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At the beginning of any Westminster leadership race, all candidates are acutely aware that they must be scrupulously polite to their rivals. It is well documented that politicians who

indulge in infighting not only scupper their chances of getting a Cabinet position should they fail to secure the top job, but also very quickly lose popularity with the electorate. An air

of statesmanlike magnanimity is what’s called for, and for the first few days, at least, most of them seem to manage it. By this point in the process, however, (that’s to say, a fortnight

before the official race has even begun) everything has normally gone pear shaped. And this summer’s contest is no exception. First come the dirty tricks. In what seemed to be a laudable

move yesterday, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and Sajid Javid announced that they had signed a “Clean Campaign Pledge”, vowing not to speak ill of fellow Conservatives. So far, so good. Within

hours, though, it was revealed that the “pledge candidates” had failed to inform their rivals of the plan, thereby making it appear (deliberately or otherwise) that they – and they alone –

understood how to be decent. Predictably, other candidates and their supporters responded with fury on social media, darkly accusing the trio of playing “cheap tricks”. Then come the

rumours. According to Alex Wickham of Buzzfeed, the suspicion in Westminster is that despite the fun twitter video campaign launched this week, the new International Development Secretary,

Rory Stewart, is a not a genuine candidate: his pitch is not seriously designed to win, and he has next to no MPs. In fact, so the chatter goes, some MPs think his sole intention is to

attack Brexiteers and make Gove look like a moderate unifier. One Raab backing politician went as far as to say of Stewart: “He’s turning his fire on Boris for now but we expect it will be

Dom next. He calls himself a unifying candidate while attacking the views of half the Tory party. Once he’s done his dirty work we expect him to back Gove and be offered a plum job.” Rory

and Gove are friends – and it is widely expected Rory will endorse Gove when he is knocked out in the first round. Stewart, however, strenuously denies the allegations that he is a “suicide

bomber” for the Environment Secretary, and even had a pop at Wickham on Twitter for his inappropriate use of a metaphor (Stewart has spent time in Afghanistan). And once the tricks and

rumours have been exhausted, the thinly veiled insults start to rear their ugly heads. In the wake of a controversial interview on ITV yesterday in which Dominic Raab refused to call himself

a feminist, the official Twitter account for Sajid Javid tweeted a cartoon picture – evidently intending to represent himself – captioned “this is what a feminist looks like”. Raab, claws

fully extended, responded by simply saying “we are fighting a clean campaign”. Something makes me think it’s going to be a long old summer…