Tom Tugendhat: the former soldier running for leader

Tom Tugendhat has become the first Conservative MP to throw his hat in the ring to succeed Boris Johnson following the prime minister’s resignation yesterday.

The MP for Tonbridge, who has never served in the government, launched his leadership bid in an article for The Daily Telegraph, where he called for “a clean start and a government that will make trust, service and an unrelenting focus on the cost of living crisis its guiding principles”.

As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of MPs, Tugendhat received private praise from former prime ministers and presidents last summer for an “electrifying address” to the Commons, “in which he raged against the ‘abandonment’ of Afghanistan”, reported the Mail on Sunday at the time.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The emotional speech “led to predictions that the man who gave it will follow their path to high office”, said the paper.

Who is Tom Tugendhat?

Tugendhat grew up in London and Sellindge, near Ashford in Kent, before studying theology at Bristol University.

He learned to speak Arabic in Yemen during his master’s degree in Islamic studies at Cambridge University, which came in useful in 2003 when he joined the Territorial Army.

There, he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and received an MBE for his efforts on operations. As a Foreign Office diplomat, he also assisted Afghanistan’s national security adviser and later worked with the governor of Helmand province.

Parliamentary career

Two years after leaving the British Army in 2013, he was elected MP for Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, where he lives with his wife and their two children.

Since joining Parliament, he has been tipped as a “rising star” – and, on ConservativeHome in 2017, Andrew Gimson touted him as a “possible future Tory leader”.

In the same year, Tugendhat had challenged fellow Conservative Crispin Blunt, an MP since 1997, for the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee and won. And, in a subsequent article for The Times, he made what was seen as a dig at Johnson, the foreign secretary at the time, saying: “When humour is lost in translation it

creates misunderstandings with other countries that we can’t afford.”

His speech in the House of Commons during an emergency debate on the crisis in Afghanistan in August 2021, another example of his willingness to speak up against his own government, rekindled predictions that he is on the rise.

Jon Craig at Sky News said the “powerful and emotional lament for the fallen” was “a strong contender for parliamentary speech of the year”.

Tugendhat turned his attention to Dominic Raab in September as he challenged the foreign secretary on his handling of the Afghanistan crisis. Two weeks later Raab was moved out of the job in a cabinet reshuffle.

In January, Tugendhat become the first Conservative MP to publicly say he would stand for prime minister should Johnson leave Downing Street. He told Times Radio “it would be a huge privilege” to be in No. 10 and he didn’t know why his colleagues were “coy” about putting themselves forward for the leadership race.

Leadership chances

Tugendhat’s “lack of Cabinet experience and his Remain-supporting background pose big challenges for his bid, but his military career is an advantage”, said Politico’s London Playbook.

Ben Quinn in The Guardian pointed out that although it would be “highly unusual to have a new prime minister with no cabinet or shadow cabinet experience”, having a candidate “untainted by the Johnson regime” might appeal to some MPs.

And in January, The Spectator’s Steerpike predicted that if the “sinking SS Boris takes down all its crew”, fearful Tories might turn to “someone untainted by the ancien régime”. “And who,” he added, “could be more decent, moderate and sensible than persistent Boris critic, Tom Tugendhat?”