PENNY Mordaunt took aim at an unsuspecting Paul McCartney during her leadership launch, as she criticised his Glastonbury performance and hailed the “good old stuff”.
The Tory leadership hopeful compared her run for the top job to The Beatle’s headline gig, telling the media that people didn’t appreciate him playing new tunes.
“What we really wanted to hear was the good old stuff, that we all knew the words to,” she said.
She said for Tory members that means the following: “Low tax, small state, personal responsibility.”
Later at the launch event in London, the trade minister pledged to deliver a “relentless focus” on cost-of-living issues, cutting fuel duty and raising tax thresholds.
She said she would fix a “broken” Whitehall machine through the “white heat of modernisation” with a “tighter” cabinet.
She brushed off claims that she was less well-known than other candidates, saying “I am the candidate that Labour fear the most”.
Mordaunt said she stood by the Conservative manifesto commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence but would also create a new civil defence force to supplement the military.
Asked where she stood on gender issues, she said: “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said ‘Every prime minister needs a Willie’. A woman like me doesn’t have one.”
On Boris Johnson, she said the Prime Minister deserved praise for delivering Brexit.
“I am very different from Boris Johnson but we are still on the same manifesto, and I think we both believe in the same things.”
Despite an awkward start to her campaign, in which her launch video had to be edited to remove several identifiable figures, Mordaunt boasts 24 backers.
Andrea Leadsom, former secretary of state for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: “@PennyMordaunt has the values, drive and conviction of her beliefs to move our country forward. I’m backing her to be our next Prime Minister.”
Outspoken MP for Lichfield Michael Fabricant wrote: “Penny Mordaunt shares my socially liberal views but, like me, will ensure there will be no compromise on the British wish for a clean break with the #EU … She was also a 1st rate Armed Forces Minister and will be tough with #Russia.”
Veteran MP and former cabinet minister David Davis declared his support for Mordaunt on Tuesday.
The full list of supporters is as follows: John Lamont, Nicola Richards, Michael Fabricant, Kieran Mullen, Alicia Kearns, Craig Tracey, Robbie Moore, Harriet Baldwin, Caroline Ansell, George Freeman, Derek Thomas, Elliot Colburn, Damian Collins, Maria Miller, Andrea Leadsom, Theo Clark, James Sunderland, Duncan Baker, James Gray, Caroline Dinenage, Sarah Atherton, Kate Griffiths, Bob Seely, David Davis.
