The winners and losers from the Tory leadership debates and hustings

Politics Explained: TV debates are an opportunity for outsiders and a risk for frontrunners

It’s easy to see why Boris Johnson dodged a grilling by Westminster political reporters, as well as the first TV debate of the Conservative leadership campaign.

Right now, these are not the constituencies the succession frontrunner needs to persuade. All he requires are the votes of more than a third of the 313 Tory MPs at Westminster to get through to the final ballot of Conservative members, and he seems to be doing a very good job of securing them.

But who are the winners and losers from the TV debate and lobby hustings?

Clearest winner must be Rory Stewart. Faced with a line-up of mainly long-serving cabinet ministers, he seized the opportunity to present himself as the fresh face offering change.

He grabbed the attention of the camera with a vivid – if slightly peculiar – anecdote about how he had tried to prove his machismo at home by attempting to ram three full binbags into an overstuffed bin.

And in response to the nightmare job interview question of “What is your biggest weakness?”, rather than following the other candidates down the standard route of confessing to perfectionism or impatience to get results, Stewart must have endeared himself to many viewers by saying that, yes, he did have many weaknesses and was trying to overcome them.

Other contenders used the opportunity to burnish their credentials, with Michael Gove reminding people of his success at leading three government departments and Jeremy Hunt repeatedly mentioning his hopes of being the first entrepreneur to become prime minister.

Dominic Raab seemed less convincing as he tried to act the Brexit tough man, telling Mr Gove that he would “buckle” in Brussels.

Gove reminded people of his success of running three government departments (EPA)

Sajid Javid’s team were pleased with their candidate’s success in getting across his chosen self-description as an “outsider” due to his modest background as the son of an immigrant bus-driver.

Since TV debates first burst into the UK political scene in 2010, it has been the pattern that they give outsiders an opportunity to shine.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg enjoyed an improbable wave of “Cleggmania” largely on the back of a televised clash in which both David Cameron and Gordon Brown repeatedly attempted to gain an advantage over their main rival by saying “I agree with Nick”.

But it is more difficult to see what any of the candidates hoped to gain from Monday’s hustings before Westminster reporters.

With no cameras present, they had no opportunity to win over anyone with a vote in the election.

Instead, it was largely a game of dodging gaffes, as questions flew about their past drug use, whether they agreed with Donald Trump’s retweeting of Katie Hopkins and various other issues which they may not have wanted to discuss.

Perhaps, in fact, the biggest winner of all was Boris Johnson, simply by the act of not turning up.