The junior trade secretary, who did not quit last week despite a wave of resignations that forced Johnson to quit, said the Tories had lost their “sense of self” but pledged to fight on the mandate he secured in 2019 and suggested he would not call an early general election if elected leader. Speaking ahead of the first knockout vote by Tory MPs on Wednesday evening, Mordaunt told cheering supporters at the stuffy Cinnamon Club in London, where Sajid Javid launched his aborted leadership campaign, that “we have a manifesto to to deliver and the standards and trust to restore.” . He said voters are fed up with the government not delivering, making unfulfilled promises and engaging in divisive politics. Mordaunt has been touting her Brexiter credentials, saying her plans for a “modern economy” focused on growth and competition, rather than tax and spending, “would pay dividends for Brexit”. Admitting that the UK must try to stave off a looming recession, Mordaunt said she would have an “unrelenting focus on cost of living issues” by halving VAT on fuel and raising the income tax threshold for basic and middle earners in line with inflation. Mordaunt joked that trying to secure enough supporters to get into the first leadership vote was a bit like “speed dating” and expressed his frustration that the Conservative party is not living up to its values under Johnson. “If I can compare it to being in the audience at Glastonbury,” he said, “when Paul McCartney played his set, we enjoyed all these new tunes, but what we really wanted was the good old stuff that we knew all the words to . .” Mordaunt said she was first moved to run for public office at the age of nine, when she watched the Falklands Action Group leave the harbor in Portsmouth, the city she represents as an MP. Considered by some to be the “awakening candidate” for her dislike of some colleagues’ urge to focus the party 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 who said every prime minister needs a Willie. a woman like me doesn’t,” Mordaunt said, referring to the former prime minister’s quote about her deputy, Willie Whitelaw. Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss won the support of former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith and Brexit supporter Marc Francois. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST After three candidates – Home Secretary Priti Patel, former Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Foreign Secretary Rehman Chishti – were forced out of the race on Tuesday because they could not muster enough supporters, eight remain. Some are trying to field more supporters to ensure they are not knocked out in the first round of voting, which will be held from 1.30pm. until 15.30 on Wednesday. Each candidate needs at least 30 votes to advance to Thursday’s next round.
