Penny Mordaunt being lined up as Tory leader

[AdamRyan]

But only if she "gives up control of the trans issue to the Conservative right"

https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/mordaunt-sunak/

Some polling has shown she's the only person with a chance of boosting the polls.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/23/swapping-tory-leader-labour-lead-bigger-poll-opinium

So what do we think? Do we trust Mordaunt to do a better job on protecting women's rights than Sunak?

[UltraLiteLife]

Mordaunt's history indicates she should never be trusted on this issue.

Mordaunt wouldn't accept this poisoned chalice. Nobody would if they want a political career after the coming debacle. The responsibility for the defeat would be laid at the feet of the new leader, not Sunak, and all the better if it's a disaster that can be attributed to women.

[AdamRyan]

I wonder if the lure of being leader would be too much to resist.
It is interesting that it appears to be women mainly being positioned to take over from Sunak. Maybe the glass cliff phenomenon

[Nellieinthebarn]

I don't trust any of them.

[Joleyne]

She's a distraction from the candidate they're really hoping to replace him with.

[marmaladeandpeanutbutter]

Jolene if you mean BJ, the electorate will never trust him again. I had it, as far as they were concerned, but when the trust has gone, it's gone.

[marmaladeandpeanutbutter]

He had it.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

I don't care who the Tory leader is. I don't trust the Tories. I dread to think what kind of party they will have after the election. I heard a news report a few weeks ago about Tory MPs confiding to political correspondents that they were standing down at the general election not because they were frightened of not getting re-elected, but because they were frightened they would get re-elected to a Parliament with very few of the saner, more reasonable Tory MPs left.

[RebelliousCow]

It depends on how ambitious she is - if she is willing to tone down or even abandon her stance on 'TWAW"

Personally feel that there needs to be a very strong, knowledegable voice on the opposition benches, continually challenging Labour on trans ideology - when/if Labour get elected. I'm not sure Mordaunt is that person.

She's telegenic - that's why she's being touted - but her ideas and thinking are very wooly and all over the place - that was clear in the Tory Leadership debates

[Overtheatlantic]

Having watched her in the debates I believe she would be enormously out of her league in no 10 and the world stage. She lacks substance and even a moderate understanding of the issues. She resorts to sound bites.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

It remains a mystery to me why anybody ever trusted Johnson in the first place. Serial liar and philanderer, sacked for unreliability, laziness and dishonesty many times, always out for No. 1 and to hell with everybody else - not exactly an ideal CV for Prime Minister, was it? And yet a large chunk of the electorate thought he'd be a good laugh down the pub and that was a good reason to vote for him.

[Gettingbysomehow]

I'm pretty sure even hardened conservative supporters are sick to death of the revolving door prime minister situation and prime minister number 4 would be the kiss of death. How can a party survive without a proper leader? Lets give everyone in the cabinet a go at being prime minister shall we? What a joke.

[AdamRyan]

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

It remains a mystery to me why anybody ever trusted Johnson in the first place. Serial liar and philanderer, sacked for unreliability, laziness and dishonesty many times, always out for No. 1 and to hell with everybody else - not exactly an ideal CV for Prime Minister, was it? And yet a large chunk of the electorate thought he'd be a good laugh down the pub and that was a good reason to vote for him.

I think it was the appeal of the three word slogan - "Get Brexit Done". Because people were so bored of it and the polarised and obsessional debates.
Paradoxically it's come back to bite them because now we can all see Brexit was not the cause of the problem.

I think Mordaunt was trialling "Stand up and fight" for a while but I'm not sure it got much traction.

I would say I can't believe Boris could come back but I also thought that about Trump.

[JeannieDark]

Isn't she at serious risk of losing her seat at the election?

[Ingenieur]

I am suspicious of the framing that the author Chay Quinn has put on this. The fact that the party has been so reluctant to endorse Mordaunt is itself evidence that an aversion to her TWAW stance is not one of the "party fringes" but a much more mainstream opinion.

Chay, while writing for a number of outlets, writes a lot about gender issues, and this seems to evidence an unwelcome bias.

[Joleyne]

@marmaladeandpeanutbutter

Jolene if you mean BJ, the electorate will never trust him again. I had it, as far as they were concerned, but when the trust has gone, it's gone.

No, I don't mean BJ

[Joleyne]

BJ is another distraction.

[LipstickLil]

I honestly don't know, but Penny Mordaunt would be foolish to take on leadership at this point, when it looks like it's going to be a slam dunk for Labour. After the election this autumn, I suspect that the Tories will need to have a massive rethink, reshuffle and refocus as they start a period in opposition and that is the time for a new leader to take the party forward.

[SerendipityJane]

@JeannieDark

Isn't she at serious risk of losing her seat at the election?

I don't think there are any cast iron Tory seats now - especially if Reform really live down to expectations.

[HidingUnderARock]

There is no point changing leader now, it would take a miracle for them to survive the election. As others have said let's not make it a woman holding the buck at the time. Boris already did that to May when it should have stopped with him. He would have been better at Grenfell and she would have been better with covid.
I agree that morduant is all surface and soundbite, and certainly wouldn't last through to the following election.
I don't know why they don't just hold with Sunak till the GE and then replace with their best remaining MP. Unless it's actually him wanting to duck the GE and looking for a way out.

[SerendipityJane]

I don't know why they don't just hold with Sunak till the GE and then replace with their best remaining MP.

I thought that was The Plan anyway ?

The wider problem now is, the Tory party only seems to exist to prevent other parties from governing. The similarities with the GOP are too close to be a coincidence.

[Hoppinggreen]

Either way the Eton mob will have a brown person or a woman to blame for the election wipe out so they will be comforted by that
Based on not looking too shabby in a swimsuit and her sword holding activities while wearing a nice dress what else qualifies her? But then what qualifies any of them?

[CheapThrillsMeanNothing]

Replace Sunak with their ONLY remaining MP, possibly?..

[SerendipityJane]

Either way the Eton mob will have a brown person or a woman to blame for the election wipe out so they will be comforted by that

There's a weird irony in the fact that had they put the leadership to the membership, Sunak would never have won.

[SerendipityJane]

@CheapThrillsMeanNothing

Replace Sunak with their ONLY remaining MP, possibly?..

Whatever happened to the Peoples Popular Front ?

He's over there.

[MalagaNights]

I've been a Tory voter for a few electiosns (used to be Labour before that).

But I'm not voting for Sunak and I wuoldn't vote for Mordaunt.

I don't trust them to do the necessary hard things that need to be done. The current shambles is on them.

The only one I'd vote for now is Kemi Badenoch.

I think Reform will undermine the Tory vote letting Labour win.

Then the Tories will regroup with a strong conservative leader, who will get wider national support.

It's dead in the water for them this time.