They have first to win the most sophisticated electorate in the world, and the man may be right that this might mean ‘the most devious’. More hats are in the ring, and most will fall swiftly by the wayside. Some are hopeless, some helpless, few friendless.
This site is trying to keep the list of Candidates up to date.
Their foibles and fancies are known more by their colleagues than by the rest of us. It is a question of policies, of appear to the electorate, of ability to command and inspire. Policies are the main battleground at the moment, and who will be most likely to effect a Brexit and one which the electorate will love, and what to do with the fatal document, the Withdrawal Agreement. It cannot be wished away.
Soon though come other considerations: Brexit will come and go (we fervently hope) but then government will continue with other issues, and the policies to prevail after that may cause more crises unless anticipated.
Then comes the point which will decide so much – character. Who has the right character to be permitted to hold such a high office as that of the Prime Minister, for that is what is at stake. No one ever judges character properly though: the ‘right’ character is ‘whoever is most like me or what I would like to be’, but in truth there are many types of character within the population, and none is right or wrong (just more or less annoying perhaps, or more or less trustworthy, but not right or wrong as such). Conservatives, as Jordan Peterson has observed, have a particular mindset requiring order and propriety, and we are suspicious or hostile to the open, disordered, liberal mindset, but sometimes the situation needs a creative, disordered mind: we celebrate still those statesmen who showed it, like Disraeli and Churchill.
It is easy to miss an opportunity to get a leader who will achieve in favour of one who can be relied upon to be reliable and unexciting. That must all go to the judgment faced by the most sophisticated, devious electorate in the world.
