Tory leadership race will be part contest and part post-mortem

Conservative leadership contests always start with much handshaking and hat doffing, but it never takes long for the muckraking and kneecapping to commence.

Mel Stride managed as much – albeit in a characteristically courteous manner – when he popped up on Friday to announce his campaign.

Asked about another candidate’s apparent volte-face on the European Convention on Human Rights, he said: “I’m not going to get into criticising in any way any of my opponents.”

This would have been more believable if the shadow work and pensions secretary hadn’t followed it up 90 seconds later by adding: “I think it’d be a big mistake for anybody to be pushing positions or putting stakes in the ground to appeal to our membership or sections of it.”

That’s a clear rebuke to Tom Tugendhat, who surprised some colleagues by launching his leadership bid by proclaiming he would be prepared to pull out of the international court.

Five MPs have so far announced they are running: James Cleverly, Dame Priti Patel, Mr Stride, Robert Jenrick and Mr Tugendhat.

Kemi Badenoch is expected to declare she is running soon – and there are questions about whether Suella Braverman has the backing to do so as well.

With the smoking rubble of the election result all around, it will likely prove impossible to rein in the finger jabbing.

Unveiling her tilt at the top job, Dame Priti was also in an apparently unifying mood, writing in The Telegraph: “When we Conservatives fight one another, we lose.”

The issue here is that fighting other Conservatives is literally what she has just signed up to do.

And as such, when you dig into Dame Priti’s piece a bit deeper, the tone inevitably turns spikier.

“Our heroic members have done nothing wrong. It is politicians who fell out and fell short,” the former home secretary said.

That begs the question, who – specifically – fell short?

Was it Boris Johnson’s fault for presiding over internal chaos and an erosion of standards in office?

Should it be pinned on Liz Truss for the economic turmoil that unfolded on her watch?

Or can Rishi Sunak be held responsible for calling an early election and failing to move the dial during the campaign?

Each candidate will have their own perspective.

But more than that, they’ve all also got their own record to defend – which in many cases will be tied up and linked in with the very failures their rivals are trying to identify.

Which brings us to the key reason why the coming months may be brutal for the Tory party.