Macho Men and the Cabinet Bad Boy: Tory Leadership Round-Up

There’s now a timetable for the contest to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, and the bar for entry has been raised in order to thin the field. The first vote among Conservative members of Parliament will be on June 13. Here’s our weekly summary of what else has been going on.

Run Silent, Run Deep

Boris Johnson is still the favorite, while doing as little as possible in public. His on-the-record Brexit commentary this week amounted to: “If I get in we’ll come out, deal or no deal, on October 31.” It was a comment to a voter in Johnson’s first campaign video, making it difficult to interrogate its nuances. Even so, Tory MPs have been coming out in support of Johnson everyday, undeterred by warnings from the party’s election expert that the former foreign secretary’s appeal might not be what it once was.