Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Senior Tories push for longer leadership contest

The Tory leadership contest is looking decidedly sedate compared with the ructions in the Labour party this morning. But tomorrow the 1922 Committee Executive will meet to discuss the timetable and rules for the battle to replace David Cameron as Tory leader and Prime Minister.

As I report in the Observer today, senior Tories are concerned that the timetable that Cameron sketched out in his resignation statement on Friday morning is actually rather tight, and are pushing for the contest to take longer. Liam Fox echoed this on the Sunday Politics, telling Andrew Neil that he favoured the contest going on until November.

Now, there are a number of good reasons for a longer timetable, not least that the contest won’t then be conducted over the summer when many Tory members are away, and that everyone has enough time to reel from the resignation of their party leader, take stock of where thing are now, and make a measured decision about who should be leader.

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