William Atkinson

After the next election, Bob Blackman’s role as chair of the 1922 Committee should be much easier. With the Conservative party set to be wiped out across the country, it’s not inconceivable that the Harrow East MP will be the last Tory left in the Commons. It is the only seat in the country where the Conservatives exceed 50 per cent of the vote last year. Alone on the green benches, Blackman will no longer need to worry about organising no confidence votes, massaging backbench egos, or finding exciting new ways to pledge loyalty to the latest failing leader. He will be the Parliamentary Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party is not an imaginative organisation. The clue is in the name. In response to an electoral disaster – like last week’s local election Götterdämmerung – its established method is to work through three familiar stages: pretend, Comical Ali-style, that everything is fine; begin plotting to oust the leader; and then smash the glass marked ‘bring back Boris Johnson’. Having ticked off one and two, yesterday saw the unhappy launch of stage three. Politico have suggested a growing number of Tories, including MPs, are pining for the party's ex-leader-but-two. No MP has gone public with a call to 'Bring Back Boris' quite yet.

It’s always sad to discover that one of your favourite quotations was made up. After communism’s fall, Robert Conquest’s American publisher was said to have asked him for a new title for a republished edition of The Great Terror, his seminal book documenting Stalin’s mass murder of his own citizens. His suggestion? I told you so, you fucking fools. Alas, I recently learnt that the faultlessly polite Conquest never said it, the anecdote being an invention of his swearier chum Kingsley Amis. Nonetheless, ‘I told you so, you fucking fools’ would be a rather cask strength way of describing how those of us who have long been gloomy about Tory prospects under Kemi Badenoch feel after Thursday’s local election drubbing.

Kemi Badenoch faces her first big electoral test in this week’s local elections. The Conservative party has much to lose. Of the 1,642 council seats up for grabs, 940, accounting for boundary changes, were won by the Tories back in 2021. For Badenoch, the only path on Thursday is down. Four years ago, Boris Johnson was at the peak of his ‘vaccine bounce’. Those were halcyon days, pre-Partygate, Trussonomics, and Toryism's worst defeat since James II’s exile. In May 2021, the Conservatives poll ratings were at 45 per cent. Today, they barely top 20 per cent, falling back from last summer's defeat. Amongst party members, Badenoch's leadership is increasingly unpopular.

As with so many of the aphorisms and witticisms attributed to Winston Churchill, it is impossible to verify whether the greatest Briton actually ever said that ‘Americans can always be trusted to the right thing, once all the other possibilities have been exhausted’. But that expression immediately came to my mind when reading J. D. Vance’s UnHerd interview – and over a remark entailing Churchill’s prime ministerial successor, to boot. Vance’s real message to Europe? Anthony Eden woz rite. The Vice-President said much of interest. The news that the UK and US are close to signing a ‘great agreement’ on trade had the Ftse 100 rallying.

Amanda Spielman, former Ofsted chief inspector, is set to become a Conservative peer. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is elevating Spielman – who served as head of Ofsted between 2017 and 2023 – to the House of Lords for her outstanding record in improving school standards. Spielman's peerage is richly deserved. She helped ensure that Tory education reforms, which saw the share of children in Good or Outstanding schools rise from 66 per cent to 86 per cent between 2010 and 2018, were maintained. Throughout her tenure, Spielman’s enduring focus was on the curriculum. Too often, as she outlined early in her time at Ofsted, teachers were leaving pupils ‘with a hollowed out and flimsy understanding’.

Kemi Badenoch’s victory was not overwhelming. Her margin of victory was smaller than of any of her Tory predecessors since the current leadership rules were introduced. With the support of 57 per cent of the membership and a third of MPs – similar proportions to what Liz Truss managed in 2022 – her immediate task will be to unite her querulous parliamentary party and reach out to her opponents. Her finishing cry – ‘It’s time to get down to business, it’s time to renew’ – is familiar from the campaign trail. The most immediate task is building a shadow cabinet. James Cleverly’s choice to go to the backbenches frees a space but leaves an obvious alternative leader untainted by her leadership if she stumbles in the coming years.

Is Kemi Badenoch running scared? It’s not an accusation often levelled at the shadow housing secretary, who is usually criticised for being too keen on a scrap. Badenoch’s campaign team say she wants to tell the Conservatives ‘hard truths’, and that she is the opponent Keir Starmer would most dread across the despatch box. But for all her pugnaciousness, Badenoch isn’t the candidate pressing for a face-off with her opponent. Badenoch has no need to debate, and it makes tactical sense for her to avoid it Yesterday Robert Jenrick asked the BBC to host a TV debate between him and Badenoch. He is apparently happy to debate his rival ‘any time, anywhere’, but ‘sources close to’ Badenoch say she is keener to spend her time meeting members.

Jonathan Gullis is a happy man. 'Good news!' the ex-Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent North wrote following reports that Priti Patel, the former Home Secretary, is to run for the Tory leadership. 'Priti can unite the Conservative Party, take the fight to Starmer’s Labour, and win back the trust of voters', Gullis claimed. That's quite the prospectus, for a party in such a shattered state. If reports in the Daily Telegraph are correct, Patel has been 'urged to run' by fellow MPs and already has 'a campaign team funded by ‘high-profile Tory donors”. She plans to launch her bid for the top job by the end of next week. In standing by Boris Johnson to the last, Patel co-owned his failures Patel has obvious virtues.

In the end, there was little reason why England fans might have wanted to hang around after yesterday’s Euros final, except to bum an Estrella off a celebrating Spaniard. But in the unlikely event that football had come home, those of us watching in London would have been left high, if not necessarily dry, by London’s ‘world-leading’ police force and public transport network. Yesterday afternoon, at the helpfully late time of 3.51 p.m, the Met warned football fans travelling into central London to avoid street drinking. Having issued an antisocial dispersal order, those congregating in the street with a beer could be made to move on. It also suggested pubs were full, so it might be an idea to watch at home.

The real victor of these local elections? Boris Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing in life worse than being talked about, is not being talked about. It’s a sign of Boris Johnson’s skill in attracting headlines that even as the Conservatives suffer a shellacking at the local elections, his being turned away from a polling station for failing to bring ID – a new requirement under a law he introduced – is still a leading news story. Angry Tories are staying at home – and swing voters are devoting in droves In a career pockmarked by marital imbroglios, cake ambushes, and faulty zipwires, this doesn’t reach the top 20 of the ex-prime minister’s most notable embarrassment.

Rory Stewart is a successful podcast host, but would he make a good Oxford University chancellor? The former Tory MP is in the running to replace Chris Patten, who is retiring. Stewart is the bookies’ front runner in the race: ‘This is a very interesting idea and an amazing role,’ he said, ‘but I would naturally have to think hard about whether I am the right candidate’. Stewart shouldn’t have to spend too long thinking: he’s the wrong man for the job. In his brief Tory leadership campaign in 2019, Stewart’s limitations became clear. His support amongst Tory MPs soon fizzled out as he failed to make a significant impression in the debates. He made clear he would not serve under Boris Johnson, left parliament at the earliest opportunity, and quit the Conservatives.

Asking Liz Truss for advice on how to make conservatism popular seems as wise as consulting Paula Vennells on how best to treat your employees. That hasn’t stopped the ex-PM from giving her blessing to the new Popular Conservatism group. But at least one of her fellow PopCons might suggest it isn’t their former leader that the Tories should look to for salvation, but across the Atlantic. Recently selected for the seat of Epsom and Ewell, Mhairi Fraser is a City lawyer who has dabbled in Donald Trump fangirling. She travelled to America to see the ex-president win in 2016 because she had 'never been as excited' about a politician.