Shock exit of favourite shows Tory MPs forgot the oldest rule in politics – learn how to count

Whenever something unexpected happens in politics, two questions immediately arise: how the hell did that happen, and what does it mean? With the latest twist in the Conservative leadership race, the first of these at least presents no obvious answers.

- Peter Walker

James Cleverly would have gone to bed on Tuesday night overwhelmingly confident he would progress to the final two of the contest. He had topped the third round of voting by Tory MPs, had clear momentum, and was the bookmakers' favourite.

Those certainties came crashing down at 3.30pm yesterday, as the result of the fourth and final round of the parliamentary vote was read out to assembled journalists and MPs: Cleverly had somehow lost two votes, and was out of the race. Tory members will instead pick from Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.

This was a turnaround in fate both sudden and unexpected. Cleverly, widely seen as the star of last week's Tory conference, had on Tuesday been just one short of the 40 MPs backers needed to guarantee progression in a three-horse race with 120 voters. Jenrick, the previous favourite, was tipped to go.

The immediate suspicion was that something nefarious had been going on - either other camps lending votes to Cleverly on Tuesday to inflate his backing, or Cleverly's camp seeking to boost Jenrick's support to make sure the shadow home secretary faced him rather than the more starry and charismatic Badenoch in the members' vote.