The first of the official Tory leadership hustings kicked off today with Tom Tugendhat in the hotseat. The former security minister put forward his case to a packed out arena in Birmingham — calling for CCHQ reform, apologising for recent years of Tory ‘infighting and chaos’ and insisting he has what it takes to rebuild the ‘Conservative family’.

Receiving a warm welcome from the crowd, Tugendhat was quick to crack the jokes too.  On just how many countries had sanctioned him, he quipped: ‘I’m still working on North Korea…’. He blasted Nigel Farage for saying he wants to ‘destroy’ the Conservatives, reiterating he would not entertain the idea of a merger with Reform. And joking that Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves sees ‘more black holes than Mr Spock’, the Tory contender then slammed Labour’s GB Energy venture as ‘insane’ — before on second thought adding: ‘Then again, it is Miliband.’ Ouch.

But it was the Liberal Democrats who came off worst from Tugendhat’s tirade. In his quick fire Q&A with GB News’ Christopher Hope — in which the candidate admitted he’d pick Boris Johnson over David Cameron for a night out, before adding Boris would make the best, er, Bond villain — Tugendhat was quizzed whether he was a ‘YIMBY, NIMBY or a banana?’

TT: I don’t quite know what a banana is…

CH: ‘Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.’

TT: Well, that sounds disgusting and yellow… It must be a Lib Dem thing.

Burn…

At least he managed to steer clear of blue-on-blue, eh? Tugendhat’s measured appearance won’t have earned him any yellow cards today — though there’s still time yet for things to turn things sour…