It might come as one thing of a shock, however the favorite to change into the subsequent chief of the Conservative Party, with nearly twice as many votes in YouGov’s newest ballot as second-placed Kemi Badenoch, is Penny Mordaunt.
She’s nicely forward of Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Tom Tugendhat and enjoys a extra substantial lead over such senior figures as Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi.
Bookies say she is a 5/6 shot, admittedly in a crowded and barely risky subject. The gossips, analysts and commentators of the Westminster bubble concur, and her standing as a future chief has been established for a while – nearly since she arrived within the Commons in 2010, having received the seat of Portsmouth North from Labour on a powerful swing.
But what precisely is it that draws the predominantly heterosexual and male parliamentary Conservative Party to the Right Honourable Penelope Mary Mordaunt?
Such a query needs to be posed as a result of she is the primary future prime minister to have appeared in a swimsuit on nationwide tv, again in 2014, on the in any other case forgettable ITV celeb diving present Splash!, which additionally featured the likes of Joey Essex, Linda Barker and Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards.
Sad to say, Mordaunt’s backflip was a little bit of a flop. Jo Brand, an unlikely choose, and Tom Daley despatched her again to the altering rooms, however she made off with £10,000 in prize cash, a few of which she used to rebuild a lido in her constituency, the remainder being distributed amongst navy charities. (This is in sharp distinction to the time Nadine Dorries earned £20,288 from her activate I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, which she didn’t declare within the register of members’ pursuits.)
Apart from being sport for a sport present, Mordaunt has a lot else to commend her. She’s a Leaver and he or she comes from a navy household, each attributes that nicely go well with the performatively nationalistic Tory celebration of at present. Indeed, this ocean-going management contender was named after HMS Penelope.
Her father served within the Royal Marines earlier than going into educating and Mordaunt was introduced up in Portsmouth (as a nine-year-old schoolgirl she soaked in all town’s tense pleasure in the course of the Falklands battle in 1982). She defined in her maiden speech some three many years later that HMS Penelope was “the first cruiser able to do a complete about-turn within her own length – a manoeuvre that I hope never to have to deploy here”.
Her mom died of most cancers when Mordaunt was 1 and he or she turned a carer to her youthful brother, however it didn’t have an effect on her schooling at a complete Roman Catholic state faculty. Despite a vaguely posh-sounding title, her household background isn’t particularly affluent and he or she labored as a magician’s assistant to fund her approach via her A-levels. After college she went into PR, with spells working for the celebration’s youth wing, for William Hague and for George W Bush’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004 (as head of international press).
If Mordaunt ever does make it into No 10, following two Etonians and a grammar-school woman, she’s going to truly be the primary prime minister to have attended a complete. She additionally obtained a level in philosophy, from the University of Reading. Mordaunt is a proud Royal Navy reservist, currently promoted to captain, which might imply she might be addressed within the Commons because the “right honourable and gallant lady”, which appears to go well with her. During her transient spell as secretary of state for defence, she was, in impact, her personal commander.
She actually ticks the patriotic field, though she will not be the one ex-military sort jostling for place – Tom Tugendhat served within the Territorial Army and Intelligence Corps. It suggests a superbly comprehensible response in opposition to the chaotic, undisciplined methods of Boris Johnson and Mordaunt is as a lot an antidote to the rule-breaking albino greased piglet as is any of her rivals.
She’s eager on speaking about how necessary sensible planning is to ministerial success (versus grandiose Johnsonian schemes) and the way she desires to see a sequence of “national missions” to unite the nation. As a social liberal, she additionally appears much less keen to fire up tradition wars. Indeed, she acquired herself into some controversy final yr by standing up for the human rights of trans individuals, saying that “trans men are men and trans women are women”. That took as a lot guts as her televised high-diving, and he or she’s not the kind to duck a problem, or to dither and delay, Johnson-style.
That she has a really totally different persona from that of the prime minister may additionally clarify why he sacked her so abruptly as defence secretary when he turned prime minister in 2019 – reportedly in a “brief conversation” – together with the tepid nature of her assist for the prime minister in current days. On the day of the boldness vote in June, it was famous that Mordaunt had tweeted out a constituency engagement commemorating the D-Day landings and the worth of selfless service, moderately than the copy-and-paste toadying tweet chosen by most of her colleagues.
When she ultimately put out a press release, it was extra damaging to the prime minister than if she’d stored shtum, with its pointedly previous tense: “I didn’t choose this prime minister, I didn’t support him in the leadership contest, but he has always had my loyalty, because I think that’s what you do when you have a democratic process – you select a leader, and then you owe that person your loyalty. That’s always been my approach, whatever differences I’ve had with people, and that remains.
