Mrs May should appoint an ex military man as her new Party Chairman

Ladbrokes have a market on who the next Chairman or Chairwoman of the the Tory party will be. It seems Sir Patrick McLoughlin will be standing down following his role in the disastrous general election campaign and the farce at the Tory conference when a ‘comedian’ interrupted Mrs May and the background behind Mrs May start falling apart, which in no way was symbolic for the shambles Mrs May has become since she called the snap election that squandered David Cameron’s majority. So who to replace him?

Quite a few reports in recent weeks have tipped immigration minister Brandon Lewis as the next Party Chairman, and understandably Shadsy has made Mr Lewis is the favourite but I wonder if Mrs May should be a bit bolder in her choice, with respect to Mr Lewis he seems a very underwhelming choice.

From that list I think her choice should be one of the former military men on that list, Messrs Mercer and Tugendhat. As ex military men they might be best to exploit Corbyn and Labour’s perceived weakness on military matters, an area that wasn’t fully exploited by the Tories during the election campaign, as they focused on the past instead of the present.

Johnny Mercer can demonstrate that he is electorally successful. In 2015 he gained a seat from Labour and this year his fellow Tory MP in Plymouth, Oliver Colvile, lost his seat with a 7.2% swing to Labour, whilst Johnny Mercer increased his majority with a 4.4% swing from Labour, which defied the national trend. That’s the sort of electoral nous the Tory party needs if it is going to remain in power after the next general election. He could also use his own experiences to get non voters to vote Tory, ‘In 2014 Johnny Mercer had never voted – now he’s an MP.’

Tom Tugendhat has the attributes to deal with the perceptions that the Tories are out of touch with younger voters. He has a masters in Islamics from Cambridge, speaks fluent Arabic, and when the Tory/DUP alliance was being mooted he wrote a brilliant piece expressing his doubts about the deal, in part because of the DUP’s stance on homosexuality. He’s pretty competent too, becoming Chair of the prestigious and influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee a little over two years after becoming an MP.

Tobias Ellwood is another ex military man and currently a minister, but apart from his response to the tragic aftermath of the attack on Westminster, I don’t know enough about him to know if he’d make a good Party Chairman.

TSE