So to confirm, now we have near-final numbers:
Every time 19 Tory MPs get a bit grumpy this parliament and stick their letters into the 1922 Committee...
...it'll automatically trigger a leadership contest.
Worth remembering, for the next five years, that the Tory party rules ASSUME they'll have a large number of sitting MPs.
e.g. to automatically start a leadership context only 15% of tory MPs have to put in letters.
15% of 130ish seats is... not a lot.
This will be doubly awkward as the number of NOMINATIONS required for a candidate to make the Tory Leadership ballot ISN'T a percentage.
It's a fixed number.
100 MPs.
I'm sure it sounded reasonable at the time.
Good luck getting 100 Tory MPs to agree on something when there are only 121 of them.
So frankly this is actually the first barrier that will meed addressing BEFORE they can even think of having a leadership contest.
Because right now it would be LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for more than one candidate to be nominated.
I suspect no-one's explained that to Cleverly, Badenoch and Suella yet.
They're gonna need someone to wake up the 1922 committee and get them to change all the rules first.
And this, kids, is why you ask experienced TTRPG system designers like me to draw up your political game system rules...
Weeeelll this is where it probably ALSO gets fun. But we don't really know the rules of the 1922 committee. So god knows that their rules are on being quorate etc.
And yes, they may well need to run a 1922 election before they can even change any other rules.
bsky.app/profile/phil...
How many of the last 1922 executive have been returned? Is there enough of them to know the rules, change the rules and then run the contest or are they all in the dark now the Graham Brady isn't there?
Basically none of these are insurmountable problems. But they're procedural issues that the Tory party needs to address WHILST ALSO dealing with the Significant Emotional Event of now being the party of opposition.
It’s amazing isn’t it. They’re already publicly arguing over changing the rules for the leadership contest.
The advantage the Tories have is the 1922 can do whatever it wants. The disadvantage is the 1922 can do whatever it wants.
how much hassle and wrangling and procedural *stuff* is there for selecting who is on the 1922 committee, and for them to rewrite the rules? I'm guessing that's not quick or automatic?
I'm going to be boring and assume someone will have been shell shocked into sufficient sanity to realize that if you set one number in units of the parliamentary representation, you've got to set *all* the numbers in those units, and then they'll change it and sail off into insanity again.
How many of the last 1922 executive have been returned? Is there enough of them to know the rules, change the rules and then run the contest or are they all in the dark now the Graham Brady isn't there?
Doing some quick searching and using Wikipedia's list of members, 5 of the 17 members were reelected (including the Vice Chair, Treasurer, and one of the Joint Executives), 4 stood down (including the Chair), and 8 were defeated.
While TTPRPGs are a good source, I'd recommend the board game Cosmic Encounter as an even better source for political game system rules.
Among other things, it included a "Filch" card that let you steal cards from the deck when other players are distracted. (Later versions may have nerfed it.)
Well, nominating only one candidate would prevent what I shall call a “Truss Error” by preventing the loons in the party base electing another demonstrably unfit candidate.
I'm basically expecting them to declare a Triumvirate and spend the rest of the Parliament trying to assassinate each other. Braverman, Badenoch and Patel...
You make a good point about getting them to agree, but presumably, given that there have been more than (no of Tory MPs / 100) candidates before, MPs can nominate more than one candidate?
But the rules right now are 100.
As you say, they'll change them once they've sorted out a new 1922. But they have to do that before they can really contemplate a leadership election.
Ultimately what i was highlighting is that AS IT STANDS the Tories aren't set up to be a small party.
My assumption is they'll drop the limit to about 25-30 for the next contest.
But, if anything, the 15% letters thing is their bigger issue if they don't change it. So they'd be very silly not to sort that at the sane time.
The 15 per cent rule actually dates from the last time they were a small party. It’s a Hague era change because it used to be even easier to trigger a contest (just needed a named challenger) and he feared getting got by Portillo.
