Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat criticises Lib Dem leader Ed Davey for attending party conference

While the Liberal Democrats’ party conference in Brighton has already made headlines with Sir Ed Davey trying out jet skiing and volleyball, and beloved guide dog Jennie (owned by Torbay MP Steve Darling) getting her own conference pass, Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat has taken the bizarre step of seemingly criticising Davey for not being in his Kingston constituency instead.

The former security minister is looking to replace Rishi Sunak as the next leader of the Conservative Party later this year, as is shadow home secretary James Cleverly, ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former international trade secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Former home secretary Priti Patel and ex-work and pensions secretary Mel Stride had also made the longlist, but were eliminated by fellow Tory MPs in the first and second rounds of voting respectively.

Having already made campaign videos in Clacton (Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s constituency) and Holborn and St Pancras (Labour leader and prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s constituency), Tugendhat released a video on Saturday in which he was exploring Kingston.

He says in the video: “Today I’m in Kingston, in Ed Davey’s constituency. It’s the first day of the Lib Dem conference, so he’s not here, but a lot of his voters are.

“Now, I was asking why they’re voting for him and why they’re not voting for a party of government like us or the Labour Party.

“It’s interesting, a lot of people are choosing to protest, they’re choosing against, rather than for. And the question is: is that enough, or do we need to convince people that people actually should be choosing an answer for government, rather than just an option against.”

In a caption accompanying the campaign ad, Tugendhat wrote that he was “in [Davey’s] constituency” while he is “jet skiing into Lib Dem conference”.

“It’s clear that the Lib Dems are just another protest party,” he said.

Except Tugendhat’s decision to criticise a party leader for… well… doing his job as party leader has been mocked and branded “weird” by social media users online:

Others have sought to remind the leadership candidate of what happened over the past 14 years the Tories were in government, and the party's historic defeat at the ballot box in July:

Not to mention that Tugendhat himself will leave his own constituency of Tonbridge to attend the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham later this month, where together with the other three remaining candidates he will make his case to party members.

MPs will then knock out a further two candidates over 9 and 10 October, before the ballot of party members closes on 31 October and the new leader is announced on 2 November.

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