Penny Mordaunt might just be the woman of the hour

This is not the end of the contest to be leader of the Conservative Party. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it may, perhaps, be the end of the beginning.

There have now been two ballots of Conservative MPs at Westminster to whittle down the field of candidates to succeed Boris Johnson. On Wednesday, parliamentarians cast their votes for the first time, and leadership hopefuls had to win at least 30 votes to remain in the contest. Six survived, but the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, and the 2019 runner-up, Jeremy Hunt, failed to make the cut.

The following day, the ballot boxes were out again. This time, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated. That turned out to be the attorney-general, Suella Braverman, a surprise contender who almost blurted out her ambitions before Boris Johnson had even surrendered but has attracted a number of supporters with her hardline Brexit stance.

Now the race pauses for the weekend. Five candidates remain: Rishi Sunak (101 votes), Penny Mordaunt (83), Liz Truss (64), Kemi Badenoch (49) and Tom Tugendhat (32). MPs return to the fray on Monday for another elimination round. By Wednesday at the latest, two candidates will remain, and they will be presented to the party’s membership for a verdict over the summer.

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The break-down of the candidates is remarkable from many perspectives. Three of the five are women; two are from ethnic minorities; four are not currently in the cabinet (though Sunak left only a matter of days ago); none is over 50 years old. Whoever wins will represent a genuinely new face for the Conservative Party.

It is not immediately clear how the electorate is dividing. Through a Brexit prism, Sunak, Mordaunt and Badenoch were Leavers all along, while Truss and Tugendhat were remainers. Yet it is Truss, the foreign secretary, who is seen as the leading candidate of the right, having adopted a distinctly Thatcherite mien in recent months and expiating her Remain tendencies by vigorous adoption of the Brexit position.

Sunak, although he resigned from Johnson’s cabinet last week, is seen as the continuity candidate, while Mordaunt, though currently a junior trade minister, has stolen the insurgent mantle from backbencher Tom Tugendhat. It is not entirely unfair: Mordaunt was defence secretary under Theresa May only to be dropped by Johnson before being readmitted as a junior minister, and has been noticeably shut out and briefed against by the current Downing Street operation.

What to make of the competition at that stage? Tugendhat’s race is evidently run. He remains in the contest until next week, so that he can participate in the first television debate, but he will clearly not be leader. Whether he exchanges his current position as chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee for a cabinet post under the eventual winner remains to be seen. He has raised his profile and shown flashes of promise, but the traction is simply not there this time round.

Badenoch seems unlikely to clinch victory either. For a relatively unknown candidate, she has impressed: traditional Tories have been attracted by her robust views on gender identity, free speech and the size of the state. Her very presence in the competition demonstrates how far the Conservative Party has come on matters of race, and the diversity of the candidates has already been used to twit the Labour Party for paying only lip service to identity. She seems likely to be awarded a senior cabinet position when the new government is formed in September.

Slick and manufactured

And then there were three. Sunak has led from the beginning, and is stressing his record as a stabilising chancellor of the exchequer during the Covid-19 pandemic. But there is a feeling that he is too slick and manufactured, that he has not outperformed expectations and that his personal and family wealth could be potential embarrassments. He may poll less well with party members than MPs, especially if he is portrayed as one of the assassins who caused Johnson’s fall.

Mordaunt currently has the momentum. As well as presenting herself as a fresh face, she has an open and approachable manner to which many have taken; her polling figures among party members and voters more widely are extremely impressive. While her opponents are accusing her of changing positions on key issues such as China and gender identity, she has stressed her record of service (she has been a Royal Navy Reserve and comes from a military family).

Truss is the enigma. She has espoused the kind of rhetoric which should fire up Conservatives, but she is a stiff and awkward figure who rarely seems fluent on camera. While her supporters note that she has served in cabinet for eight years, in a variety of positions, there remains an indefinable question mark over her ultimate suitability for the top job.

Who will be the next prime minister? Sunak must, on bald figures, remain the favourite; if Truss can attract the votes previously allotted to Braverman and Badenoch she might yet triumph; but the gut feeling – reflected by the odds offered by bookmakers – is that Penny Mordaunt might just be the woman of the hour. If she can play to all of her strengths, as a committed Brexiteer, an experienced minister, a social liberal and a new start for the Conservative Party, she may find that in September it is she who is summoned to Buckingham Palace and invited to form the next government.

Eliot Wilson is co-founder of Pivot Point Group and former clerk of the House of Commons.