Today saw the final round of voting amongst MPs in the Conservative leadership election, and in something of a shock result yesterday's first placed leader, James Cleverly, slipped into third place and was eliminated from the contest.
The final results were:
- Kemi Badenoch - 42 votes
- James Cleverly 37 votes
- Robert Jenrick - 41 votes
There's already rumours that a vote lending operation from Cleverly to Jenrick went wrong, but we will never know if that is true or not.
But what we do know without doubt is that Badenoch and Jenrick in getting 42 and 41 votes respectively only managed to secure around one third each of the votes of Conservative MPs. That is a similar amount to the proportion earned by Liz Truss in 2022.
And whilst it is significantly more than the 16% of available votes secured by Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election of 2015 (albeit under a very different process) it does point towards troubled waters ahead for whoever wins the Conservative contest.
For the leadership of any party (or any organisation for that matter) it is vitally important that the boss has the support of the majority of people who work closest with them.
In 2015 Jeremy Corbyn didn't have the support of his fellow Labour MPs, in 2022 Liz Truss fell short of majority support of her colleagues by some way.
Whatever happens now to Kemi Badenoch or Rob Jenrick they will be starting their stint of leadership knowing that two thirds of their closest colleagues didn't support them, and in the very near future they are likely to be more than happy to let journalists know that was the case.
Inevitably there are choppy waters ahead in the Conservative Party leadership - probably long before the next General Election.