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Boris Johnson’s expected early return to Britain from his Caribbean holiday electrified the race to succeed Liz Truss, who steps down a week today. In order to get his name on the ballot paper he will have to garner the support of 100 of his parliamentary colleagues, a requirement introduced by the Tory 1922 committee designed to keep out the no-hopers. By Monday there will be a maximum of three candidates left competing for the votes of the other 354 Tory MPs. Who are they likely to be?Â
RISHI SUNAK, 42
Former chancellor
Odds: 8/11
The man who won the votes of the highest number of MPs in the last leadership contest goes into this race as the front-runner
Apart from one brief intervention in a Commons debate, the candidate who lost out to Liz Truss has taken a Trappist vow of silence since she entered No 10. All requests for interviews in recent weeks have been turned down and he has been holed up in a makeshift office in Portcullis House, across the road from Parliament.
The man who won the votes of the highest number of MPs in the last leadership contest goes into this race as the front-runner thanks – at least in part – to his refusal to play to the gallery on tax cuts. His dismissal of Truss’s policies as ‘fairy-tale economics’ now looks extremely prescient.
Indeed, in many ways Sunak is a candidate from Central Casting. After graduating with a first from Oxford, privately educated Sunak worked for the blue-chip investment bank Goldman Sachs and had a lucrative career in the finance world. As a former chief secretary to the Treasury and chancellor, his pitch will be that no other candidate is better qualified to calm the febrile financial markets.
His opponents argue his wealth – which enables him and his wife to keep homes in London, Yorkshire and California – will make him appear out of touch.
In the summer he became the first British MP to appear in the Sunday Times Rich List. His wife Akshata Murty is the daughter of an Indian billionaire and their joint fortune was estimated at £730million.
He was also damaged by the revelation that he had kept his US green card until 2021 and that his wife was a non-dom, which meant she did not pay UK tax on her overseas earnings. She was forced to give up the perk to save her husband’s career.
Will Boris’s supporters forgive him for resigning and triggering the Cabinet revolt which brought down the blond bombshell? The bookmakers certainly think so – he’s their hot favourite.
PENNY MORDAUNT, 49
Leader of the Commons
Odds: 11/4Â
The only female MP who is a Royal Naval reservist, Penny Mordaunt is fiercely proud of her military heritage
The woman who came a surprise third last time behind Sunak and Truss won praise for her dignified role at the meeting of the Accession Council which confirmed Charles as King and for her assured performances in the Commons.
But many MPs worry about her lack of time in Cabinet. Before entering Truss’s, she had less than two years of top-level experience having spent just 18 months as international development secretary and 85 days as defence secretary.
The only female MP who is a Royal Naval reservist, she is fiercely proud of her military heritage. Her father served in the parachute regiment, she was named after HMS Penelope, a Royal Navy cruiser, and today is MP for Portsmouth North, a constituency in the naval town where she grew up. She raised thousands for armed forces charities by making a controversial appearance in ITV’s reality show Splash!
Her back story as a comprehensive-educated child who was the first member of her family to go to university goes down well on the stump but the former equalities minister upset many Tories when she once used the expression ‘pregnant parents’ rather than women. Is she too woke for the job?
BORIS JOHNSON, 58
Former prime minister
Odds: 10/3
One of the party’s most charismatic and effective campaigners, Johnson won an 80-seat landslide in 2019
As Churchill’s biographer, Johnson will be only too keen to encourage talk of him emulating his political hero – who returned to No 10 in 1951 after losing the 1945 election – by making a comeback.
When he quit in July, after a string of controversies – from Partygate to the Chris Pincher scandal – Boris dropped a hint that he might not have given up on politics by referencing the story of Cincinnatus, the Roman statesman who left Rome for a bucolic existence on his farm, but was later called upon to take up the reins of power once again.
During his final Prime Minister’s Questions, he departed the despatch box with the words ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ and told MPs ‘Mission largely accomplished – for now’.
One of the party’s most charismatic and effective campaigners, he won an 80-seat landslide in 2019 – the biggest since Margaret Thatcher in 1987 – pledging to ‘get Brexit done’.
He did just that five months later, securing the deal with the EU which had eluded his predecessor Theresa May and he also won praise for Britain’s rapid Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
His marginal 7,000 majority in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency is a problem. Labour will throw everything at the constituency. But it’s a brave politician who would bet against Boris.
BEN WALLACE, 52
Defence Secretary
Odds: 14/1
Ben Wallace was one of the first European ministers to detect the Russian threat and started arming Kyiv 12 months before the war began
Despite his popularity with the grassroots, the avuncular Ben Wallace declined to run last time. His marriage had broken down and he was unwilling to expose his three young children to the media spotlight.
Unusually for a Cabinet minister he never went to university. After being privately educated at Millfield School in Somerset, he followed in the footsteps of his father – a member of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards – and attended Sandhurst. As a captain in the Scots Guards in Northern Ireland, Wallace was mentioned in dispatches.
He was one of the first European ministers to detect the Russian threat and started arming Kyiv 12 months before the war began. His big disadvantage is his lack of other Cabinet experience.
SUELLA BRAVERMAN, 42
Former home secretary
Odds: 33/1
Suella Braverman takes an uncompromising line on immigration and thrilled the Tory faithful at the party conference in Birmingham with her pledge to honour the manifesto commitment to rely on ‘far fewer low-skilled migrants’
Suella Braverman’s resignation as home secretary on Wednesday after just six weeks in the job went a long way towards precipitating the end of the Truss premiership.
A standard bearer of the Tory Right, she takes an uncompromising line on immigration and thrilled the Tory faithful at the party conference in Birmingham with her pledge to honour the manifesto commitment to rely on ‘far fewer low-skilled migrants’. To this end, she successfully deported a group of Albanians only last week.
The privately educated daughter of migrants from Kenya and Mauritius, she was named after Sue Ellen, the character played by Linda Gray in the 1980s TV series Dallas. A Buddhist, she studied at Cambridge and worked as a lawyer before entering politics.
She was Mrs May’s attorney general before resigning in protest at the then-PM’s attempts to secure a Brexit deal and is a former chairman of the European Research Group.
While she has very little chance of making it to No 10 this time round, she may do enough to ensure she is brought back into the Cabinet in a prominent role.
KEMI BADENOCH, 42
International Trade Secretary
Odds: 33/1
Born in London to parents of Nigerian origin, Badenoch grew up in the US. When she returned to Britain aged 16 she worked at McDonald’s while studying at a college in south London
Having served in the Cabinet for only two months, Kemi Badenoch is a very long shot to make it to Downing Street, but even her rivals acknowledge she is going places – and fast.
State-educated, her self-styled ‘anti-woke’, small-government pitch has won her plenty of admirers on the Right of the party. Michael Gove has praised her ‘focus, intellect and no-bulls**t’ approach.
Born in London to parents of Nigerian origin, Badenoch grew up in the US. When she returned to Britain aged 16 she worked at McDonald’s while studying at a college in south London.
A former software engineer, she once headed digital operations for the centre-Right Spectator magazine so beloved by the Conservative Party members. It would not be the first time a former Spectator employee entered 10 Downing Street as PM. Boris Johnson is a former editor.
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