Republicans struggle to dismiss the ‘weird’ comments – now the Tories are being labelled the same

It’s one word Republicans - not least JD Vance - have had a hard time brushing off in recent weeks, and now the UK’s Conservatives are also being considered “weird” by the electorate, according to new research by the company More in Common.

The Guardianreporters that the organisation, which was set up in the aftermath of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2017, spoke of a “danger that the Conservatives have started to become seen as ‘weird’”, based on findings from focus groups made up of ex-Tory voters.

They were made up of people from Tory constituencies gained by Reform UK (Great Yarmouth and South Basildon and East Thurrock, now held by Rupert Lowe and James McMurdock respectively), Labour (Rother Valley, now held by Jake Richards) and the Liberal Democrats (Surrey Heath and Henley and Thame, represented by Al Pinkerton and Freddie van Mierlo respectively).

In terms of the Lib Dems, More in Common said voters explained “they were voting Lib Dem in these traditionally Tory strongholds” because “Ed Davey’s party just seemed more ‘normal’”.

We imagine Davey’s pleased a general election campaign where the party leader was put through a number of outlandish publicity stunts had some benefits…

As a reminder, vice presidential candidate JD Vance – running on Donald Trump’s ticket – previously offered up an unconvincing response to being branded “weird” by his opponents, claiming it was “a little bit of projection” and that they are “name-calling instead of actually telling the American people how they’re going to make their lives better”.

And the risk of the Tories being considered “weird” wasn’t the only uncomfortable criticism being levelled at the Conservatives by those partaking in the research, as out of the six candidates vying to replace Rishi Sunak as leader of the party, only Priti Patel – the former home secretary – was the one more than half of the general public could correctly identify.

Ouch.

Shadow foreign secretary James Cleverly came across as the most liked in the focus groups, who described him with words such as “friendly, plain-speaking and approachable” and “laid-back”, while ex-business secretary Kemi Badenoch apparently offered something “new and different and refreshing”.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat was ranked the most “prime ministerial”, while Patel was viewed as being one of the most divisive candidates.

Robert Jenrick, the ex-immigration minister, received probably the most brutal assessment from the focus groups, as they branded him “smug”, “slimy” and “wooden”.

The group of six is made up by Mel Stride, former work and pensions secretary, but The Guardian’s report on the data doesn’t share any description of this particular candidate.

Awkward.

They’ll be whittled down to four candidates by the end of next week thanks to Tory MPs, then down to two at the start of October, before they go to the party membership with the winner announced in November.

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