Vultures picking over the carrion of the Conservatives’ defeat had started their gruesome meal long before Thursday’s ballots had been cast. A shadow party leadership contest has been running for months. Now it’s nearly out in the open.
Nearly, but not quite. That’s because this weekend the candidates considering putting themselves forward as leader are weighing up competing pressures. One is how to distance themselves from their resounding defeat on Thursday .
For the half-dozen candidates and their teams, an appearance of distance from the maggot-ridden carcass of defeat would be ideal. The sweet spot would be to skip the postmortem entirely and parachute in as the change candidate. Timing is also key.
Declare too early and risk looking like a desperate ghoul. Against an uncertain leadership timetable, your campaign also risks running out of steam. On the other hand, declare too late and you could find support from MPs already snapped up by a rival with promises of future jobs in a shadow Cabinet.
Staff is also an issue. “I’m already getting calls from former spads [special advisors] who are looking to attach themselves to our campaign,” reports one aide to a leadership candidate who has yet to go public. “I suspect some of them are from other camps fishing for information.
The trouble is, if we leave it too long to declare, all the good people will have attached themselves to someone else.” Straight out of the traps Former ministers Suella Braverman and R.
