Inevitably, the Tory leadership contest is developing a row about process and possible stitch-ups. Party grandees have been suggesting limiting the number of candidates to prevent ‘chaos’ (which suggests an interesting reading of the current political turmoil as not being chaotic). Iain Duncan Smith thinks there should be a higher threshold for nominations and more candidates knocked out at each round, while members of the 1922 Executive committee are also proposing limiting the numbers of candidates to around a dozen.
There is a split though on whether this would be fair or whether the ‘widest debate possible’ is more important. Incidentally, it was the ‘widest debate possible’ argument that got Jeremy Corbyn onto the Labour ballot paper, though of course Tory MPs have an opportunity to knock out candidates once they feel they’ve had that wide debate and want to get on with the business of presenting worthy would-be Prime Ministers to the party membership.
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