Since entering (and losing) successive Tory leadership contests last year, Penny Mordaunt has thrown herself into the role of Leader of the House with characteristic gusto. Her weekly sessions at Business Questions in the Commons have become required watching, as she dispatches SNP goons with a mix of bombast and brio.
Indeed, watching her roast of Gary Lineker last month on one of Mordaunt’s regular Twitter clips, Mr S felt he was watching a party political broadcast on behalf of the Penny Mordaunt party. And perhaps there are some signs that Mordaunt hasn’t yet abandoned her dreams of one day leading the Tories. Over the Easter weekend, she released a glossy video of her touring her Portsmouth constituency, replete with numerous presidential-style shots of Mordaunt.
And newly-published Cabinet Office documents show she has certainly kept up the media charm offensive. Transparency returns released on the last day before Easter recess – the traditional ‘take out the trash’ day – show that 10 of the 13 registered ministerial meetings which Mordaunt had between October and December last year were with journalists, with two more being speeches at centre-right Christmas shindigs. This is despite Leaders of the House traditionally having very little to do with the media, given their non-departmental portfolio.
Still, Mordaunt wasn’t the only one mixing with the media. The most recent quarterly returns show that Suella Braverman conducted an impressive 25 meetings with the press in just five days at the beginning of October. According to her own entry, the Home Secretary did not have a single meeting the anyone in the police or Border Force. At the other end of the spectrum, Dominic Raab only had four meetings – three of which were with stakeholders and the fourth involving an ‘essential event in capacity as Lord Chancellor’.
No danger of any questions about his long-awaited bullying probe there.
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