Suella Braverman will almost certainly miss out on the first stage of the Conservative leadership race.

Good morning. Rachel Reeves will be making a big speech later today called “The Conservatives did something, we don’t know what it was, but it’s the horror of the planet.”

The big political picture here is that Labour came to power at a time when people were deeply unhappy with the state of public services. and Since the 2007 financial crisis, the economy has been experiencing a long period of slow growth.

When Labour came to power in 1997, it inherited a strong economy but a public sector in terrible disrepair. When the Conservatives came to power in 2010, they inherited a weak public finances, an economy that had not yet recovered from the financial crisis, but a strong country.

The governments of Tony Blair and David Cameron, in different ways, were able to use these mixed legacies to get re-elected through the policies they desired. In their different ways, Blair’s and Cameron’s re-election messages in 2001 and 2015 were both “we have reached a turning point and we must not let them drag us back”.

Reeves is trying a similar tactic, but she knows her closing argument in the next election will likely be the patently boring “The car’s still in the ditch. Don’t give the keys back to the guys who caused the accident.”

The effectiveness of that message will depend on a variety of factors, including who ends up representing “the people who ruined it,” or, more pejoratively, the Conservative Party. Now that the first candidate has been chosen, here are some thoughts on how the Conservative leadership race is going.

My 10 Conservative MPs go to different schools.

Suella Braverman has withdrawn from the Conservative Party leadership race. He wrote some delightfully scathing articles for the Telegraph. Although she had enough support to run (to appear on the ballot, a candidate needs the nomination of 10 MPs by today’s deadline), the parliamentary party is sufficiently opposed to her that there is no point in her running.

I am grateful to the ten MPs who have offered to nominate me for leadership, but being on the ballot paper is not enough. There is no point, good or bad, in someone like me running for leadership of the Conservative Party when most of them do not agree with my diagnosis and prescription. A traumatised party does not want to hear these things said out loud. Instead, the cliché of “unity” has become fashionable. That is fine, but it is not honest… I have been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to know that the Conservative Party does not want to hear the truth as I put it.

Listeners of the Financial Times podcast, The Political Fix, will know this isn’t much of a surprise. When George Parker asked me to assess the candidates, I said Braverman was irrelevant because he wouldn’t have the votes necessary to stand. John Hayes, a huge influence among intellectuals and organisations on the right of the party, supported Braverman in the last election but backed Robert Jenrick instead, which all but killed Braverman’s leadership race before it even began.

Jenrick’s greatest success so far has been to build a natural base of support among MPs who supported Braverman last time when he was a rebellious backbencher, and to never stray from his course when he was a government minister. This has given him enough credibility to command at least some support from the party’s centre. It will be a tough road to choose the final two candidates in the autumn – the top two chosen by Conservative MPs will be put to a vote by party members – but I think Jenrick is well placed.

In reality, the parliamentary election stage One The election is up for grabs, with two seats at stake, one on the right and one on the left of the party. Jenrick’s remaining rivals on the right are all tarnished in some way. Priti Patel has a strong PR campaign – backing candidates in their constituencies and remembering details like their birthdays – but she was home secretary when the boat scandal first emerged, which will be hard to overcome.

Kemi Badenoch announced her candidacy The Timeshas a very vocal following, but the problem with running as a truth-teller without regard for party solidarity is that, while she has a point, that message is often rejected by lawmakers in favor of a more moderate figure.

Mr Jenrick would then have to beat one of Tom Tugendhat, Mel Stride or James Cleverley from his own party – and even this is not guaranteed – but at this stage in the race Mr Jenrick is my preferred candidate.

Let’s try this

I saw Inside Out 2 I loved this movie this weekend. I think it was better than the original. It’s a charming film about early adolescence and is full of funny jokes. My partner thought the sequel was good but inferior. Danny Lee was less enthusiastic about it than I was, but you can read his review here.

Today’s Top News

• Out of his own pocket | British port authorities are demanding compensation if a Labour government strikes a deal with the EU to lower trade barriers after being forced to spend millions of pounds building border control facilities after Brexit.

• Brick by Brick | Lord Chancellor Angela Rayner this week announced a fast-track consultation to overhaul planning rules, aiming to deliver 1.5 million homes, including “large-scale social and affordable housing”.

• Is there a chance of interest rates being reduced? | Unexpectedly stronger UK services inflation led to a tense meeting of the Bank of England on Thursday as policymakers considered whether to go ahead with the first interest rate cut since 2020.

• Hedge bets | At least 12 Conservative MPs Start a consultancy company The Guardian’s Rob Davis and Michael Goodier report that with the election defeat looming, some businesses have visited the Companies House to find new revenue opportunities.