The fact that Kathy Dunderdale volunteered a certain comment in a scrum on Thursday tells you it was a prepared line, likely to try and counteract the fairly plain idea that her leadership is a done-der-deal cooked up in a back-room somewhere before Christmas.
Dunderdale volunteered that she “would have” welcomed a contested leadership for the Conservative Party. She changed the verb tense because the one that first spilled from her lips actually confirmed the “done deal” impression everyone has but the damage was done.
It’s a bit like the Conservative Party website. Before Christmas it proudly displayed a heavily photoshopped shot of the new Premier, identified as the party’s “interim” leader.
Now the whole thing is gone. It looks like the Conservatives don’t have a leader at all.
You can tell the Conservatives have a mess.
The tell you they have a mess by all their gestures to deny there is a mess.
- srbp -