“I’m one of his ministers and I have continued to support him. I hope that we can return swiftly to the real business at hand, which is getting growth back into the economy and continuing our support in the Ukraine. I think being here, at the D-Day memorial in Portsmouth today, is a reminder of what’s really important outside the Westminster bubble.”
She risked, if that’s the best phrase, being sacked by Johnson a second time; however he’s so weak he couldn’t dump her, as a result of it was a secret poll, and all he would have succeeded in doing is anointing her as a courageous challenger to his personal malfeasance. Such a drama would even have invited unwelcome comparisons along with his personal cowardice: she’d have been absolutely the darling of the rebels. Mordaunt nonetheless hasn’t mentioned how she voted. She hardly must.
We do know that she supported Hunt the final time the Tories had a management election, even introducing him at his launch occasion and this pair share a sure fashion of politics – a bit technocratic, managerial, and with a liking for sub-business-school jargon and theorising about “leadership”. She wrote a ebook titled Greater: Britain After the Storm, which is filled with the type of charts and schematics you’d count on to see peppering an MBA thesis and it reads like an amateurish model of the moderately extra mystifying stuff you encounter on Dominic Cummings’s weblog.
Writing for Conservative Home in 2018, she declared on behalf of her celebration: “We are peddlers of hope” and he or she as soon as mentioned she thought Brexit Britain was “a challenger brand”, maybe like Dacia vehicles, Monzo playing cards or Aldi, which provides you a style of the Armando Iannucci-grade self-parody into which she will be able to typically lapse.
It’s value noting that one reviewer detected a extra disturbing undertone in her writing: “Despite the book’s chipper optimism, a deeper cultural conflict simmers below the surface. When Mordaunt extols the success of Donald Trump’s electoral appeal to middle America, hints at crafting a version of his agenda for the United Kingdom, and speaks of ‘empowering the silent majority’, she offers a glimpse of an ominous possible future for the Conservative Party.”
Mordaunt has posited “The Twelve New Rules of Politics” for Conservative Home, which might’t be ignored, given she is perhaps operating Britain with these as her foundation earlier than too lengthy. Out of a way of clemency on my half, they’ve been edited:
1) As nicely as “to do” lists, leaders want “to be” lists. Be an optimist, encourage participation and braveness.
2) Don’t let your assets body your ambition. If you do, you’ll by no means ship what is definitely required. You have extra assets than you suppose as a result of, for those who allow them to, others will assist.
3) Articulate a mission to create an effort. Because individuals need to assist, to return collectively and to get caught in.
4) Having requested for assist, let individuals assist. The finest, quickest and most cost-effective options to issues I’ve seen haven’t been generated or procured by authorities… We ought to align our planning cycles to the non-public and charitable sectors, enabling us to maximise the useful resource and impression on our shared goals. Enabling laws should preserve tempo with scientific discovery.
5) Be alert, to the previous, the current and the long run.
6) Plans – unhealthy; planning – good. Get on with it. Don’t wait and write a technique, simply make a begin. Learn as you go. And guarantee you are ready – probably the most underrated management high quality.
7) The West must get its mojo again. The driving forces which have made the world a greater place are the scientific advances, rule of regulation, property rights, consultant authorities, a plurality of political thought, capitalism and the liberalisation of commerce, shopper energy and win-win worldwide cooperation. But religion in these issues is being rocked. We stand on the point of big breakthroughs in making the world more healthy and wealthier. Without these issues which have enabled us to make progress so far, we’ll fail to make progress sooner or later.
8) Listen and worth individuals. Politicians are fast to criticise behaviours in different sectors which create echo chambers, however we’re responsible of that too, through a deal with swing voters and our core assist. With the communications instruments we now have at present there isn’t any excuse for not reaching out. (I occur to imagine everyone seems to be a Conservative, they only haven’t realised it but!)
9) Public vs non-public dogma is lifeless.
10) New energy should get out of its armchair. Activism is one factor, however we’d like lively residents in addition to skilled residents. The Big Society had some successes, however they have been the exception moderately than the rule. We should encourage, harness and allow a larger contribution to the world from individuals than letters through 38 Degrees.
11) Seriously small authorities. The logical conclusion of the entire above is that Whitehall must shrink and decamp, change into extra collaborative and nimble.
12) And lastly: Values are the margin of victory.
There you go: a manifesto of what our current prime minister would possibly dismiss as “piffle”.
But whereas Mordaunt’s fashion could be very totally different from that of Johnson and he or she is a much more honest Brexiteer, her politics usually are not so very totally different – obscure concepts that attempt to have issues each methods, aka cakeism, and making an attempt to remodel society with out spending any cash. That speaks to a broader actuality about politics within the 2020s, which is {that a} stagnant economic system isn’t going to yield a lot funding for any type of “levelling up”. In a approach, the financial and financial restraints imply that any PM may have minimal freedom of motion.
