The ballot papers have been sent out, and Conservative members are now voting in the Tory Leadership race.
Finally, after months of campaigning, it all gets real as the final two candidates travel around the country seeking to make final pitches to a membership that will not have known much about either person before this contest began.
Those steeped in the world of Westminster politics may be surprised to learn that Conservative members are mainly real human beings with real lives, for whom politics is an interest but not necessarily an obsession.
Contrary to the caricatures of left-wing media, Conservative members are community-minded, pragmatic people who believe in the values of our country and who, rightly, believe that it is the Tory Party that has consistently provided the right answers to the issues that have faced Britain down the generations.
I know the Tory Party backwards. It is nearly forty years since I first joined as a Young Conservative, and since then I have served as an Election Agent, constituency party officer and Chairman, County Councillor, Parliamentary candidate, MP and Cabinet Minister.
From my daily chats with fellow members, the good news is that there is a lot of life in the Conservative Party, and as we carry on campaigning and indeed winning in local by-elections, there is an absence of the kind of despair which could easily have engulfed us after July’s drubbing.
At the same time, there is an air of realism about the scale of the task ahead. Now is the time for the basic values of the Party to be assessed and asserted.
Policy development is, of course, vital, but before that even begins, we need to remind ourselves clearly who we are and why we wish to serve the British people. The road back to government is going to be tough and is likely to be long.
Is the choice of Leader, then, even important? Although this contest has been fought away from the previous glare of publicity that engulfed those contests when the Party was in power, this does not make it trivial.
The Leader of the His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has the primary job of holding the Government to account through Parliament, and for being an alternative Government-in-Waiting.
At the same time, the Opposition has access to only a tiny fraction of the support and resources available to Ministers. Whoever takes the helm is going to need to be resilient and able to build coalitions of support from allies with whom may not be totally aligned but who are confident that the Leader has what it takes to succeed.
As the true colours of this Labour Government start to appear, and the full extent of the huge danger they pose to the future of this country is laid bare, we will need a Tory Leader who can take the fight to them.
We will need a leader who appreciates that the rebuilding job is not going to happen by top-down diktat, but from a grassroots resurgence that has to be owned by all of us.
LATEST OPINION FROM MEBERSHIP:
We mustn’t define ourselves according to what we think other parties stand for, but for what WE stand for.
That is a free society under the law, with strong defences, free enterprise and a government that enables growth and prosperity for families and communities whilst providing value for money public services that we pay for via a tax system that is not punitive.
GB News viewers came to a clear verdict after last week’s hustings programme that Kemi Badenoch is the person best placed to take this vision forward.
Although her campaign has not been the smoothest, and there clearly needs to be a re-think about autism and mental health policy after a document published by Renewal 2030- a Kemi campaign group-made some inaccurate observations, many can see the potential she offers as a new start for the Party.
In my dealings with her in our years in Government together, she was always straightforward, friendly and a great person to work with. We share a reforming agenda on regulations and regulators, and I know she is open to new ideas and to learn from the mistakes of the past. If she is given the chance to lead, we members will all owe her our support.
