The Tories’ Fearless Four battle to the end. Alas, that’s just the beginning | John Crace

Welcome, my friends, to the Show That Never Ends. At least, that’s the way it feels. Hard to believe after weeks of nonsense and four days of the Fearless Four saying the same thing minute after minute that we’ve still got a month of the Tory leadership election to go. I guess we just need to be thankful for small mercies: we may not be at the beginning of the end, but we are at the end of the beginning.

God it’s been one hell of a slog. People have died, long service medals have been won and my therapy bills have gone through the roof. Spare a thought for those who have had to listen to all this doggybollox.

An election that is at best inconsequential and at worst an irrelevance. At a time when the Middle East is about to enter another full-scale war, the Tory party has chosen to take indefinite leave of absence to talk about itself. And it’s not even as if the conversation has been honest. That is still a step too far.

Be grateful for small mercies. At least Tory conference is over for another year. Though this one ended in the most painful way possible with each of the four contenders giving what were billed as 20-minute leader’s speeches. Only they all overran hideously. As if we haven’t suffered enough. What is it with so many politicians that they have no idea how to stop once they have started talking. All blessed with a total inability to read the room. TLDL. Too Long Didn’t Listen.

A far more entertaining format would have been to have organised a cage fight between the Fearless Four. Or tag team mud wrestling. That’s something some of us could have stayed awake for.

Though I guess there would have only ever have been one winner. Kemi Badenoch. She would have just pulled out an AK-47 and gunned down the other three. Before turning the weapon on herself. There’s nothing KemiKaze likes more than sudden death.

Proceedings began with Tory party chairman, Richard Fuller, handing over a bell – me neither – to somebody no one could identify, while Michael Gove and George Osborne looked on disinterestedly from the press seats. Even they don’t give a toss about the Tories any more.

Then came the shadow chief whip, Stuart Andrew, to make a few cracks about Keir Starmer taking Taylor Swift freebies. He forgot to mention that he took Kylie Minogue freebies not so long ago. Maybe he’s just pissed off with his own lack of ambition.

Tom Tugendhat went first, needing a real barnstormer to change the dial on his chances. He didn’t really deliver. Although he did the entire routine without an Autocue, he still managed to sound as if some of what he was saying came as a surprise to him. Go figure. For the most part he just rambled somewhat, switching from platitude to platitude with no real insight why the Tories were humiliated at the last election.

He did mention that he had been in the army. Of course he did. Though he promised not to kill us. He also rather glossed over why he had supported Liz Truss in 2022 – the Trusster is the Tories’ guilty secret – and ignored Partygate. There again, they all did. When the history of the last five years comes to be written, the Fearless Four are going to be astonished to find themselves front and centre of it.

“I’ve never failed in a mission yet,” said Tom. Hostage to fortune. He might just find there’s always a first time. Make that a second time. His 2022 leadership bid also came to nothing. “I get it. You’ve had enough,” he declared. Then carried on. Either that’s sublime comic timing or a lack of awareness. You decide.

Next up was James Cleverly. Everyone’s natural fourth-in-command. A born follower. Still, at least Jimmy Dimly knows how to turn his weaknesses into strengths. He still hasn’t quite worked out how to use an Autocue and kept slowing down to give it a chance to keep up. At times he sounded like someone edging close to some gravitas. Mostly though he sounded just like David Brent. “There’s no time to lose and I don’t lose,” he announced, clearly thrilled with what he had said. He didn’t mind that it could have been lifted straight from The Office.

There were other moments of weirdness. Praising ticket gougers and claiming Labour had lied to the country. Er, guys. That was you. Jimmy D rambled on and on in a death match with the Autocue, daring people to stay conscious. But the hall loved him. The clear winner. Maybe because he was the only one who sounded vaguely normal. You wouldn’t believe how low the bar is in this particular contest.

Robert Jenrick was true to himself. High on Ozempic and thoroughly dislikeable. Almost as if he really doesn’t want to become leader. “You know how I loathe empty rhetoric,” he said. Before giving a speech grounded in 30 minutes of empty rhetoric. I will miss him if he doesn’t get the job. He makes my job so much easier.

“I am in politics for the little people,” Honest Bob continued. Conveniently forgetting to mention the £50m favour he had done as housing minister for Tory pornographer Dirty Des. He also promised an end to “more managed decline”. Nice of him to admit that was the Tory legacy.

After pandering to a few more easy prejudices, he wondered why there were no teachers, doctors and nurses in the hall. Er … that was because they were at the Labour conference last week. Ozempic Bob had weeks to write this speech and this was the best he could come up with.

Last up was Kemi Badenoch, ready to renew her abusive relationship with the Conservatives. Here were the rules. She gets to treat them like trash and in return they give their undying loyalty. As ever her speech was a long list of grievances with no effort to understand why the country now loathes her party. She thinks the Tories lost the election because of a slavish devotion to net zero.

“I don’t like a fight,” she lied. She loves one. And she was ready to take on all comers. It was the weirdest leadership pitch yet. One based entirely on a culture war. She was going to make the 2030s great.

She couldn’t explain why the Tories hadn’t made the 2010s or the 2020s great while they had the chance. All that mattered was that people who were nice to each other, who treated one another with respect, should know that their days were numbered. And she’d be starting by imprisoning 50,000 civil servants.

Was this it? Was this really it? Had we waited four days for this? The audience was screaming to be let out. Half had vanished before the national anthem. What’s wrong with Tories these days? Don’t they love their country?