Tory countdown to Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt

It’s now Boris Johnson vs Jeremy Hunt after Johnson extracted sweet revenge against Michael Gove.

Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson to go head to head. Picture: AFP.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt will vie for the leadership of the Conservative party, and the prime ministership, after Mr Johnson extracted the sweetest of revenges against his old foe Michael Gove.

In the fifth and final round of voting this morning, Mr Gove narrowly lost to Mr Hunt in trying to secure the second place on the ballot paper behind clear front runner Mr Johnson, after it appeared some of Mr Johnson’s closest allies switched votes to get behind Mr Hunt.

This temporary support to Mr Hunt, the current foreign secretary, was to ensure Mr Gove could not face off with Mr Johnson and rehash their bitter falling out from 2016.

Back then Mr Gove withdrew his support for Mr Johnson minutes before the then foreign secretary was about to launch his candidature and Mr Gove instead announced he was standing for the leadership instead of playing the support role.

Mr Johnson’s supporters have never forgiven Mr Gove for those underhand tactics and this morning there were suggestions they were able to readjust Mr Johnson’s overall support. This supposed “recalibration’’ in the final vote meant that Mr Gove finished with 75 MP votes, while Mr Hunt surprisingly eclipsed him with 77. Once again, Mr Johnson was the clear favourite with 160 MP votes.

In the fourth round vote Mr Gove had leapfrogged Mr Hunt after getting many backers who had previously supported Sajid Javid and it appeared in the final ballot that Mr Hunt may have enjoyed a “gift’’ of some Johnson support. But Mr Hunt had also hit the phones between the voting rounds, warning others of a “psychodrama’’ if Mr Gove was to be pitted against Mr Johnson in the final two showdown.

Mr Gove said he was naturally disappointed at not being in the final two but sent congratulations to Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt.

The two will now face a series of hustings in front of the 140,000 Conservative party members who will then vote for their favoured leader in a postal ballot.

Mr Johnson has been unusually quiet throughout the rounds of voting, but told the Evening Standard today: “I do think it is time we had some excitement back into politics, I do, but there’s also quite a serious job of work to be done.”

Mr Hunt issued a video message saying he was going to give Mr Johnson “the fight of his life”.