We know more about this year’s Love Island contestants than the flimsy Tories vying for No 10

Esther McVey’s thoughtless intervention into the LGBT+ education in schools row shows the depths to which an ambitious Tory will sink to stand out in an uninspiring leadership contest

How many candidates are competing to lead the Tory party? The battle for media coverage among the hopefuls is intensifying, but we still know more about the contestants on the new series of Love Island than we do about the policies proposed by the 12 men and women who want to run Britain.

Strip away their positions on Brexit – which generally come couched in such opaque language that the average Brit has no clue what they’re talking about, and what are we left with? It’s all about talking up their “kerb appeal” and attempting to portray themselves as “normal” just like the disenchanted voters.

We know Rory Stewart has taken drugs and regrets it. We know one, Michael Gove, can’t load a dishwasher, but is a wonderful husband (according his wife, the Mail columnist Sara Vine). And we know that Dominic Raab is match-fit (but not a feminist) because he released an old picture to the media of a fit bloke in his boxing vest at Oxford. Former immigration minister Mark Harper is the latest person to jump on the crowded bus – he was forced to resign when it emerged his cleaner did not have permission to work in the UK. All very entertaining but the clear winner in the battle to get her name in print is Esther McVey, positioning herself as a “blue collar” Tory who understands working class folk.

McVey is backing Muslim parents who want to withdraw their primary school children from sex education lessons about same-sex relationships. Damian Hinds has demanded that the increasingly agitated protests outside a primary school in Birmingham should stop. McVey says she thinks that parents know best, saying: “While they are still children ... the parents need to have the final say in what they want their children to know”.

But those children and their parents are UK citizens and there are laws about discrimination and equality which must apply to all. We can’t have a pick-and-mix approach where one group of people use religion to claim special treatment. Esther’s intervention was thoughtless and unhelpful but shows the depths to which an ambitious Tory will go to claw their way to the top.

Either way, the job sounds about as appealing as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.