Conservative leadership election, second ballot :
Theresa May 199 (60.5%)
Andrea Leadsom 84 (25.5%)
Michael Gove 46 (14.0%)
Michael, you have been evicted. Please leave the Tory Madhouse. (It's not pantomime booing, babes, they actually do hate you.)
There was some speculation that the notorious (not to say hilarious) email begging MPs to vote tactically for Gove was always intended to be leaked, to ensure that the "Michael is willing to take a damn good thrashing over the next two months" message got out to as wide as audience as possible. If so, it backfired spectacularly, because he actually got fewer votes in the second ballot than in the first. Who could possibly have foreseen that such a stunt would further tarnish both his reputation and his credibility?
Anyway, we now move on to a lengthy head-to-head members' ballot between Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May. And it sounds like it will indeed be very lengthy, because the Leadsom camp are understandably resisting any attempts to shorten the timetable - they need plenty of time to build their relatively unknown candidate up. Today's outcome also makes it much less likely that the whole thing will be called off in favour of a May coronation - it's possible that if Gove had finished a distant second to May, he might have been pressurised into standing down on the basis that he was very well known but had still been rejected, but Leadsom can reasonably claim that the momentum is with her and that there is still a realistic prospect of the members choosing her.
The outcome of this contest will be hugely important for all of us in the independence movement. Although Theresa May's tentative stance on negotiations with the EU effectively rule out the Norway option and continued membership of the European Economic Area, it's probably safe to say that Brexit will happen slower and take a slightly less extreme form with May than it will with Leadsom. Judging from my exchange with Duncan Hothersall earlier, it sounds like some in Scottish Labour will be praying for May to come out on top, because it's their only hope that they will still have some thin excuse for continuing to oppose independence.
OK, it's not impossible that Ken Clarke is right, and that Leadsom is just a chancer who will backtrack on all of her crazy promises as soon as she is elected. But if she doesn't, she'll back Labour into a corner. That could lead to a dramatic realignment in Scottish politics on the constitutional question - and one that would render independence near-enough inevitable.
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