Tom Tugendhat out of Tory leadership race – three remain

Tom Tugendhat has been voted out of the Conservative leadership race leaving just three left in the race to become Tory leader.

James Cleverly unexpectedly jumped into the lead of Tory leadership race with 39 out of the 121 votes, after a strong showing at last week’s Tory party conference.

While Robert Jenrick came second with 31 and Kemi Badenoch with 30.

Tom Tugendhat received 20, 10 less than his next rival.

Tomorrow the MPs will vote again to eliminate one more candidate from the race.

The final two will then face off with three weeks of campaigning left as they try to persuade party members to vote.

Cleverly is the last remaining candidate of the party’s One Nation wing, while both Badenoch and Jenrick are from the right.

Cleverly had highlighted the need to urgently build more houses, he said: “People are much less opposed to beautiful things than ugly things… there’s a lot of laziness in the planning system, it is easy to build out and it is easy to sprawl than to rise, that is laziness.”

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel was the first to leave the leadership election, while Mel Stride followed her in round two.

Stride has since come out publicly to support Cleverly.

More locally, MP for Hamble Valley Paul Holmes has resigned his position as a whip to announce his backing of James Cleverly.

Mr Holmes, who at the time had not declared for anyone, said: “My biggest observation from the election is how polite and clean it’s been.”

Badenoch has also received local endorsements from Damien Hinds (East Hampshire) and Alan Mak (Havant).

Whilst Jenrick has support from Desmond Swayne (New Forrest West).

All three candidates will be looking to unite the party, years of factionalism has been said to have been a cause of their biggest defeat in electoral history.

The new leader will be announced on November 2, with voting closing on 31 October.