The Portillo moment

This week: which senior Tories are probably about to lose their seats? Also some gaffes, a map and a chart; and, away from the election, some notes on the axolotl.

I keep changing my mind. As recently as Sunday, I was absolutely convinced that former YouGov boss Peter Kellner’s prediction that the Tories would land on 155 seats – their all-time worst result, sure, but only one seat below 1906 – was madness. Most polls have put them nowhere near that. For weeks, my heart has said they’d be below 100, with all sorts of exciting side effects (total meltdown on the right, massive majority for/unearned complacency in Labour, a surprisingly large number of LibDems); my head, meanwhile, kept telling me 100-120 felt more realistic. As the campaign has gone on, though, heart and head have come into alignment, on “they’re stuffed”: 155 seats, with the polls this bad, and the overwhelming sense of “get these people out” abroad? How? Where? 

And yet, as I write, I am wobbling. Polling for Reform seems to have passed its high watermark, its candidates are dreadful, and there’s some evidence Nigel Farage’s comments that (I paraphrase) the west was asking for it, letting all those eastern European countries democratically join the EU and NATO like that, has cut through. Perhaps that means a drift back to the Tories. Perhaps I’m just steeling myself for disappointment when it’s merely a Labour landslide, not a Tory armageddon. 

We’ll know soon enough: on Thursday, I’ll be livestreaming overnight at Podmasters as the results come in alongside a squad of people from Paper Cuts and Oh God, What Now? Tune in, if you’re staying up. I’m also doing the results day Paper Cuts with Miranda and Jason at some ungodly hour the next morning. (Warning: I will be drunk on news, adrenaline and alcohol alike.) 

Those of you who are utterly sick of this election, rest assured that a) it’ll all be over soon, and b) there’s a nice bit about another weird animal below. Before that though – which big name Tories are about to face humiliation in a municipal leisure centre at 3am? Who is most likely to give us this year’s Portillo moment?

A panoply of possible Portillos

3am

Iain Duncan Smith, Chingford & Woodford Green

A man who in more innocent times we could confidently describe as the worst leader the Tories had ever had, and who later, as welfare secretary, went on to conjure up the disaster of universal credit. All the polls have him losing – the seat has been trending left for a while, as young people moved up the Overground from Hackney and Walthamstow. The only slight fly in the ointment is that this is where Faiza Shaheen, the left candidate Labour dumped at short notice, is running as an independent. Odds are, though, this is an easy Labour pick up.

Greg Hands, Chelsea & Fulham

A man who performed so badly as Tory chair that questions were asked – by, admittedly, me – regarding whether he was actually a Labour fifth columnist. His only strategy seemed to be to remind everyone of Liam Byrne’s infamous “no money” letter in a variety of bizarre ways which, given the state of the public finances at the time, took some chutzpah. Polls suggest it’s extremely likely he’ll lose to Labour. Sorry Greg, there are no votes left.

3.30 am

Jeremy Hunt, Godalming & Ash 

Chancellor since 2022. Previously health secretary (could have done worse) and culture secretary (probably couldn’t; faced calls to quit after it emerged he’d secretly passed information to the Murdoch empire, to support its bid for full ownership of BSkyB). Also owned the company at which I had my worst ever job (read this from my then colleague Luke Turner in the Quietus if you want to know more). Doesn’t seem personally awful, just rich and out of touch, but it’s a measure of how far his party has fallen that he ever acquired the “big name, moderate, safe pair of hands” tag. Most senior minister who seems likely to lose, to the LibDems.

Grant Shapps, Welwyn Hatfield

Defence secretary, and a fixture in government since 2010. Despite beginning his political career with an embarrassing internet marketing scandal involving multiple identities, actually not been too bad a minister – he has, at least, taken an interest in his brief. But he’s also been positioning himself as a potential leader from the moderate wing of the party, which is hilarious because essentially every poll shows him losing to Labour. Only survives in the event of a record polling miss.

Penny Mordaunt, Portsmouth North

Former Leader of the House of Commons, and another possible leadership candidate – the visual of a former military woman with a huge blonde quiff carrying a sword at the King’s coronation is exactly the sort of thing that sets Tory pulses racing. Polls well as a potential Prime Minister (compared, at least, to the actual Prime Minister). Alas, her seat is a bellwether, and she too may be on course to lose to Labour.

4am 

Nick Timothy, West Suffolk

It’s not quite true to say Timothy singlehandedly lost his party its majority in the 2017 election, but it’s true enough he really should have done some soul searching. That, though, is not his style. Instead he spent years writing columns full of advice for the party he’d just stiffed, which I’m sure was received with exactly as much gratitude as you’d expect. Tomorrow he stands a pretty good chance of failing to be elected by the previously safe seat of West Suffolk, losing to Labour. Can’t wait to read his next column.

Gavin Williamson, Stone, Great Wyrley & Penkridge

Deeply creepy former education secretary and fireplace salesman, with a voice perfect for the era of silent cinema. Remember when exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, and an algorithm just guessed everyone’s A-Level results, meaning a scandal over thousands of ruined lives? That was him. While chief whip kept a tarantula named Cronus in his office, the twat. Upsettingly plausible he hangs on, to be honest, but if he doesn’t he’ll lose to Labour.

