Jeremy Hunt Counts on a Late Surge to Beat Boris Johnson
Jeremy Hunt Counts on a Late Surge to Beat Boris Johnson
(Bloomberg) -- Could Jeremy Hunt be the next British prime minister? The pollsters and the bookmakers say no, but if recent years have shown anything, it’s that pollsters and bookmakers can get things wrong.
Boris Johnson has been the clear favorite to win the contest to be the next Conservative Party leader from the outset, and remains so. He’s long been the darling of the Tory grassroots, and his public appearances in the current contest have delighted activists with his mixture of enthusiastic optimism and humor.
But supporters of Hunt, Britain’s foreign secretary, hold out the hope that the 180,000 Conservative Party members who decide the outcome have been made to think twice by the campaign. That’s certainly true of Robert Deeley, an insurance broker from south London. For him, the final straw was news the the police had been called to the apartment Johnson shares with his partner after a noisy row.
‘Too Childish’
Deeley, 44, is one of a number of Tory members who held back on posting their ballot paper in the race to succeed Theresa May as U.K. premier, eager to see how the contest panned out. He was appalled when the Guardian newspaper printed excerpts of the argument between Johnson and his partner, which had been recorded by a concerned neighbor.
“The video Boris released of him knocking on doors reminded me ‘oh he does have a lot of charisma, a lot of personality’ and there was potential for me to be drawn towards voting for him,” Deeley said in an interview. “But then there was the whole row with his girlfriend and he came across as a man-child. Everyone argues, but I felt that dialog was too childish for a prime minister.”
Whoever wins will take charge of the U.K. at a critical time, with just three months to try to secure a better Brexit deal from Brussels -- and then sell it to a skeptical Parliament -- before the country’s scheduled divorce from the EU on Oct. 31.
Johnson’s decisive position on Brexit -- he will leave on time, “do or die” -- has gone down well with party members, who list splitting from the European Union as their number one priority. But he’s stumbled over questions about his character and faced criticism when he didn’t unequivocally support British ambassador to the U.S. Kim Darroch after his official assessment of Donald Trump was leaked to a newspaper.
Deadline Day
Party members have until Monday to return their ballots. Johnson’s team held their candidate back from interviews and public debates in the early stages of the contest. But if that was done in the hope that people would cast their votes before they’d had a chance to see the two men head-to-head, Hunt said Thursday that it hadn’t worked.
Two-thirds of party members have waited to see how the candidates fared in the campaign, Hunt said. “They recognize this is a decision they have to take with their heads as well as their hearts,” the Foreign Secretary told BBC radio. “Get this decision wrong and we could end up with a general election long before Oct. 31 and none of us want that and that’s why the momentum is towards me.”
Hunt supporter Rebecca Downie is hopeful there will be a surprise. The 38-year-old photographer who lives in Sussex, southern England has cast her vote. “Friends in the party tell me that there has been a slow return of ballot papers to Conservative Party headquarters after we all thought people would vote early. That must be in Hunt’s favor after the campaign Boris has run.”
Polls Apart
Even so, she acknowledges Johnson carries a lot of support among party members who will pick the new leader even if his appeal to undecided voters is limited. “I don’t feel Boris has a strong vision for Britain,” Downie said. “He has a strong vision for Brexit and that’s what’s appealed to my friends who are Tory members.”
Despite Hunt’s assertion that he could still win, in a final public event with party members on July 17 he came close to conceding he is likely to lose to Johnson. Hunt said he’d be “honored” to serve in his rival’s government.
The polls don’t look good for Hunt either. “He’d have to have a huge swing behind him to win at this stage,” says Anthony Wells of pollsters YouGov Plc. “It’s not impossible his support has gone up since we polled a fortnight ago but it’s not likely to put Johnson’s victory in doubt.”
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, prefers a soccer analogy. “It’s like a team making a four-goal second-half comeback after going 6-0 down in the first half,” he says. “They might win back a bit of self respect but they still won’t win the game.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Robert Hutton
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