Next Friday, June 9, could be quite a moment for Amber Rudd. It will be a year to the day since she stormed to the frontline of British politics in a memorably devastating attack on her Tory colleague Boris Johnson. That came during a live ITV debate on the EU referendum, with Remainer Rudd describing her Leave-supporting opponent as “not the man you want to drive you home at the end of the evening”. If the latest YouGov poll and modelling for The Times are an accurate prediction of the general election result, June 9 could see Rudd’s rivalry with Johnson spring back into life.
Of course, I am getting carried away. I still believe, as I have throughout this campaign, that Theresa May will win the election with a decent enough majority to give her a strong hand in Brexit talks. I believe the prime minister has taken the electorate for granted and staked too much on her own personal authority when that was the very thing she lacked. But as I wrote last month, I also think that her manifesto, while politically difficult, was honest; her social care and winter fuel allowance plans an attempt to introduce fairness into a system that currently favours richer pensioners over poorer ones.
But, for a moment, let’s get carried away. Let’s assume that the YouGov modelling, predicting a hung parliament, is borne out on June 8. Having thrown away the first Conservative majority government for 18 years on a high-risk political power-play with Brussels, the prime minister will have to stand down. If she did not, there would be enough Tory MPs to demand her head. There is already anger over the way the campaign has gone and how the manifesto has surrendered the core Conservative principles of free markets and aspiration.
Into this tumult, May’s potential successors will be lined up. While many Tory MPs have insisted, even privately, during the election that there are no longer Remainers and Brexiteers, only Conservatives, each “side” will have its candidate. For the Leave camp, surely this will be the foreign secretary’s moment. Michael Gove cannot possibly take Johnson on another journey up the snakes and ladders board as he did last summer. On the Remain side, George Osborne is out of the way at the Evening Standard, serving up critical splashes of May with a side order of relish. After her assured performance in the BBC debate on Wednesday, taking the place of a leader who was widely criticised for not turning up, their candidate must be Rudd.
Pictured walking into Broadcasting House early on Wednesday evening, the home secretary suddenly looked like a Conservative leader in waiting. She has the steel and nerve of May, but without any of the on-screen awkwardness — a drawback that does matter in our Instagram age. She even possesses, dare I say, a little political stardust. She cut through the noise of six other politicians arguing over each other by hammering home her point about Jeremy Corbyn’s “magic money tree”. That she pulled off such a performance just two days after the death of her father is a credit to her composure.
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Her prominence as a Remainer during the referendum campaign, unlike submariner May, will be a disadvantage when trying to win the votes of Conservative traditionalists. Johnson will be the favourite among party activists, but the foreign secretary should beware: he’s no longer the only charismatic Tory blond on the block.