Surely it can’t be long before I am tipped as a future Tory leader. After all, everyone else has been tipped, so it must soon be my turn.
At the moment, Jacob Rees-Mogg is the hot favourite. He is never mentioned without the epithet ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’ attached. It is almost as though another six barrels have been added to his surname, making him Jacob Rees-Mogg-Tipped- As-A-Future-Tory-Leader.
But there are plenty of other future leaders, too. In October of last year, The Times declared that Tom Tugendhat, the MP for Tonbridge and Malling, was ‘routinely tipped as a future Tory leader’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg ‘is never mentioned without the epithet ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’ attached’
Last month, the i-newspaper said that the Minister for Housing, Rishi Sunak, was being ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’. In January, The Sun described the Conservative vice-chairman Kemi Badenoch as ‘tipped as a future PM’.
Boris Johnson has been tipped as a future Tory leader for years and years, despite setbacks galore. Fourteen years ago, just after he’d been sacked by Michael Howard, the Daily Telegraph described him as ‘an Old Etonian who has been tipped as a future Tory leader’, and that’s what he has remained ever since.
Think how embarrassing it must be for any Tory MP who has been overlooked. It’s easy to imagine an H.M. Bateman cartoon captioned ‘The Conservative MP Who Claimed He’d Never Been Tipped as a Future Leader’, with a bemused little chap surrounded by startled colleagues, their arms flung high in astonishment.
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The title comes to everyone in the end. ‘Amber Rudd has been tipped as a future Tory leader’ (Evening Standard, October 2017), ‘Sajid Javid, the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver and self-made millionaire . . . has been tipped as a potential future Conservative leader’, (Financial Times, May 2015), ‘Ruth Davidson is widely tipped as a future Tory leader’ (Spectator, June 2017).
So much for the bigwigs, but even the littlewigs are permitted their time in the spotlight. ‘Damian Hinds has this morning been tipped as a future Tory leader,’ declared the Independent last month, at the same time as the Politico website was referring to ‘MP Johnny Mercer, tipped as a future Tory leader.’
Back in August 2015, Metro said that Priti Patel was ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’. Since then, she has been sacked from the Cabinet, so that she now tends to have the dread word ‘once’ attached to her name, as in ‘once tipped as a future Tory leader’.
Others have made even worse mistakes, and have gone from once-tipped to tipped-out, the most recent among them being Damian Green, Grant Shapps, Stephen Crabb and ‘safe pair of hands’ Michael Fallon.
Over the course of history, many have qualified for that most paradoxical of positions, the past future leader.
Whenever I see Michael Portillo on television, ambling awkardly along railway platforms, togged up like a greeter on Hi-de-Hi!, I remember how he regularly used to be ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’. Nowadays, he would probably count himself lucky to be tipped as a future Strictly contender.
Michael Portillo used to be ‘tipped as a future Tory leader’ but these says would probably count himself lucky to be tipped as a future Strictly contender
Thirty years ago, when Margaret Thatcher was still in No 10, the MP most often tipped as the next Tory leader was a thrusting young Cabinet minister called John Moore. Nowadays, he is a forgotten figure, too obscure even for a pub quiz, who sits in the House of Lords under the ghostly alias Lord Moore of Lower Marsh.
A quick quiz for you. In October 1988, which MP wrote this in their diary? ‘I will have a crack at the leadership as soon as I can, partly because I am in touch with real people, partly because I can offer some leadership and view the future.’
The answer? Edwina Currie, last spotted boarding a bus on Celebrity Coach Trip, following stints on Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Come Dine With Me.
Many are tipped, but few are chosen. It took years before Margaret Thatcher was ever tipped, or, for that matter, John Major.
More recently, George Osborne was tipped morning, noon and night. Who to tip next? I’d go for little Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg, youngest son of Jacob. His odds, I would say, are just as good as his father’s.