Leadership brawl will give Tories more punch

In exposing weak ideas and hardening both candidates, the contest is doing us all a favour

Summer 2022 will be remembered for record high temperatures and the Conservative Party’s leadership contest. In the eyes of many, both are equally insufferable. But, just as the crowds who flock to beaches on sunny days suggest hot weather has something going for it after all, the same is true of the battle to be Britain’s next prime minister.

The Sunak versus Truss run-off has drawn detractors from across the political spectrum. The right worry about “blue on blue” infighting providing ammunition for Labour. The left argue the contest is indulgent navel-gazing at a time of national crisis. No one trusts Conservative Party members, those “mad, swivel-eyed loons”, to choose the next prime minister. Far better to have Boris Johnson’s replacement decided behind the closed door of a Commons committee room with outsiders kept safely at bay.

I am neither a member of the Conservative Party nor a particular fan of Truss or Sunak but I am glad this summer’s leadership contest is taking place. I am a democrat and, like thousands of others, I voted Conservative for the first time in 2019: Johnson represented the best chance of making the British public’s strong and clear mandate to leave the EU a reality. Given his large parliamentary majority, I felt decidedly uneasy about Johnson’s unceremonious dumping but as a replacement PM is needed, the more people involved in that process, the better.