Penny Mordaunt took a deep breath, her toes gripping the 7.5-meter trampoline, before throwing herself back into the void. A second later he crashed into the water with his belly first. Britain’s TV viewers were stunned and then turned into a mummy.
Eight years after introducing himself to the nation on the short-lived celebrity diving program Splash !, Mordaunt this week took on an even bolder challenge: launching a candidacy to become the next British Prime Minister.
This time, the execution has been perfect. Mordaunt entered the race at a fancy Indian restaurant, people sweating from the London heat wave. But he remained quiet, openly taking advantage of the Conservative Party’s enduring cult of Thatcher and promising to return to the “old things”: low taxes, a small state, personal responsibility.
Mordaunt’s good performance in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has taken many by surprise, especially the public who, unless they were Splash fans! – He barely seems to recognize the woman with his eyes fixed on the number 10.
A Savanta ComRes poll found that only 11% of the public was able to correctly identify an image of the 49-year-old man, currently in second place behind Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor. Some thought it was singer Adele.
But party members love the uniform – Mordaunt is a Royal Navy reservist – and they love Thatcher’s references. Mordaunt said a nine-year training experience was seeing warships leave Portsmouth Harbor to retake the Falkland Islands.
Some polls by conservative activists suggest that if Mordaunt reaches the second round – more than 150,000 party members make the final choice after lawmakers halve the field – he would crush technocrat Sunak.
Mordaunt self-proclaims himself as a “new beginning” after the final scandal of Prime Minister Johnson, and as the candidate that the Labor opposition “should fear more”. Being an outsider in the office can be an advantage, but it raises the question: who is she?
For some Conservative MPs, the prospect of an untested Mordaunt becoming prime minister amid an economic crisis and with the party’s ratings in free fall is horrible. A brutal campaign to stop it is in full swing.
A cabinet minister backing a rival said his ambition seemed “clinically delusional”. “We need a leader who meets. That requires intelligence, clarity and courage. She has none…. I’m really scared that members will be able to choose her instead of Rishi.
A Johnson ally said of the middle-ranking trade minister: “It has not had any impact. There is a reason it is not in the cabinet.”
But other colleagues speak fondly of Mordaunt as humorous and direct. A former cabinet minister said he was impressed by her first term as junior minister: “She was imaginative, she had interesting ideas, she was popular in the department.” Labor experts say opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer should fear Mordaunt, a good Commons debate that “speaks humanly”.
Penelope Mary Mordaunt was born in 1973 into a military family, attended public schools and then the University of Theater and the University of Reading, where she read philosophy. He cites work in Romanian orphanages after the 1989 revolution as arousing his interest in politics.
She worked in public relations, including for the Conservative Party in the early 2000s and briefly as head of foreign press for George W. Bush’s presidential campaign in 2000. Ten years later she was elected to the House of Representatives. Portsmouth North.
Mordaunt campaigned alongside Johnson for Brexit in 2016 and is still hated by many others for making the doubly incorrect claim that Turkey was about to join the EU and that the UK could not veto it. ‘adhesion.
However, she rose to become Secretary of International Development and, briefly, Secretary of Defense under Theresa May. But Mordaunt supported Johnson’s rival, Jeremy Hunt, in the 2019 leadership competition and has not served in the cabinet since.
Mordaunt is not a standard right-winger: a social liberal, critics denounce her as an “awakened warrior.” In his book Greater: Britain After the Storm he opposed “casual racism, homophobia, white privileges, colonialism, transphobia” in a former BBC comedy It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
But it is his suitability for the highest position that is causing concern to critics. Sunak’s allies say she is economically illiterate, while Truss’ team suggests that the inexperienced Mordaunt would need “stabilizers” at number 10.
Ministers and officials who have worked with her share the “grave reservations” expressed by Lord Frost, a Truss supporter, about her ministerial history. “She’s not really interested in politics,” said a former official who worked with her. “When she went to Brussels for the Brexit talks, she seemed completely uninformed.”
Another said, “I could go to a meeting and say something totally random and unpredictable. She would disappear. She will be discovered: the question is when?
George Freeman, the former science minister who supports Mordaunt, believes blue-on-blue attacks don’t help. “I have seen him perform various roles, such as the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of International Development, to which he has contributed a keen analytical mind and a great operational approach,” he says. “I think she’s more than ready to lead this country.”
Mordaunt needs the support of about 40 more Conservative MPs to reach the final face-off. Choosing her as prime minister would be a big leap into the unknown for the Conservative Party and ultimately for the UK. In the coming days he will say if he can complete the maneuver or, as in 2014, it all ends with a glorious belly.
george.parker @ ft.comjim.pickard @ ft.com