not to cause a career-damaging row when the stakes are so high.

With just a few days to go until nominations close in the Tory leadership contest, candidates are busy trying to shore up support in the parliamentary party. There are five - Sam Gyimah, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart, Mark Harper and Esther McVey - who currently don't have sufficient nominations to make it onto the ballot paper. Harper tried to get some attention by asking a question about the Peterborough by-election at today's Prime Minister's Questions, while Gyimah has been doing the rounds in Portcullis House as MPs have trundled through. Meanwhile I understand that Rory Stewart has cancelled all his media appearances in order to hold as many meetings as possible with MPs. Stewart's predicament is an interesting one.

Why would you stand for the Tory leadership? If you're someone like Dominic Raab, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, you've been planning this for months, with a team in place since at least the start of the year because you really think you can win this. But there are other entrants who are highly unlikely to get anywhere near the final two but are still standing. Some of these MPs may think they genuinely have an outside chance, but others have made a variety of calculations. Rory Stewart, for instance, is building a proper profile for himself as someone unafraid to walk around in public asking people what they think (which is rare for politicians today). This will set him in good stead for another leadership contest.

The Conservative Party was founded 185 years ago and may not survive the next five. YouGov and Opinium both put the Tories in third place and on less than 20 per cent of the vote. They managed just 8.8 per cent in the European election, coming fifth behind the Greens and losing all but four of their MEPs. The primary cause of la crise actuelle is the government’s failure to deliver Brexit and it is to this which much of the Tory leadership conversation is addressed. However, there are other factors, structural and social, which have depressed the Tory vote and candidates to replace Theresa May are keen to prove they can win voters back to their party’s tarnished brand.

Inevitably, the Tory leadership contest is developing a row about process and possible stitch-ups. Party grandees have been suggesting limiting the number of candidates to prevent ‘chaos’ (which suggests an interesting reading of the current political turmoil as not being chaotic). Iain Duncan Smith thinks there should be a higher threshold for nominations and more candidates knocked out at each round, while members of the 1922 Executive committee are also proposing limiting the numbers of candidates to around a dozen. There is a split though on whether this would be fair or whether the ‘widest debate possible’ is more important.

Parliament is in recess at the moment, though the difference between a House of Commons Chamber that is sitting and one that isn't is scarcely noticeable at present, given how few votes MPs are being required to attend. There is a similarly thin distinction between a government led by Theresa May as she insists she's not going anywhere, and one led by the Theresa May who, last week, finally conceded that she was going. Not much is happening, as per usual. In fact, there will be even less happening as a result of May's resignation announcement. Today at the Number 10 lobby briefing, the Prime Minister's official spokesman was asked whether the Withdrawal Agreement Bill was really going to return to the Commons next week as planned.

This week’s European election was always going to be pointless, at least from a British perspective. It is possible that the elected candidates will never even take up their seats. In one important sense, however, the election campaign has been useful: as a reminder of where public opinion stands on Brexit. A few weeks ago, many believed that Change UK, the party founded by Labour and Conservative dissidents spoiling for a revocation of Article 50, would capture the public mood. Instead, another new political party would appear to have triumphed — a party set up with the sole purpose of expressing anger at the failure of Parliament to effect Britain’s departure from the EU on the date which had been set into law.

Theresa May's latest Brexit bill is set to come back to the Commons early next month, but already the signs are that it won't be fourth time lucky for the Prime Minister and her Withdrawal Agreement.

There’s a useful rule of thumb in politics. When Conservative politicians pronounce themselves to be a One Nation Tory, you can be pretty sure they’ve got nothing sensible to say. Instead of addressing voters, they’re conversing with each other in a special form of Tory code. It’s an identifier without substance, a form of ritualistic preening often seen in the animal kingdom. Amber Rudd was at it last week. Claiming that the economy was her top priority, Rudd said she would oppose any Conservative leadership candidate who wanted to cancel HS2. The timing was unfortunate, with the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee subsequently producing a report recommending the government think again on HS2.

Of all the red warning signs for the Conservatives, the choice of the Brexit party’s candidate for the forthcoming Peterborough by-election is blinding as they come. Not only was Mike Greene a lifelong Conservative until a few weeks ago; he is a self-made man brought up in council house who has gone on to set up businesses and serve in several charitable roles such as trustee of Peterborough cathedral. If the Conservatives cannot attract and retain such a person as a member, then what is the point of them at all? They are either the party of self-reliance, of hard work, entrepreneurship and public service – or they might as well pack up and go home.

The Tories have lost over 1000 seats as both major parties were hit by a Brexit backlash in the local elections overnight. The Conservatives are down 1323 councillors, while Labour lost 77 representatives compared to 2015. Theresa May said voters had sent the 'simple message' that her party had to 'get on' with delivering Brexit. Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the results were a clear sign of voter dissatisfaction over Brexit: https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1124210656146862080?

When a political party is in trouble, we see infighting, leak inquiries, resignations, mass loss of council seats, dismissals and botched attempts to depose the leader. But when a party implodes, something different happens: it loses the ability to defend or explain itself. An imploding party can and will lose any argument, no matter how strong its track record. The Tories entered this terminal stage under John Major after the disastrous local elections of 1995, which were followed by their landslide defeat of 1997. With the party now having had its worst set of election since 1995, it looks very much like they might be entering it again.