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Kemi Badenoch And James Cleverly In ‘Fight To The Death’ To Reach Tory Leadership Run-Off

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Tory rivals Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly are now in a “fight to the death” to get through to the final run-off in the Conservative leadership race, senior MPs believe.

Bookies’ favourite Robert Jenrick is thought to have already secured the support of enough MPs to make it to the last two.

Tom Tugendhat is widely expected to be the next candidate to drop out of the race when the next ballot of MPs takes place a week from now.

That would leave leadership hopefuls Badenoch and Cleverly battling it out for the right to go head-to-head with Jenrick in the final phase of the campaign, in which party members will decide who replaces Rishi Sunak as leader.

Cleverly is seen as the candidate with the wind in his sails at the end of the Tories’ annual conference in Birmingham.

His set-piece speech, in which he urged the party to “be more normal” and pledged to put a smile back on its face, went down well in the hall.

The former home secretary has also succeeded in avoiding any controversy – unlike Badenoch.

A source on his campaign said: “The momentum is well and truly with James. He has always loved conference and the last few days have seen him thrive.”

Badenoch, on the other hand, has been embroiled in rows over her views on immigration, maternity pay, the national minimum wage and even whether thousands of civil servants deserve to be behind bars.

Conservative leadership candidates Kemi Badenoch, from left, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat stand on the podium during the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Conservative leadership candidates Kemi Badenoch, from left, Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat stand on the podium during the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

via Associated Press

One veteran MP said: “Kemi just reaffirmed people’s worst fears that if she was leader there would be a gaffe a day. All the rest of us would then have to spend all our time having to explain what she meant.

“Her campaign has appeared chaotic and she hasn’t done as much flesh-pressing as the others. Some colleagues were saying they had seen the other candidates three or four times but only seen her once, which plays into concerns about her work ethic.”

And while her final speech to the conference gained pass marks, one former minister said it wasn’t the “humdinger” she needed to overtake Jenrick.

“It went down very well in the hall, and the content was good, even if the delivery wasn’t great,” the MP said.

However, a Badenoch campaign source told HuffPost UK they were “very happy” with how the week has gone.

“She was the only candidate anyone was talking about all week, proving that she is the only candidate with the star quality to cut through in opposition,” the source said.

“The membership loved her. Polls of members released during the conference put her ahead. The speech is winning plaudits. And two big hitters in David Davis and Helen Grant came out and endorsed her shortly after she’d finished speaking.”

While Cleverly’s campaign has undoubtedly been buoyed by the last few days, party insiders believe he still needs to persuade MPs who had been planning to vote for Badenoch to switch to him if he is to have any chance of winning.

One undecided MP said: “James showed that he’s an experienced pro and would able to hit the ground running if he wins. He also answered some of the doubts about whether he really wants it.

“But has been at the heart of everything for last five years, so can he credibly claim that he will deliver change as leader? That’s his challenge now, because he’s in a fight to the death with Kemi for the second slot on the ballot.”

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Meryl Streep Claims She Was Rejected For This Major Hollywood Role For Being ‘Ugly’

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There’s no business like show business. And given that screen legend Meryl Streep says she once missed out on a massive movie role for being “ugly”, I’m not sure I’m interested in any operation like it.

The star revealed on The Graham Norton Show back in 2015 that she missed out on a huge role in 1976′s King Kong remake because of her looks.

The son of the film’s director Dino De Laurentiis had seen Meryl in a play and took her to meet his father.

“He had this amazing office that looked all over Manhattan,” she explained.

“I walked in and his son was sitting there, very excited that he’d brought in this new actress. And the father said to his son in Italian, because I understand Italian, he said, ‘che brutta’, you know, ‘why do you bring me this ugly thing?’.”

The now 21-time Oscar nominee seemed to handle it expertly though.

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While she called the experience “sobering” as a “young girl”, she added that she quickly responded to the director in Italian.

“I said to him… I understand what you’re saying, I’m sorry I’m not beautiful enough to be in King Kong,” she joked.

In case you’re wondering, the role of Dwan in the 1976 movie ended up going to fellow Academy Award winner, and American Horror Story star Jessica Lange.

Speaking at Indiana University Bloomington in 2014, Meryl said she thought she was “too ugly to be an actress” when she was a student.

“I was always in plays, but I thought it was vain to be an actress. Plus, I thought I was too ugly to be an actress. Glasses weren’t fabulous then,” she explained.

Still, she seems to have moved on from those early worries.

“For young women, I would say, don’t worry so much about your weight,” she advised the graduating students.

“Girls spend way too much time thinking about that, and there are better things. For young men and women too, what makes you different or weird, that’s your strength… I used to hate my nose. Now I don’t. It’s OK.”

“I think the most liberating thing I did early on was to free myself from any concern with my looks as they pertained to my work,” Meryl Streep told Vogue in 2002.

“For an actress, worrying about appearance is a horrible, horrible trap. It’s great for acting to be unconscious of how you look and to be willing to mess up how you look, and see what that does to people.”

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