LONDON: Two right-wing former ministers will go head-to-head to win votes from members of the Conservative Party and become its next leader after making it through to the final round of a contest set to shape the future of Britain’s once dominant party.
Wednesday’s vote by Conservative lawmakers was the penultimate step in a race that has been marked by the kind of in-fighting that some Conservatives blame for their party’s defeat in July’s national election.
Party members nationwide will now choose between former business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick. The victor will be announced on Nov. 2.
Badenoch came first in the race among Conservative lawmakers with 42 out of 120 votes, with Jenrick coming a close second on 41 votes. In a surprise twist, Cleverly, who won the third round of voting, was eliminated from the race with 37 votes.
Whoever becomes leader will be charged with turning around the fortunes of a party that had governed Britain, alone or in coalition, since 2010 but which suffered its worst defeat in the July election, when Labour won a landslide victory.
But the Conservatives are more hopeful of returning to power in five years’ time rather than the once expected 10 after Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered a bumpy start in government, coming under fire over welfare cuts and donations for clothes.
According to the Conservative Home website, Badenoch is the most popular contender among the party’s membership, although former foreign minister Cleverly was boosted after the annual conference, when he made a well-received speech.
“I’m grateful for the support I’ve received on this campaign,” Cleverly said. “Sadly it wasn’t to be.”
One Conservative lawmaker said Cleverly’s unexpected exit was evidence of “dark arts,” suggesting one of the candidates must have asked supporters to back Cleverly in Tuesday’s round of voting to make him appear temporarily stronger.
The final two candidates both say they will reunite a party that became mired in chaos, scandal and deep divisions over Brexit during its last eight years in government, and they pledge to return to its conservative roots to offer an alternative to Labour at the next national election, which must take place by mid-2029.
But they differ over tackling immigration, with Jenrick wanting to leave the European Convention of Human Rights, a treaty agreed by almost every European nation, while Badenoch says immigration can be tackled without doing so.
Two right-wing former ministers left in race to be UK Conservative leader
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Two right-wing former ministers left in race to be UK Conservative leader
- Party members will choose between former business and trade minister Kemi Badenoch and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick
- James Cleverly, who won the third round of voting, was eliminated from the race with 37 votes
Biden, Obama, GW Bush and Clinton assigned unflattering descriptions on Trump’s Presidential Walk of Fame
- Two plaques are reserved for Trump's two presidency, each is full of praise and superlatives, and concludes with “THE BEST IS YET TO COME”
- Those not to Trump's liking have unflattering descriptions, with Joe Biden introduced as “Sleepy Joe” and “by far, the worst President in American History"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has affixed partisan plaques to the portraits of all US commanders in chief, himself included, on his Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House, describing Joe Biden as “sleepy,” Barack Obama as “divisive” and Ronald Reagan as a fan of a young Trump.
The additions, first seen publicly Wednesday, mark Trump’s latest effort to remake the White House in his own image, while flouting the protocols of how presidents treat their predecessors and doubling down on his determination to reshape how US history is told.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement describing the installation in the colonnade that runs from the West Wing to the residence. “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
Indeed, the Trumpian flourishes include the president’s typical bombastic language and haphazard capitalization. They also highlight Trump’s fraught relationships with his more recent predecessors.
An introductory plaque tells passersby that the exhibit was “conceived, built, and dedicated by President Donald J. Trump as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”
Besides the Walk of Fame and its new plaques, Trump has adorned the Oval Office in gold and razed the East Wing in preparation for a massive ballroom. Separately, his administration has pushed for an examination of how Smithsonian exhibits present the nation’s history, and he is playing a strong hand in how the federal government will recognize the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.
Here’s a look at how Trump’s colonnade exhibit tells the presidential story.
Joe Biden
Joe Biden is still the only president in the display not to be recognized with a gilded portrait. Instead, Trump chose an autopen, reflecting his mockery of Biden’s age and assertions that Biden was not up to the job.
Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election and dropped out of the 2024 election before their pending rematch, is introduced as “Sleepy Joe” and “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
Two plaques blast Biden for inflation and his energy and immigration policy, among other things. The text also blames Biden for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and asserts falsely that Biden was elected fraudulently.
Biden’s post-White House office had no comment on his plaque.
Barack Obama
The 44th president is described as “a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History.”
The plaque calls Obama’s signature domestic achievement “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care Act.”
And it notes that Trump nixed other major Obama achievements: “the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal ... and ”the one-side Paris Climate Accords.”
An aide to Obama also declined comment.
George W. Bush
George W. Bush, who notably did not speak to Trump when they were last together at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, appears to win approval for creating the Department of Homeland Security and leading the nation after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the plaque decries that Bush “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened.”
An aide to Bush didn’t return a message seeking comment.
Bill Clinton
The 42nd president, once a friend of Trump’s, gets faint praise for major crime legislation, an overhaul of the social safety net and balanced budgets.
But his plaque notes Clinton secured those achievements with a Republican Congress, the help of the 1990s “tech boom” and “despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency.”
Clinton’s recognition describes the North American Free Trade Agreement, another of his major achievements, as “bad for the United States” and something Trump would “terminate” during his first presidency. (Trump actually renegotiated some terms with Mexico and Canada but did not scrap the fundamental deal.)
His plaque ends with the line: “In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
An aide to Clinton did not return a message seeking comment.
Other notable plaques
The broadsides dissipate the further back into history the plaques go.
Republican George H.W. Bush, who died during Trump’s first term, is recognized for his lengthy resume before becoming president, along with legislation including the Clean Air Act and Americans With Disabilities Act — despite Trump’s administration relaxing enforcement of both. The elder Bush’s plaque does not note that he, not Clinton, first pushed the major trade law that became NAFTA.
Lyndon Johnson’s plaque credits the Texas Democrat for securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (seminal laws that Trump’s administration interprets differently than previous administrations). It correctly notes that discontent over Vietnam led to LBJ not seeking reelection in 1968.
Democrat John F. Kennedy, the uncle of Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is credited as a World War II “war hero” who later used “stirring rhetoric” as president in opposition to communism.
Republican Richard Nixon’s plaque states plainly that the Watergate scandal led to his resignation.
While Trump spared most deceased presidents of harsh criticism, he jabbed at one of his regular targets, the media — this time across multiple centuries: Andrew Jackson’s plaque says the seventh president was “unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly as President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”
Donald Trump
With two presidencies, Trump gets two displays. Each is full of praise and superlatives — “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.” He calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a “landslide.”
Trump’s second-term plaque notes his popular vote victory — something he did not achieve in 2016 — and concludes with “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.”
Meanwhile, the introductory plaque presumes Trump’s addition will be a White House fixture once he is no longer president: “The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America.”
