TV debates and 'dirty' tactics could still change things - everyone is nervous, says Marr

14 July 2022, 18:08 | Updated: 14 July 2022, 18:13

Tonight with Andrew Marr monologue - 14.07.22

Live TV debates and "dirty" tactics used by campaign teams will change the landscape of the Tory leadership contest and "everyone is nervous", Andrew Marr has said.

In his opening monologue, Andrew said: "It's been a complicated day in politics but an important one.

"My job is to take you by the hand and guide you through it. Later I'll be talking to the politician who may be the real winner after this contest – the Labour leader Keir Starmer.

"But first, after another hot and sticky day in the fun palace, what have the Tories been up to?

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"Well, faced with a wide choice of candidates Conservative MPs have taken a clear collective decision.

"It is: we can't make our minds up.

"Yes of course, individually they've all voted for somebody - but together in such a way that tonight nobody is triumphant, everybody is a bit nervous.

"Rishi Sunak remains front-runner but he can be caught.

"Yesterday's sprinter-ahead Penny Mordaunt remains comfortably second, well clear of her rival Liz Truss.

"But when the other two candidates, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch, fall out next week there are plenty of votes swirling around to change those placings.

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"But stop right there - are we really sure that Tugendhat, the soldier candidate, and Badenoch, the right-wing insurgent, the two lowest-placed, are bound to be eliminated?

"Actually, no we’re not - because next come TV debates when at last we get to see how fluent, how convincing, how watchable these would-be prime ministers really are.

"Live debates can change everything - stuttering non answers, terrible jokes that fall flat, simply coming over as a bit weird.

"Think you can run the country, do you? Fierce scrutiny in front of the television cameras will often sort out the loons and fantasists from the leaders.

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"So everything is still to play for. And then there is the dark and dirty business of different teams swapping support to ensure they get the opponents they want right at the end of the game.

"Must it be so complicated, I hear you ask. Must it go on so long?

"Well in many ways I think it should go on longer still.

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"This job is the ultimate power trip. And yet there’s been very little public scrutiny of what the candidates for it think - too much whispering and haggling at Westminster - too little frank challenge about, for instance, their views on schooling, crime and punishment, the way the rail system’s run, and a thousand other basic things.

"I don't really object that this is being stitched up by MPs. We have a parliamentary system and that's what it means.

"I do object, very much, that so far this has gone on in the shadows, except for a few staged and cheesy moments of smirking self congratulation far away from the rest of the country.

"You'd get more challenge - more testing - if you were up to be a middle Manager in, say, a logistics office in Slough.

"Enough already. Unleash the telly cameras."