Penny Mordaunt is more like Boris than you think

As the Tory leadership candidates prepare for tonight’s debate on Channel 4, I find my mind turning back to the Cleggmania that followed Britain’s first televised election debate. As I say in the Times today, Penny Mordaunt’s current momentum feels a bit like things did in 2010: a previously little known politician is shooting to prominence. Only 16 per cent of Tory voters can recognise Mordaunt but she is now in with a serious shot of becoming PM.

Mordaunt’s rise is a product of the unique circumstances in today’s Conservative party. She is managing to have her cake and eat it. She has served in the cabinet, but not Boris Johnson’s cabinet. She made clear for a long time that she was unhappy in government, but she never resigned. Her talk of ‘servant leadership’ stands in contrast to Boris Johnson’s personality politics.

But Mordaunt is more similar to Johnson than one might think. There’s the good: like Johnson, she is comfortable with the political-entertainment complex. Johnson had Have I Got News For You, Mordaunt has Splash!, the TV show in which she dived into a swimming pool. She can also deliver a witty speech.

Then there’s the bad. On both reform of the Gender Recognition Act and the bill allowing ministers to take maternity leave, her recollection differs from almost everybody else’s. She shares this fault with Johnson: critics accuse her of trying to have his ability to conveniently rewrite history. Under the scrutiny that Downing Street would bring, this tendency could go the same way for as it did for Johnson. 

Might she be able to master detail in a way Johnson did not? Lord Frost said he asked for her to be moved as his deputy during the Brexit negotiations because she wasn’t up to the job. Allies of Mordaunt have tried to dismiss this as male sour grapes. But when I put it to one MP, they replied that Frost’s comments were mild compared with what her current departmental boss Anne-Marie Trevelyan says about her. The same MP points out that Kemi Badenoch’s boss, Michael Gove, is backing her, but Mordaunt doesn’t seem to inspire the same loyalty. None of the other three ministers who served with her in the international trade department are supporting her. Rishi Sunak, whom I have known for many years, is backed by three of his last Treasury ministerial team. Liz Truss is being supported by two of the ministers who were in the Foreign Office with her this month.

That Mordaunt is so unknown is both a blessing and a curse. It means people will undoubtedly see her as different. But it also means first impressions will matter hugely, and they are still in flux. The danger for the Tories is that Mordaunt would be walking into a remarkably difficult situation: energy prices are soaring and there is war in Europe. If Mordaunt were to become PM and slip early on, she may never recover.