Throughout the leadership race, Penny Mordaunt has sought to portray herself as the cleanest candidate of them all. She has bemoaned the ‘toxic politics’ and ‘smears’ of others and bewailed how ‘this contest is in danger of slipping into something else’. She, by contrast, has pledged to run a ‘truly clean campaign’ and ‘committed to a clean start for our party’ – away from all from the attacks, lies and backstabbing of the past.
Mordaunt even told Steerpike’s colleague Isabel Hardman on The Spectator podcast just yesterday that:
I have conducted my campaign in a way that I think is needed and has been the right thing to do. Now more than ever. We’ve got to restore some positivity and some professionalism to what we do… I also think they they want to see the party being brought together in terms of the we’ve got so many caucuses and clearly it’s been a contest to date where fault lines have been stamped on and we need to set out a vision that will unite the party.
So it was somewhat surprise then that, just hours ahead of the final 1922 ballot, Penny Mordaunt’s personal account tweeted: ‘Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love.’ What happened to all that talk about unity, positivity and professionalism then eh?
Mordaunt’s defenders will suggest she was just quoting the headline of an article by Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. But to use such inflammatory rhetoric just days after featuring praise for Jo Cox in a campaign video seems jarring, to say the least. Sunak and Truss served alongside Mordaunt together in government; they can hardly be said to be the King Herod and Salome of the Tory party.
It’s not the first time too that the Mordaunt camp has messed up on comms: on Sunday her official Instagram account shared a post which claimed ‘Rishi back stabbed the boss to get his job’ and ‘Liz is the bosses puppet. It was up for more than 15 hours before being belatedly removed.
Mordaunt, more than any of the three remaining candidates, has clearly been riled by various criticisms of her in the press. How exactly can she take the moral high ground now?
This article is free to read
To unlock more articles, subscribe to get 3 months of unlimited access for just $5
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in