Sleaze allegations haunt Tory leadership contest

The question “do Tory MPs fix leadership votes with dirty tricks?” is usually on a par with “is the Pope a Catholic?” or “do bears shit in the woods?”.

- DAVID MADDOX

It is obvious and it happens every time even if it takes place in secret.

So it is of no surprise to anybody that allegations are already being expressed that vote fixing took place in the first round of the current Tory leadership competition.

The suspicions surround former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride who, while seen as a decent chap, is not seen as a serious candidate to replace Rishi Sunak.

Somehow, he managed to get enough Tory MPs to put him on the original ballot and then he got 16 votes, one more than Priti Patel in the first round – meaning the former home secretary was the one who was eliminated.

This was achieved even though Mr Stride has not even had an official leadership campaign launch yet.

Mr Stride now has one of the other early favourites in his sights, former security minister Tom Tugendhat, who only managed to get one more vote, with 17 in the first round.

Essentially, Tory leadership vote fixing is the practice by one of the frontrunners of lending votes to a much less popular candidate who can then be moved up to take out a more serious rival.

This can happen because the Tory MPs get to decide who the final two are before members vote in an open contest.

There have been strong allegations of this happening before. Infamously, MPs supporting Boris Johnson supposedly switched to Jeremy Hunt to ensure he kept Michael Gove out of the final two in 2019. Mr Gove was seen as the bigger threat to Mr Johnson.