Pity the political junkie, hooked on the Tory leadership hustings

The ballot papers have been sent out to the Conservative Party’s 160,000 members. Yet, strangely, the hustings at which members can quiz Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are only at the halfway point.

I have watched six of the eight so far, not in the audience but streamed on various websites. The party has not exactly made it easy, and it can be stressful. Westminster journalists like me exchange intel when someone finds a live stream.

Sometimes it cuts out or buffers. Well, what can you expect from a party with a reputation for appealing to old buffers?

As a political junkie, I am hooked, even though I can often complete the contenders’ sentences. Without looking at my notebook, I can tell you that Boris’s three-point plan in his opening remarks is to deliver Brexit (shock news); turbo-charge the economy; and then see off Jeremy Corbyn (as he did Ken Livingstone as London mayor) while he “pricks the twin puffballs” of the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Hunt usually has a four-point plan: deliver Brexit (“there is no great difference between me and Boris”); boost defence spending to ensure Britain stands tall in the world; make education, and the eradication of illiteracy, the party’s “social mission”; and attract more young voters. He has said he was an entrepreneur so many times that he even takes the mickey out of himself about it.

Boris is normally more relaxed, and better at turning the event into a rally. Hunt plays it straight; he is the serious candidate for a serious job that is not about “entertainment”. Johnson’s jokes are better. Dismissing fears about a shortage of the whey needed to make Mars Bars after a no-deal Brexit, he quips: “Where there’s a will, there’s a whey!” Hunt says the Tories should not beat the populist Corbyn with “their own populist but their own Jeremy”. Erm...

Fortunately, the moderator – LBC presenter Iain Dale or CNN’s Hannah Vaughan Jones – slips in some topical questions. The ones from Tory members are more friendly. They are often told what they want to hear. So the most important issue facing the country, apart from Brexit, might be schools, social care or housing, depending on the question.

Sadly, Johnson and Hunt appear separately and never interact. Many Tories will already have voted before the contenders go head-to-head on ITV on Tuesday. Which will suit Boris more than Jeremy.

Yours,

Andrew Grice

Political commentator