I was in the room for the Tory leadership elimination - and everyone said the same thing

I’ve just emerged from Committee Room 14 in the heart of Parliament where I, along with half the country’s political reporters, learnt the outcome of the final MP round of this Tory leadership election - and I feel pretty shell shocked.

We all thought that after yesterday’s gobsmacking result in which James Cleverly leapfrogged into pole position that today’s excitement would be finding out whether Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch would secure the coveted second spot.

What literally no one expected was for James Cleverly to be leapfrogged by both Jenrick and Badenoch and get knocked out himself.

As one Badenoch-supporting MP quipped following the result, he wasn't sure who gasped the loudest - MPs or the press.

After a brief consultation with some Tory MPs and my fellow political reporters, we concluded: we have no idea what just happened.

This was not on the cards. The centrists were surely on course for a candidate of their own, while the right would have to make a choice between the two rival options.

Was there vote switching by Robert Jenrick? Vote switching by James Cleverly? Or vote switching by Kemi Badenoch?

Or indeed all or none of the above?

One theory doing the rounds at the moment is that Mr Cleverly attempted to game the final two by handing some of his backers to Robert Jenrick who would be easier to beat than Ms Badenoch, only to make a fatal miscalculation.

I doubt we will ever know.

These races are often subject to game playing. Andrea Leadsom insists she was stitched up by sinister forces when she was forced to quit the race and grant Theresa May a coronation.

Members of Boris Johnson’s team have quite openly admitted that they leant votes to ensure they would run against Jeremy Hunt and not the scarier prospect of Michael Gove.

Similar shenanigans took place in 2022 when Liz Truss leapfrogged Penny Mordaunt to secure a place in the final two against Rishi Sunak.

Tory MPs like to think of themselves as “The world's most sophisticated electorate”. They might like to think that, many observers think they’re all too clever by half and should give their pint-sized Machiavelli impressions a rest for once.

This race has had more twists and turns than a pig’s tail, but at the end of the day I think Tory members will be largely relieved to have the choice between both the pollster’s favourite (Badenoch) and a solid anti-ECHR candidate (Jenrick).

But with a party so clearly split on the fundamentals - immigration, culture wars, the economy, house building - does any of the matter?

Can either of them ‘do a Starmer’, put the division of recent years behind them, reform the party, and win the next election?

Or will we be here again in a year or two after a vote of no confidence, further infighting and in need of yet another party leader?

Nigel Farage and Keir Starmer will surely be praying for such an outcome - it’s now up to Tory members not to play into either of their hands.