Robert Jenrick has found himself in an early pole position in the Tory leadership race as he topped the first round ballot – as Priti Patel became the first to be knocked out. The Mail has more.
Mr. Jenrick, the former Immigration Minister, secured the most votes from MPs with 28, six ahead of Kemi Badenoch on 22.
However Shadow Housing Secretary Ms. Badenoch, the previous favourite, was barely ahead of ex-Home Secretary James Cleverly, who received 21 to place third.
Ms. Patel will play no further part after coming last with 14, behind Mel Stride (16) and Tom Tugendhat (17).
MPs are whittling the numbers down to four before a ‘beauty parade’ at the party conference in Birmingham at the start of next month.
The figures finally give a clear indication of support for the candidates, after barely half of the 121 politicians still standing after the election rout publicly declared an allegiance. A second round will take place next week.
Despite underperforming expectations, Ms. Badenoch hailed “huge support”, while allies insisted she had “momentum”. But the wide spread of support suggests there will be a lot of votes in play in the later stages.
It comes after the latest poll by the ConservativeHome website found Ms. Badenoch is favourite among activists, with 34% support compared to 18% for her nearest rival Mr. Jenrick.
Jenrick, a Remain-voting but latterly pro-Brexit MP, has emerged as a hardliner on immigration, quitting as Sunak’s Immigration Minister when he saw that the Rwanda plan was destined to fail without beefing up, and now unequivocally advocating withdrawal from the ECHR as necessary to deal with illegal immigration. His commitments on the wider culture war though seem to be much soggier.
Badenoch has been more nuanced, noting that other ECHR-member countries manage to reject far more asylum applications than the U.K., and a more systemic solution is required. This is a fair point, but it begs the question whether given the heavy pro-immigration biases running through the U.K. immigration system and judiciary, anything less than ECHR withdrawal would be adequate to force our judges to stop making Britain such a soft touch. The former Equality Minister is much stronger on the culture war and resisting woke nonsense, however.
At this stage it’s looking like a battle between Jenrick and Badenoch – though MPs are unlikely to allow both to end up in the final two for members to choose between, meaning whichever of the two the Tory rump allows into the final showdown will probably emerge victorious against whichever hapless centrist they put up against him or her.
Stop Press: In the Telegraph, Tim Stanley says that Jenrick is the surprise winner of the first ballot, Badenoch and Tugendhat under-performed and James Cleverly surpassed expectations.
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First rule of Fight Club…
Reason.? Pragmatism and Patience.
Agreed. Musk is between a rock and a hard place, walking a tightrope, whatever image you prefer. With the risk of being fined up to 6% of Twitter’s global revenues IIRC, it’s difficult to see what alternative he has right now. I think he’s biding his time.
Yes, Twitter has to abide by the EU rules, they have no choice…and whether it’s better to be on the inside or not, I don’t know….
As far as using Twitter..it’s miles better under Musk…much more free..and despite what Mr Kogan says, huge numbers of censored and banned people I used to follow have returned….as for all of Elon’s other ‘pies’, I would have to look at each one separately and decide…why can’t he be right on some things, and wrong also…like a normal person? It seems to me that he’s being held to a higher bar than is usual…
Whether he’s for free speech or not, I will wait for the evidence..which currently looks good….it’s a fact that he released the Twitter files…and frankly I don’t remember people being so wound up when Jack Dorsey was ‘hiding’ the Hunter Biden files, or censoring anything Republican or Conservative..or banning any one who didn’t stick to the scamdemic agenda??…….as I say I’ll await further evidence…
Elon Musk EUSSR’s double agent
************************************
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
European Union of soviet socialist Republics????
I’m not going to downtick, but what are you trying to say?
Should be obvious.
And Musk is no fan of free speech; I can’t say this enough.
He can only fight so many enemies at once given the parlous finances of twitter. Have community notes started to appear on misinformation tweeted by EU officials yet?
…and run a rocket company and EV company.
Doesn’t the article more or less answer its own question?
Not a musk fan then Robert?
I’m not bothered one way or the other.
Musk’s way is better than it was, that’s about it!
My view is that Musk is relishing the opportunity of being taken to court so that these ill defined terms like dis and misinformation can be more closely examined by legal professionals.
Hopefully a judge will find the wording of the Digital Services Act to be nebulous, open to individual interpretation and political bias and therefore unenforceable.
Lets hope you’re right.
We see a lot reporting about Twitter’s collusion with the US government during the covid debacle, but nothing about the UK government and its dealings with social media.
Perhaps ‘our’ Matt did not have that much sway with the American tech company?
I can understand Musk’s predicament with Twitter, but kowtowing to these authoritarians won’t make them leave you alone.
Shadowbanning is far more insidious than overt censorship because it leaves the victim with no recourse to complain, act on it, or even to be aware they’re being censored. Its effect is a gradual demoralisation into silence, despair and compliance.
Then as some topics of ‘misinformation’ become very much information, when the walls of misdirection and propaganda can no longer hold back the truth; the point where more people than just the attentive and paranoid would finally speak out and protest, you end up instead with tumbleweeds and an apathetic population holding up their hands, saying “I know, but what can we do?”.
As a couple of people on here have said, it’s not confusing if you realise Musk is not on our side.
Does anyone who is awake actually think a person like Musk could even exist if his side wasn’t backing him?
His role is that of the Fool or Jester. He tells truths but in the end he is still part of the tyrant’s court. He will attract and mollify the peasants by telling them what they want to hear but in the end he still serves the powers.
He says watch out for AI then starts his own AI.
He calls for free speech, yet censors more than ever before.
He experiments on and kills monkeys in his transhumanist religious desires to have humans patch to computers.
He is in charge of the primary company that is trying to ram driverless vehicles on to humanity.
He runs starlink which is creating a grid of satellites around the planet which will aid total surveillance control over humanity.
He throws it in our faces when he wears a Demon costume.
He is not our friend. He is a false hero, like Trump.
The information/disinformation wars aren’t just about Musk……
I also note that Seymour Hersh has been ‘fact-checked’ by Facebook, in regards to his Nordstream theory article…
This article is worth a read..and I think goes to the heart of the censorship we are dealing with….
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/04/21/why-is-facebook-censoring-sy-hershs-nordstream-report/
As of Thursday, if you try to share on Facebook the February 8 Substack post in which Hersh first laid out the anonymously sourced charge, you’ll first be met with a prompt informing you about “additional reporting” on the subject in the form of Norwegian fact-checking website Faktisk, and warning you that “pages and websites that repeatedly publish or share false news will see their overall distribution reduced and be restricted in other ways.”
If you decide to “share anyway,” Hersh’s piece is posted but blurred out, and labeled “false information” by the social media platform. (It’s since been un blurred and labeled “partly false information”). “
…..But Seymour Hersh can and does post on Twitter…..!
Using Ocham’s razor the issue is not Musk but the EU.
…Occams…
….absolutely…undoubtedly they are a huge problem. I think Musk has been less than ‘kind’ about them…tin pot Hitlers…
Better inside the tent pissing out, possibly
Twitter has just given Britain First a gold checkmark. I’m not sure what that means as I don’t use Twitter, but it doesn’t sound like a telling off! Would that have happened previously? I doubt it – in fact I think they were banned.