Conservative leadership latest: Cleverly takes the lead as Tugendhat leaves the race.

James Cleverly topped the poll in the latest vote of MPs for the Conservative leadership election.

Votes were cast as follows:

James Cleverly:         39

Robert Jenrick           31

Kemi Badenoch         30

Tom Tugendhat          20

This means that Tom Tugendhat leaves the race and the other three candidates go forward to the final ballot of MPs later this week. The top two candidates in that vote will go forward to a ballot of Conservative party members.

The winner will be announced on 2nd November.

All the candidates displayed different strengths and different visions last week but I thought that James Cleverly gave far and away the strongest performance at party conference. He was the only one with the courage to apologise for the things we as a party got wrong, to talk seriously about how to address them and learn from our mistakes, and he put forward the most positive vision for our country and our party.

For that reason I decided on Friday to back James Cleverly and I am supporting him.