As far as may be judged, Mordaunt does again the inexperienced agenda and its related targets: “Climate change is an existential threat… unless we tackle climate change, much of the government’s other work will be for nothing.”
Mordaunt is keener on nationwide unity and teamwork than is Johnson, although it might not be a complete shock to search out that Mordaunt and Hunt had concluded a non-aggression pact and a mutual settlement to serve each other as PM and chancellor, relying on who wins the inevitable management election – regardless of their totally different outlooks on Brexit. Some would possibly suppose Mordaunt-Hunt a dream ticket; others would possibly see it as the identical dilemmas beneath nicer administration.
It could be fairly a comeback. Though she’s by no means mentioned as a lot, it should have been arduous for her to be fired as defence secretary in 2019 by the then-new prime minister. Mordaunt had been the primary feminine within the function and along with her background it was a dream job – however she was eliminated, to the puzzlement of many, after simply 85 days in put up. She went to the again benches, however returned in February 2020 as a type of all-purpose Brexit and civil contingencies minister, with the honorific title of “paymaster general”, beneath Michael Gove, earlier than shifting to be minister of state for commerce coverage, once more under cupboard stage, final yr.
Given the hopelessness of getting a commerce deal out of the Biden White House, she’s been busying herself getting a couple of offers accomplished with particular person states, however the macroeconomic results will probably be modest when set in opposition to the hit to GDP from Brexit (say 5 per cent). As a dedicated Brexiteer, she as soon as wrote an article through which she inspired her readers to be impressed to attract on the Dunkirk spirit, although it’s truthful to say with none sense of irony, given Dunkirk was a navy catastrophe.
One of the eccentricities about Mordaunt’s diverse ministerial profession is that she’s benefited a lot from different individuals getting the push. Theresa May gave her her first Cabinet job as worldwide improvement secretary in 2017, when Priti Patel was dismissed for freelancing in Israel. Mordaunt added the ladies and equalities transient to her remit when Amber Rudd needed to resign in 2019 and is among the few Tories to have taken the problems severely – she gave the primary Commons speech to be made in signal language in 2018 (and acquired an enormous spherical of applause for it).
Gavin Williamson’s first fall from grace noticed Mordaunt promoted to defence secretary (the place she’d been a preferred junior minister some years earlier than). It was round that point that the hypothesis about her future actually acquired going (till it was promptly crushed by Johnson). At that point, for instance, The Economist presciently mused: “Ms Mordaunt’s rise… is reordering the race to succeed the prime minister [May], providing Brexiteers with a potential new champion who is less dodgy than Boris Johnson and more likeable than Dominic Raab.”
Like Johnson, there has by no means been any self-doubt about Captain Mordaunt, which is presumably why she is described in Alan Duncan’s diaries as “self-inflated”, in addition to “angst-ridden” and a “nutter”.
No-nonsense, critical and organised as she is, she additionally has a sailor’s bawdy sense of humour, which could not be to everybody’s style. Early in her time as a really junior minister, for instance, she apparently took on a guess to utter a impolite phrase as many occasions as potential in a single speech in Parliament. The chosen phrase was “cock” and the discussion board was a debate on the welfare of poultry on British farms. Indeed, Mordaunt added a smutty bonus with a couple of egg-based jokes about getting laid, on prime of the six “cocks” she handled herself to throughout her efficiency.
Kate Hoey thought Mordaunt had demeaned parliament. No matter. With her attribute fearlessness, Mordaunt did the identical throughout her witty speech on the loyal tackle in 2014, an honour given to a selected up-and-coming newish MP.
She cheerfully supplied this anecdote to a packed home: “Training must be tailored to enable us to be our best. I have benefited from some excellent training by the Royal Navy, but on one occasion I felt that it was not as bespoke as it might have been. Fascinating though it was, I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for the penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect kit.” In one sense, Mordaunt has talked extra bollocks than anybody else in parliamentary historical past.
She’s been praised for her usually sturdy and efficient performances on the despatch field – and credited with demolishing Angela Rayner and Ian Blackford – and he or she is nearly as good a speaker as Johnson, although clearly much less theatrical and with fewer references to the classics. She would possibly or may not be capable of do a greater job than the present prime minister of holding on to Remain-inclined middle-class seats within the south of England in addition to Leave-leaning seats within the former pink wall, Johnson having managed it by the sheer drive of his persona.
But then once more, her celebration appears to be rising bored with Big Dog’s shtick and to be wanting round for one thing new, or moderately for somebody new. The type of one that’ll make a little bit of a splash.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk