Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Andrea Leadsom drops out of leadership race

In what must be the shortest-lived leadership campaign in the history of the Conservative Party, Andrea Leadsom has just announced that she’s dropping out. She said in her resignation statement that there was not “sufficient support” from her colleagues – perhaps a nod to how many of them said that they would quit the party if she won. She said she wants “the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported Prime Minister”. And that woman, she said, must be Theresa May.

In the four days since the formal leadership race began, it became painfully obvious that Ms Leadsom was simply unfit for the job. She messed up an interview with The Times, saying she didn’t want to attack Theresa May for being childless but going on to do just that. She then made an awful situation even worse by accusing Rachel Sylvester, her interviewer, of making up quotes. Sylvester then released the audio. Yesterday we had the incredible spectacle of a woman who wants to be Prime Minister holding up a piece of paper reading a statement about her messing up a newspaper interview.

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