Penny Mordaunt has launched her campaign to lead the Conservative party by vowing to overhaul Boris Johnson’s “failed model of leadership” and comparing the outgoing prime minister to Paul McCartney as she set out plans to dramatically slim down the cabinet.
The junior trade minister, who did not quit last week despite the wave of resignations that forced Johnson out of office, said the Tories had lost their “sense of self” but pledged to fight on with the mandate secured in 2019, and suggested she would not call a snap general election if elected leader.
Speaking before the first knockout vote by Tory MPs on Wednesday afternoon, Mordaunt told enthusiastic supporters in the stifling Cinnamon Club in London, where Sajid Javid launched his aborted leadership campaign, that “we have a manifesto to deliver, and standards and trust to restore”.
She said voters were fed-up with the government not delivering, making unfulfilled promises and engaging in divisive politics.
Mordaunt touted her Brexiter credentials, saying her plans for a “modern economy” focused on growth and competition, rather than tax and spending, would “yield a Brexit dividend”.
Admitting the UK needs to try to stave off a looming recession, Mordaunt said she would have a “relentless focus on cost of living issues” by cutting VAT on fuel in half, and raising the income tax threshold for basic and middle-income earners in line with inflation.
Mordaunt joked that trying to secure enough supporters to get on the first leadership ballot had been a bit like “speed dating” and voiced frustrations about the Conservative party not living up to its values enough under Johnson.
“If I can compare it to being in the Glastonbury audience,” she said, “when Paul McCartney was playing his set, we indulged all those new tunes but the thing we really wanted was the good old stuff that we knew all the words to.”
Mordaunt said she had first been moved to stand for public office at the age of nine, when she watched the Falklands taskforce leave the harbour in Portsmouth, the city she represents as an MP.
Seen by some as the “woke candidate” for her antipathy to the urge by some colleagues for the party to focus on “wedge issues” such as gender identity, Mordaunt stressed that she believed there was a “biological difference” between those who were born male and female.
“I think it was Margaret Thatcher that said that every prime minister needs a Willie; a woman like me doesn’t have one,” Mordaunt said, referring to the former prime minister’s quote about her deputy, Willie Whitelaw.
A snap YouGov poll of 879 Conservative members, carried out for Sky News and the Times, suggested Mordaunt was the candidate most likely to beat Sunak, if she makes it through to the final two.
Asked which of the pair they would support, 67% picked Mordaunt, and just 28% went for the former chancellor. Presented with the entire field of candidates, Mordaunt came out ahead, with backing of 27%, followed by Kemi Badenoch on 15% and Sunak and Liz Truss level pegging on 13%.
Meanwhile, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, earned the backing of the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and the Brexit supporter Mark Francois.
After three prospective candidates: the home secretary, Priti Patel, the former health secretary Sajid Javid and the Foreign Office minister Rehman Chishti – were forced to drop out of the race on Tuesday because they could not muster enough supporters, eight remain.
Some are scrambling to shore up more backers to ensure they are not knocked out in the first round of voting, which will take place from 1.30pm until 3.30pm on Wednesday. Each candidate needs at least 30 votes to make it to the following round on Thursday.
