Either was going to be a shit choice, because they are nasty nasty people. She's worse, and will keep the Tories out of power for quite a while, so... thanks!
The MPs wanted Cleverly anyway but they shit the bed trying to engineer an easy opponent for him in the final two. He's now said he's not going to join the shadow cabinet, so while Badenoch has to deal with all the struggles of being LOTO, Cleverly will be on the backbenches, giving speeches to constituency parties, improving his reputation, sounding like some sort of experienced elder statesman to contrast with Badenoch.
A VONC to put Cleverly in charge seems very likely unless Starmer's polling numbers really tank over the next few years.
At this point I'm asking myself who I'd rather have sitting opposite Kier Starmer and no matter how many times I run it through my head, Ed Davey wins every time, no contest.
Another cartoon villain. Might be loony enough to pull back some Reform voters, but she won't be winning any votes back in the center. She seems to be opposing David Tennant rather than Kier Starmer, but neither is a fight she can win in the court of popular opinion.
Even her own supporters don't really support her. There was an interview with a conservative MP on the financial times YouTube channel, What he basically said that he supports her more than he supports RJ but realistically neither of them are long-term viable candidates.
He said that as long as the conservatives obsess over the culture wars they'll never win another election.
It's the fact that she weaponises it, often using herself as an example of why something isn't needed, such as DEI or maternity pay, ignoring that she ended up in an incredibly privileged position even before becoming a MP.
Couple that with her bloodthirsty desire for revenge on anybody or anything that annoys her, such as her statement that a quarter of civil servants belong in jail means if she did ever get in we would have ideocial purges worthy of any of the most nutty dictators.
I absolutely do not buy her defense that it was just a jolly jape, that's the defense of the far right when they fail to land enough support for whatever hateful shit they just spouted.
She will try to court the far-right but fail miserably because the far-right are racist/misogynistic and she's a black woman. Will fall on a no confidence vote and won't make it to the next General election. Just keeping the seat warm for Cleverly methinks.
Then he'll take over and try to bring the party back more towards the middle which will also fail because it'll immediately cause a bunch of infighting between those with more than two IQ points and the current lot.
The only way for the conservative party to survive now without splitting up is to have a cull of the extremists and I just don't think Cleverly has the balls for that.