The Tory leadership race is down to two

The Scotsman's Wesrm Correspondent reported from a crazy day in the Tory leadership race

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome back to Westminster. My name is Alexander Brown. I'm Scotsman's Westminster

00:05Correspondent and I'm just outside the Commons where I have seen unbelievable scenes where,

00:11and I can't quite believe I'm saying this, James Cleverley has been eliminated from the

00:16Tory leadership contest. Despite coming top of the polls yesterday on Tuesday he has now

00:22been eliminated and what many are thinking was essentially he thought he had too many votes.

00:27He has tried to get Generic out of the contest. He lent votes, they think, to eliminate Generic

00:32and in that sense has seen himself eliminated. For the Conservative Party this is very significant.

00:39It means we are now left with Kemi Badenoch and Robert Generic competing to be the next leader.

00:43We'll know on November 2nd and it also means whatever happens the Conservative Party is now

00:48likely veering towards the right. It is remarkable. I can't quite put into words the scale of what's

00:55happened today. There had been an expectation that James Cleverley was home and dry and was

00:59sailing through this and there had also been a concerted stop Generic campaign. People in

01:04James Cleverley's camp thought if they could get Generic out of the final two he could beat Kemi

01:09Badenoch in the final round when it got to that. As it is he's now been eliminated and Robert Generic

01:15who months ago had said they thought they would get 41 and ended up on exactly 41 MPs is now

01:21surely the favourite with him going to the membership along with Kemi Badenoch to decide

01:26who will be leader. For James Cleverley it will be an issue of imagine what if. If he had not lent

01:31votes, if they'd not briefed that it was likely and that the other two were then scrapping between

01:36themselves to be the candidate of the right. It's also funny on a pure funny level James

01:42Cleverley did say that he needed the Tory party to be less weird and Tory MPs have said no that

01:48doesn't really work for us as a line we want to go with two of the quite right-wing candidates.

01:52So now members will choose between someone who ordered the painting over at a mural at an asylum

01:58centre for children or someone who hacked into the website of a Labour MP. Fantastic choices,

02:05Conservative party is on the right track to rebuild. Speaking to MPs this is for genuine

02:10shock there were gasps in the room. In Portcullis that's after the general you know briefing area

02:15with the canteen people were just looking each other going have you seen and just a real sense

02:20of disbelief. It feels like the craziest things happen in parliament since well the last crazy

02:24things happen in parliament because something crazy always happens in parliament. To read about

02:28this to get analysis on this and all that and more stay tuned to thescotsman.com and I'll be

02:34back tomorrow no doubt with more videos analysis of just what is a constant chaos of Westminster.