Conservative leadership election

[Zinneke]

Between Raab and Johnson, I assume establishment Tories would prefer Raab?

Very similar dynamics to the 2016 GOP with Cruz vs Trump. You have a very right-wing candidate who nevertheless toes economic orthodoxy vs an outsider who is many ways more moderate but nevertheless viewed as a reckless "populist"

Just because they are the two favorites with the bookies doesn't mean they will both be in the final two. I'll let you figure out why.

[Zinneke]

Is Stewart essentially running for Foreign Office?

[Zinneke]

What happens if the anti-Johnson Tory MPs decide to strategise to put two other candidates up?

[Zinneke]

Are any of the candidates supporting May's deal?

[Zinneke]

Are any of the candidates supporting May's deal?

No, or at least not explicitly. The contenders proposing a new/different deal are, in effect, offering to keep most of May's deal except for some part of it they don't like, usually the backstop. Thing is, because the EU won't renegotiate, any candidate who isn't advocating for 'no-deal' is tacitly arguing for May's deal (or a general election and/or referendum, but they've all denounced that path as suicide for the party)

Thanks
What about Gove's idea of a long term delay? How feasible is this?

[Zinneke]

There was an interesting perspective by Rafael Behr in the Guardian that said that a lot of Remain Tories actually think Boris is fooling the Brexiteers and vice-versa :

It gets even harder for whoever else makes it to the final round because he (and it is now guaranteed to be a man) would be competing against two people called Boris Johnson. One served as mayor of London from 2008-2016. He has liberal, metropolitan instincts – broadly pro-immigration, old-fashioned in his use of idiom, but a moderniser at heart. That Johnson was once celebrated by his party as the “Heineken candidate” because, in homage to the old advertising slogan, he could refresh parts of the electorate that other Tories couldn’t reach. He won in the capital, a Labour heartland. Twice.

Then there is 2016-2019 Johnson, figurehead of the Vote Leave campaign, the ultimate Brexit-booster. He is a more aggressive, divisive figure – a partisan of nationalistic culture wars who has consorted with Steve Bannon, the notorious alt-right ideologue inside Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. This is the Johnson who compares Muslim women in burqas to “letterboxes” and who defended the jibe yesterday as a bit of unvarnished plain-speaking – the kind of thing the public prefers to “bureaucratic platitudes”. This is post-truth, Trumpesque Johnson who threatens to take the UK out of the EU with no deal and to renege on financial commitments already made to Brussels. He would build an invisible wall and make Ireland pay for it.

Both Johnsons are dispensing wild promises to Tory MPs behind closed doors. Moderates and former remainers have been led to understand that London Johnson is the real one; that he does truly understand the perils of no-deal Brexit, that his domestic policy agenda would not be some turbo-Thatcherite slash-and-burn charge to the right. On the contrary, a liberal social reformer would emerge to renew Conservatism for the benefit of people who feel economically left behind.

Not impossible to think that Boris simply reverts back to London Boris after this campaign. And Brexiteers would only have themselves to blame.

[Zinneke]

Why would being a spy in the past disqualify you from public office? Why would having close links with the intelligence services whilst you were vice-governor of an Iraqi Province disqualify you from public office?

[Zinneke]

Who on earth gets the cops called on them literally days before a vote to make them prime minister? I would never break plates and laptops in my home when my wife makes me angry. But I would REALLY not do it when I am a week away from being PM.

A man convinced of his invincibility.

On the subject actually, how likely is it he is elected PM only to lose a No Confidence vote almost immediately?

[Zinneke]

Your post is insightful but for the fact that I don't think you can take a Corbyn leadership for granted given the insurgency he is facing from the Remainer Left. From the rumours I heard it looks like Rebeeca Long-Bailey could be put forward as the young female Remainer candidate with McDonnell as the puppet master. Corbyn has lost his internal perceived invincibility entirely over the Brexit issue.

[Zinneke]

Cameron was actually commended as a professional when he went to Council meetings, etc. He knew what he was doing. He was just a terrible political strategist. Johnson seems to be the opposite. Very canny at knowing when to play which electoral card, but weak on actual policy.