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BuzzJack Music Forum _ News and Politics _ What if May v Leadsom had happened?

Posted by: Suedehead2 Jun 12 2017, 07:57 PM

Last year's Tory leadership election saw the list of candidates whittled down to two. The intention was that Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May would be the candidates in a vote of the whole party membership. However, Leadsom made some rather silly remarks about the fact that May was not a mother (she was unable to have children) and subsequently withdrew from the contest. Therefore May was elected without a proper contest.

What if the contest had gone ahead? Would the campaign have exposed what a terrible campaigner May is? ould the result have been different? If May had won despite a poor campaign, would she have been more cautious about calling a general election?

On a related note, should the Tories trust their members to choose from a list of more than two candidates?

Posted by: Brett-Butler Jun 12 2017, 08:14 PM

I think that Theresa May still would've won, but it would have ended up being a more close run thing than would've been expected, and would most likely have led to a rather different make-up of the cabinet.

In terms of the leadership contest, I can't see a better way of it being run in order to ensure that they have a leader than is popular with both a) the MPs they will have to manage whilst in charge, and b) the members of the party that they are hoping will support them come the General Election. Labour's way of electing a leader does the same thing, albeit in a slightly different way, although there's still the chance of a Jeremy slipping through the cracks.

Posted by: Soy Adrián Jun 12 2017, 08:22 PM

I'd echo that. May would have still won because she could have played it relatively safe and reassured Tory members that she could be trusted to carry out Brexit. In other words, her key message from the GE campaign would have actually been useful because there wouldn't have been any other big issues to discuss. Leadsom wouldn't have been effective enough to exploit any weaknesses.

Posted by: Iz~ Jun 12 2017, 08:53 PM

If it had revealed how bad May was at campaigning they'd surely have tidied it up for the general election, enough to perhaps stay still in seats rather than going backwards, assuming the general election was even called. But Leadsom wouldn't have given there much of an opportunity for it to be focused on May, surely negative press would have focused more on how woeful Leadsom was, giving the impression that everyone breathes a sigh of relief when she didn't win, so I reckon the result beyond that would have been about the same.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Jun 12 2017, 09:10 PM

They were both fairly poor candidates, Leadsom was hugely inexperienced as borne out by that awful interview that was her downfall and May fails to be in any way affable. The result likely would have been the same though, May played it well by almost tacitly supporting Remain and keeping submerged through most of the referendum campaign thus able to draw support from both sides of the Tories. I don't think the campaign would have really drawn out Theresa's flaws in the way a general election campaign has however and we'd likely be in the same position we are now.

Incidentally I prefered the Conservative leadership election process to that of the Labour party (the one where they couldn't even decide if the incumbent was going to be on the ballot) - but that's mainly because it was an absolute joy to see Boris stabbed in the back.

Posted by: popchartfreak Jun 14 2017, 08:05 PM

If you mean in the boxing ring, I'd pay to see it....

otherwise, 2 useless Tories, toMAYtoe, tomartoh!