Penny’s now in the Truss camp
Major coup for leadership frontrunner as third-placed Mordaunt supports former rival
PENNY Mordaunt last night threw her support behind Liz Truss in a major coup for the frontrunner’s leadership campaign.
The trade minister dramatically declared she was backing her former rival at the start of a hustings event for party members.
She had not been expected to endorse either finalist after coming third in the contest.
But taking to the stage in Exeter last night, she said the choice of the next Conservative Party leader was ‘too important’ to be left to chance.
She said she had decided to back Miss Truss, paying tribute to her ‘graft, her authenticity, her determination, her ambition for this country, her consistency and sense of duty’.
‘She knows what she believes in, and her resolve to stand up against tyranny and fight for freedom – that’s what our country stands for.
‘And that’s why I know with her we can win,’ Miss Mordaunt said. ‘She for me is the “hope” candidate.’
Meanwhile Miss Truss secured more support from Holyrood than Rishi Sunak with nine MSPs writing a joint article stating that the Foreign Secretary will stand up for the Union and can trusted to deliver for Scotland.
It means she has now received more public declarations of support than the former Chancellor, who had initially secured the backing of a series of highprofile MSPs but has failed to add any in the last week.
The unexpected backing from Miss Mordaunt came just hours after another former leadership candidate, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, lent his support to Miss Truss.
Mr Zahawi praised her ‘booster’ approach to the economy in contrast to that of her ‘doomster’ rival Rishi Sunak.
‘Liz will overturn stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a Conservative way,’ Mr Zahawi wrote in The Daily Telegraph, as he became the tenth member of the current Cabinet to back her, compared with eight for her rival.
Answering questions about her personal life, Miss Truss said she ‘shared the values’ of the Church of England but was not a regular worshipper.
Asked where the money was going to come from for her tax cuts and infrastructure investment, she replied: ‘Thriving enterprises, thriving businesses and economic growth’. She added: ‘If we tax people and businesses too much, and we’ve currently got the highest tax rates for 70 years in our country, we will throttle that growth.’
But she suggested she would offer her rival a role in Government if she became prime minister, saying: ‘Of course I would have Rishi Sunak as part of my team, he’s a fantastic guy and we need all of our best talent on the pitch.’
Mr Sunak sought to revitalise his campaign by portraying himself as the ‘change candidate’ at the hustings. And he again highlighted the fact he backed Britain leaving the EU while his rival supported Remain.
‘I supported change. I supported Brexit, I believed in my principles then, and I believe in my principles now,’ he said.
The nine MSPs who wrote the joint article for The Times supporting Miss Truss included frontbenchers Murdo Fraser, Stephen Kerr, Liam Kerr, Oliver Mundell and Rachael Hamilton, as well as Finlay Carson, Sharon Dowey, Douglas Lumsden and Graham Simpson.
It said: ‘Having spent her early years living in Scotland, Liz is a child of the Union. She knows from personal experience that we are stronger when we work together across the United Kingdom.
‘We have achieved so much over the past 300 years working together and we can achieve so much more in the future. This is why Liz is so positive about Scotland’s future in the United Kingdom.’
A spokesman for Mr Sunak’s campaign said: ‘Polls continue to show that Rishi is the best candidate to beat Labour and stop the SNP from getting into power via the backdoor.’
‘We need all our best talent’
‘I supported change’