ADVERTISEMENT

What the Would-Be British Prime Ministers Got Up to This Week

What the Would-Be British Prime Ministers Got Up to This Week

(Bloomberg) --

With 12 candidates—so far—running to succeed Theresa May as British prime minister, it can be hard to keep up with what they’re all doing. Welcome to our weekly summary of the campaign highlights.

Silent Running

Remember Boris Johnson, the bookmakers’ favorite? You could be forgiven if he’d slipped your mind. While other candidates have been touring the country and eagerly posting videos on social media, Johnson has been … well, who knows? Beyond his weekly column in the Telegraph newspaper, he’s kept quiet. His team points out that, despite this, his ratings on the ConservativeHome website have gone up against his rivals. He’s likely to surface when Parliament returns next week.

Equal Rights

Dominic Raab, the former Brexit Secretary, has declared that he’s “probably not” a feminist. He told ITV he was “all for working women making the very best of their potential” adding that, “I would describe myself as someone who’s a champion of equality and meritocracy.” This led to the eyebrow-raising spectacle of rivals announcing that they definitely were feminists. The most notable was Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who has decided to embrace his resemblance to the British children’s TV character Morph:

Speaking of Equality

Former Pensions Secretary Esther McVey told Sky News that parents should be allowed to take children out of lessons on same-sex relationships. “I believe parents know best for their children,” she told Sky News. “While they’re still children—and we’re talking primary school—then really the parents need to have the final say on what they want their children to know.” Her comments have been attacked by other Tories, including former Education Secretary Justine Greening and the current Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd.

Deal or No-Deal

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that trying to leave the European Union without a deal would be “political suicide” for the Tories, because Parliament would be likely to force a general election instead. At the start of the month he said the option had to be kept on the table in order to convince the EU that Britain is serious.

Turning the Air Blue

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has declared himself the pro-business candidate, in a way that’s a little hard for a family news organization to explain. Referring to a reported four-letter word from Boris Johnson about businesses lobbying for a softer Brexit, Hancock offered his own four-letter comment. If nothing else, he has probably set a record for the number of times that word has appeared on the front page of the Financial Times.

All-Time High

Astonishing confession of the week came from International Development Secretary Rory Stewart. A former soldier (briefly), former governor of an Iraqi province, and author of two books about his experiences, we already knew he was the only candidate with the skills to both kill a rival with his bare hands and then write an epic poem about it. Asked the standard question about drug use, he had a more interesting answer than the usual student spliff. While walking through Iran as a young man, he was a guest at a wedding, and took a puff on the opium pipe he was handed. Though it had little effect, he told the Telegraph newspaper: “It may be that the family was so poor they put very little opium in the pipe.”

Other Candidates Are Available

Also running for the leadership are Mark Harper, James Cleverly, Andrea Leadsom, Michael Gove and Kit Malthouse. And those flirting with the idea of running include Penny Mordaunt, Steve Baker and Graham Brady. But for lengthy ambiguity, no one will be able to beat Jesse Norman, one of the party’s more intellectual figures, who used a 33-tweet Twitter thread to muse about the possibility of running—and then didn’t say what he’d decided.

What Is the Likelihood?

These are the latest implied probabilities for the candidates, from Ladbrokes:

What the Would-Be British Prime Ministers Got Up to This Week

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Ross at Stuart Biggs

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.