Crucial moment in the Conservative leadership race

The sprint finish to the start line is on.

It is not the sprint finish to the finish line, but the sprint finish to the starting blocks.

The next leader of the Conservative Party will be selected by Conservative Party members, but they will only get to choose from the final two candidates picked by Conservative MPs on Wednesday afternoon.

Right now, there is: Intrigue, plotting, phone calls, quiet chats, guesswork and claims of underhand tactics.

“We are pushing towards quite the season finale,” one Conservative MP said to me.

I know what you might be thinking: pull yourself together, this is a vote to determine the final two candidates to become the Leader of the Opposition next month.

It is not exactly the race to the White House.

But it is, nonetheless, a crunch moment.

There are three candidates left – James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch – but just two golden tickets.

You can read more about the three still in the running here.

The standout development in Tuesday’s round of voting was James Cleverly propelling himself not just into the lead, but being miles in front.

He managed 39 votes, a number even some in his own camp acknowledge was a bit higher than they were expecting.

His performance is put down to making the most of his conference speech last week and the efficient hoovering up of quite a lot of MPs who had previously backed the former cabinet minister Mel Stride.

In a race with 121 votes available in total, if every Conservative MP votes, 41 is sufficient to guarantee a place in the final two, since both rivals cannot outpoll you.

(Incidentally, I am told that outgoing leader Rishi Sunak did not vote, meaning there was actually an electorate of 120).

Either way, Cleverly is very nearly there, assuming he does not go backwards.

The working assumption of all of the campaigns is that he is going to make the final pair.

And so it is now a tussle between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick for second place.

Jenrick came second in this latest round of voting, with 31 votes – but managed to lose two votes from the previous round.

Badenoch came third with 30, just one vote behind, but did gain two votes.

And there are now 20 votes looking for a new home after the widely expected elimination of the former security minister Tom Tugendhat.

It may not seem like a big number, but 20 is one heck of a lot in an electorate of 121.

“James is an irrelevance now. It’s all now a battle between us and Kemi’s team,” said a Team Jenrick insider.

“Tom’s supporters are closer to our side than hers,” they added.

“We’ll be ahead in the end.”

It is a characteristic blast of confidence from Jenrick’s camp, who have exuded plenty of it throughout.

But there is no shortage of psychology in all of this too – and you might need a splash of outward confidence when you have just been knocked off top spot and managed to go backwards.

Supporters of Badenoch acknowledge they would have liked to have seen her do better in the latest round.

But they think there is a clump of Tugendhat supporters who really didn’t like Jenrick’s claim last week that British special forces are “killing rather than capturing terrorists” because of the European Convention on Human Rights.

They particularly disliked his use in a campaign video of footage of a comrade of Tugendhat’s from his military days, who later died.

“Rob is in trouble,” one MP predicts – or hopes.

So things are: Uncertain, mighty competitive and close.

Tory MPs have to decide who they really do not want to be their leader and weigh up how party members might vote depending on the different potential pairings.

The website ConservativeHome reckons that as things stand, James Cleverly could beat Robert Jenrick among the members, but Kemi Badenoch could beat James Cleverly.

“Accordingly, if MPs want to stop Cleverly from winning, backing Badenoch seems their best.

“And if they want to stop Badenoch, a vote for Jenrick beckons,” as the ConservativeHome puts it.

It is enough to make your head spin.

Little wonder rumours are rife that all sorts of jiggery pokery has been going on – and could still be going on.

Team Badenoch are playing hardball with an argument about her seeming popularity with party members.

But they do so knowing some MPs really do not want her as leader.

“What will members say if they have to vote for two people they didn’t want?” says one.

“It’ll be like Liz and Rishi all over again, when the members wanted Penny vs Kemi,” they add, in reference to Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt in the contest in 2022 and the prospect of a Cleverly-Jenrick run off.

It leaves me pondering how the party would react if Badenoch is rejected by MPs.

It might not be pretty.

So, the stakes are high – as the Conservative Party approaches its biggest single moment yet since its calamitous election defeat in July.