New Conservative party leader will be announced shortly – but James Cleverly says he won’t serve in either’s shadow cabinet

Good morning. Conservative party members have chosen a new leader and the winner will be announced shortly after 11am, at an event in London. This has only happened four times before since William Hague changed the rules a quarter of century ago to ensure members, not MPs, take the final decision about who should be leader. The process has not always worked very well – there’s been a failure rate of at least 50%, conventional wisdom would – which is one reason why he thinks his rule change has been a mistake.

The two obvious failures were Iain Duncan Smith, who was elected leader in 2001 but replaced after two years after MPs concluded he was not up to the job, and Liz Truss, who only lasted two months. The members’ decision to elect David Cameron in 2005 is generally seen as a good one, because he led his party back into power and won a second, surprise election victory. Members also voted for Boris Johnson in 2019; like Cameron, he also turned out to be an election-winner, but his record as PM was so dire, and caused such lasting reputational damage to the party, that it is arguable that this was a bad choice too.