Penny Mordaunt: Brexiteer and grassroots favourite

Image caption,

Penny Mordaunt launches her leadership campaign

When the Conservative leadership contest began, Penny Mordaunt was one of the less well-known candidates.

But in the first two ballots of Tory MPs, she has come a clear second, behind the much higher-profile Rishi Sunak.

Opinion polls have long suggested Ms Mordaunt is popular with Conservative party members, who will get the final say, and she has put in the work on the so-called “rubber chicken” circuit of Tory fundraisers and charity dinners.

She is now locked in an increasingly bitter battle with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to secure a slot in the final run-off, when MPs have completed the votes to whittle the field down to two.

The 49-year-old Portsmouth North MP has been in and around government for the best part of a decade and even had a brief spell as a reality TV star.

She was a prominent backer of Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum and currently serves as minister for trade policy.

The daughter of a paratrooper and a special needs teacher, she grew up in Portsmouth, and, like Ms Truss, was educated at a comprehensive school, before going to university.

‘Having a go’

In an eclectic pre-politics career, she worked as a magician’s assistant, in hospitals and orphanages in post-Communist Romania, and for the Freight Transport Association.

She headed the Conservative Party’s youth wing and was a press officer for William Hague when he was leader.

But she is probably best known outside Westminster for taking part in ITV’s celebrity diving show Splash! in 2014.

Media caption,

Penny Mordaunt relives her moment diving in to a swimming pool on TV and admits “it hurt a bit” as she hit the water

She did not win but earned praised from Tom Daley and other judges for “having a go”.

She was armed forces minister under David Cameron and became the first woman to serve as defence secretary. She held the role under Theresa May, but was sacked after a few months when Boris Johnson took over as PM.

Launching her Tory leadership campaign on Wednesday, Ms Mordaunt pitched herself as the candidate “Labour fear the most”.

She promised to return to traditional Conservative values of “low tax, [a] small state and personal responsibility”.

The trade minister has committed herself to a 50% cut in VAT on fuel to help ease the cost-of-living crisis, but has not gone as far as other candidates in the leadership race in offering tax cuts.

And writing in the Daily Mail, Ms Mordaunt – a Royal Navy reservist – promised to honour the UK’s Nato commitment of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030.

At her launch event in Westminster, Ms Mordaunt declined to describe Mr Johnson as a good prime minister, thanking him for delivering Brexit but pledging to restore “standards and trust”.

She promised to put “power back into the hands of parents” through personal budgets allowing them access to subsidised childcare at any time before their child started school.

Challenged on trans rights

Supporters of other candidates have criticised Ms Mordaunt for supporting trans rights when she was equalities minister and the so-called “culture war” issue was raised by journalists.

Asked where she stood on gender, the trade minister replied: “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said ‘Every prime minister needs a Willie [then Deputy Prime Minister Willie Whitelaw]’. A woman like me doesn’t have one.

“I’m a woman, I’m biologically a woman. If you’ve been in the Royal Navy, and you have competed physically against men, you understand the biological difference between men and women.”

Ms Mordaunt has come under fire from former Brexit minister Lord Frost who said he had “grave reservations” about the idea of her becoming PM.

He told TalkTV: “She was my deputy – notionally, more than really – in the Brexit talks last year.

“I felt she did not master the detail that was necessary in the negotiations. She wouldn’t always deliver tough messages to the European Union when that was necessary.

“She wasn’t fully accountable, she wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was.”

During the Brexit referendum, Ms Mordaunt provoked a row when she told the BBC the UK could not veto Turkey joining the European Union.

An hour later, David Cameron told ITV that was “absolutely wrong”.

Later that year she was in the headlines again for a speech she gave in the Commons on poultry welfare, which turned out to be an excuse to slip some very unparliamentary language into proceedings.

She admitted she had made the speech – with its liberal use of the words “lay”, “laid” and “cock welfare” – for a bet.