Who will be the next Tory leader?

The 2022 Tory leadership race is finally over, well done to anyone who backed Liz Truss. Time to start thinking about who it might be worth betting on to be the next Conservative leader.

The odds say that Truss is unlikely to last more than a couple of years. The next general election is most likely to be in 2024 (although, in theory, January 2025 is the last possible date). Given the current polls and economic forecasts, it's very much an uphill battle for the Conservatives to get a result which would enable them to form another government after that election, and a leadership reset following a defeat would have to be quite probable.

A lot of the big names of Tory politics of the last few years are probably worth crossing off the list. Michael Gove has signalled that he's planning a life away from the front-line. Dominic Raab is quite unlikely to hold his seat in the event of a Tory election loss. One-time favourite Penny Mordaunt has probably seen her chance come and go. Hunt, Javid and Sunak don't appeal much as future leaders any more.

However, I don't think one could discount the possibility of a Boris Johnson comeback. The signs are that he'll hang around as a backbencher for a while yet, maybe on the off-chance that a leadership election pops up before a general election. I'm not sure whether enough Tory MPs would risk voting for him again but, if he made a run-off you'd have to fancy his chances. The latest odds at Smarkets say there is around a 5% chance he is restored as PM before the general election. If it doesn't happen by then, you'd have to wonder whether he'd be up for fighting his rather marginal seat of Uxbridge and West Ruislip at an election. I think I'd want about 33 on him being the next leader before betting on him.

Patrick Flynn has done a bit of research into recent UK leadership contests and picked out a few trends in our most recent podcast. One potentially big-priced outsider that ticked a lot of his boxes was the relatively unknown Ranil Jayawardna. He's been tipped up for a job in Truss's first cabinet and might be worth a bet if someone offers you 100/1 or bigger.

Of the market leaders in our early odds, I think I like the chances of Kemi Badenoch. She was the breakout star of this leadership election and Conservative Home's panel had her as the membership's preferred choice before she exited the MP's stage of the contest in a very creditable fourth place. I'd give her more than the 10% chance that the Smarket's odds currently offer. If James Cleverly is indeed given the Foreign Secretary job, I might be tempted to take the 20.0 on offer.