Conservative Party Leadership Election candidates confirmed

The candidates standing to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party leader have been confirmed. The candidates confirmed to have obtained the required 10 nominations and have progressed to the first round of leadership are Mel Stride, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, and Robert Jenrick. Many political commentators regard Kemi Badenoch as the favourite to win the contest and become the new leader of the Conservative Party. The schedule for the contest in regards to voting does not start until September when the first two rounds of ballots among MPs will determine who makes the final four candidates for the leadership. The Conservative Party conference which is due to take place between the 29th of September and the 2nd of October is where the last four candidates will all give keynote speeches highlighting their leadership pitches to party members, delegates, and fellow MPs. The next two rounds of voting will then take place immediately after the closure of the Party Conference between the 2nd of October and 10th of October which will narrow down the number of contestants to just the final two. After the narrowing down of the contestants to just two, the final two candidates will go head-to-head in an online ballot of Conservative Party members between the 10th of October and the 31st of October before the results of the contest in the ballot of Tory Party members is announced on the 2nd of November 2024. Whoever takes over as leader faces a demoralized party attempting to recover from the party's worst-ever election result in terms of both seats and percentage of the vote. The Labour Party's huge majority of 174 seats means it's also likely that they are guaranteed two full terms in office unless the Conservatives mount a comeback of epic proportions trying to cover such a large seat total deficit or the incumbent Labour government implodes on a grand scale. Only these events could likely see the Conservative Party stage a recovery and spend only one term in opposition.