The final two candidates who will go forward to face the votes of the members of the Conservative Party have been named as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Penny Mordaunt did not get enough support from MP’s to be in the top two. The gaffes, such as her claim that not voting for her would ‘murder’ the party, the MP’s who had worked with her in various departments failing to give her support (which says a lot in my view) and her attempt to obfuscate over her prior support and encouragement of the Trans lobby at the expense of women, was what did for her.

The membership of the Tory Party are now faced with a bit of a Hobson’s Choice of a ballot paper. They can choose Rishi Sunak who has not exactly been entirely clear and and open and in a timely manner, about questions surrounding his US green card status and his personal finances and who presided over a Covid hardship loan and grant scheme that ended up getting massively defrauded. The party can also choose Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary who in previous roles has done some good work for her constituency and has campaigned for some jobs to be treated as tax free. The problem with Ms Truss is that she doesn’t come over that well as a speaker. Someone on a message board I saw whilst mooching around the web said that Liz Truss ‘had the personality of a limp piece of processed cheese’. Sadly I can see how this analogy can be applied to Ms Truss. She might have done some good work but I don’t think she has what it takes to energise and motivate the sort of people in the old Red Wall seats who Boris Johnson let down over issues such as the Net Zero suicide policy and a failure to deal with the immigration invasion.

The Tory Party membership is faced with a pretty stark choice because of what looks like a stitch up by Tory Parliamentarians and that choice is: Vote for someone awful, such as Rishi Sunak a man so wealthy that there’s no way that he can have any idea of what life is like for struggling ordinary Britons or those running small and medium sized enterprises.

Or the membership can choose Liz Truss a person who quite frankly looks to be the least worst of the two candidates. Liz Truss does have some free market and free society instincts despite her youthful dalliance with the Lib Dems and if she wins then we see whether or not these views are sincere or not. However an inspiring public speaker and communicator she is not.

The membership of the Conservative Party, the people who by necessity have their ear to the ground in their areas and can understand what voters want from the party should have had more say in this leadership election. The members should have been able to choose not from a mere two candidates but three or four so as to present the members with a proper degree of choice. It’s wrong in my view that the membership should be presented only with candidates that are seemingly either bad or the least worst. If Sunak, who I don’t believe has it in him to be an election winner, especially if Labour sorts its act out, wins then I can foresee many members deciding not to bother to help the party out at election time. This should worry Tory party members as without voluntary party workers to do the grunt work of election campaigns, the Tory Party could be left exposed and without enough local workers to run an effective electoral ground game. Sunak could win the leadership but lose the next election to a Labour Party that will mercilessly exploit Sunak’s familial wealth and connections. Liz Truss is the least worse option here which sadly says a lot about the state of today’s Conservative Party.