Richard Holden, Basildon & Billericay

Party chair since November. Not a big enough name to have annoyed anyone who isn’t a political obsessive, but I am one and have been finding him incredibly obnoxious for well over a decade, ever since he ran a CCHQ Press Twitter account with an icon of a little hat with a press card in it as if he was a journalist rather than the opposite. MP for North West Durham since 2019, but this time is standing in Essex, where he was forced on the local party by CCHQ. Billericay is true blue, but Basildon a bellwether, so it’s at least possible this carpetbagging will be enough to wreck his chances. 

Miriam Cates, Penistone and Stocksbridge

Reactionary millennial with all sorts of paleo views on women, children, gay rights, and so on. Was a trustee of a church that promoted conversion therapy, though she’s denied being in favour of it herself. A weirdly American figure, despite being from Sheffield? Anyway, she won’t be bothering us much longer: essentially everyone thinks she loses to Labour.

Rishi Sunak, Richmond & Northallerton

It couldn’t actually happen, could it? All but one outlier poll has Rishi keeping his seat – and, anyway, he’s the Prime Minister. That said, he has been spending a lot of time campaigning for his own seat – a weird amount of time one might say – and imagine how seismic it would feel if his Labour challenger, the YIMBY campaigner Tom Wilson, wins. Very unlikely, but not impossible – which is a worry for the Tories in itself. If it doesn’t happen, we can take some comfort from the fact he’ll be stuck here in opposition when he’s desperate just to move to California.

5am

Liam Fox, North Somerset

Disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox resigned in disgrace after an investigation by the Cabinet Secretary found that he had breached the ministerial code and allowed an unvetted aide to attend meetings, thus posing a security risk. That did not stop him from hanging around like this was the sort of minor sin from which one could expect forgiveness, pushing for Brexit all the while. This week he was warning against voting Labour, which has a very real chance of beating him, because it posed a threat to the green belt. Good.

5.30am

Jacob Rees-Mogg, North East Somerset & Hanham

Not so much a politician as a flaw in the national psyche made flesh: the embodiment of a collective belief that a posh voice and polite manner implies intelligence and noblesse oblige. These qualities, though, are signally lacking in a man whose politics have more in common with Nigel Farage than Harold Macmillan. I’d long imagined that his seat, some suburbs outside Bristol, would be a likely LibDem pick up, but the polls suggest Labour’s the favourite. God I hope they don’t just split the vote.

Theresa Villiers, Chipping Barnet

Held various midranking Cabinet jobs, not generally important: the reason I’ve got her on my list is that she’s spent most of the last few years campaigning against any and all housing development, in her own seat or beyond. This has made life harder for both those who want homes (with whom she has shown remarkably little sympathy) and her own party (which has been terrified to introduce any planning reforms of the sort that might have appealed to the under 50s vote it’s almost completely lost). All but certain to lose to Labour unless the polls are very, very wrong. I know multiple Tories who’ll be quietly happy about that.

Liz Truss, South West Norfolk

I don’t need to explain who the shortest-lived Prime Minister in British history was, do I? A woman who was cruelly brought down by the OBR, Treasury, Bank of England, Supreme Court, United Nations, Human Rights Act (I could go on) after just 49 days? Anyway: a friend who’s been reporting in South West Norfolk, where she’s facing both an independent conservative and a strong Labour challenge, is utterly convinced she’s going to lose to Labour, even though the polls seem divided on the question, because her record means a negative personal vote. Now that one would be satisfying wouldn’t it?

Other “senior Tories” – a label, let’s be honest, that has been rather devalued these past few years – tagged as likely to lose their seats include Jake Berry, Gillian Keegan, Lucy Frazer, Mel Stride, Alex Chalk, Chris Philp, Michelle Donelan, Mark Harper, Andrew Mitchell, Esther McVey and Victoria Prentis. But let’s be honest, not one of them is a big enough name to give us the Portillo moment we crave.

Some Tories we won’t get to see lose, because they’ve stood down before the voters can kick them out, the spoilsports: Theresa May, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Chris Grayling, Matt Hancock, John Redwood, Kwasi Kwarteng, Ben Wallace, Nadhim Zahawi, Bill Cash.

While we’re here, Islington North, where Jeremy Corbyn could plausibly win as an independent but probably won’t, is meant to declare around 3am; the two seats most likely to go to Reform, Clacton (Nigel Farage) and Ashfield (Lee Anerson), declare around 4am and 4.30am respectively. 

Keir Starmer is, despite what some people on the internet have claimed, all but certain to retain his Holborn & St Pancras seat at around 2.30am.

You can see a full list of estimated declaration times on the Evening Standard website here.

For the final time, here’s a list of terrible things done by or to the Tory party in this campaign

• Someone in the party’s social media team thought it a good idea to release an utterly unhinged video of cartoons of Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and a terrifyingly enormous Ed Miliband, dancing to a remix of Starmer saying “tax”. In doing so, they inadvertently made the Labour party look about 30% cooler than it actually is.

• Someone in the Warwick University Conservative Association thought it’d be fun to get everyone dancing to a German marching song used by the Nazis in World War II, thus making young conservatives look even worse than they actually are. The Times, inevitably, acquired the footage.