Yes, so, Penny Mordaunt. Eliminated narrowly at the gates of the final (103 votes vs 113 for Truss; Sunak 137), for these reasons:

1) As I explained in my series of July 13 posts, she was considered « too woke », and too pro-feminist even (by the hard right media).

Mainly for these transgender stories, see my posts of 07/13, but also for having « spoken » to the Muslim Council of Britain, an organization boycotted at 10 Downing St. since 2009 see link. (The Prime Minister in 2009 was Gordon Brown, never elected, not even internally in the Labor Party after Blair’s resignation, but he remained PM for three years, quietly. How beautiful our democracy is).

The Daily Mail and the Sun picked up this story from the MCB link to July 18, just before the penultimate vote (07/20), and it did her a disservice.

Another crippling flaw: she was deemed too close to the group « One Nation Conservatives » link), coterie of « moderate » Conservatives (it must be said quickly but are much less crazy than the right wing, the « Torykippers ». The French equivalent of the ONC would be roughly « social Gaullism » à la Séguin or in this gender, but in a British context, therefore ultraliberal).

Mordaunt had also briefly claimed this current and this small group ONC supported her, discreetly but it was exploited. The ONC is a kind of founding current of the Conservative Party, it goes back almost two centuries (Benjamin Disraeli and Toussa link.).

Doing the splits, cô has somewhat tried to do Mordaunt (bringing together the various chapels), was not desirable in these primaries. However, she spoke hard, hammered home her hardline Brexiteer credentials and her Royal Navy background, apparently an RN reservist, etc. (although she’s never set foot on a warship, she’s also not allowed to wear all those RN badges like she did, but let’s move on) but there was harder and more demago than her, Truss, ultimately the darling of the alt-rightist media.

2) The powerful, popular, alt-rightist media fell on him. Namely the Daily Mail, Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Telegraph, and the TV channels GB News (where Nigel Farage has recycled himself) and TalkTV, the « straight talking channel », as well as the few very right-wing shows on LBC (radio), in particular those of the very Thatcherite Iain Dale, Camilla Tominey and others, journalists and polemicists revealed by Brexit.

The DM in particular was unleashed, via his boss, Paul Dacre, a scumbag of the first (10/10 on the Rupert Murdoch scale), unwavering support of Boris Johnson and who could moreover be ennobled by Johnson for his loyalty (if so, he will therefore sit in the upper house of parliament, House of Lords) link (Johnson is still Prime Minister, until September). It could be one of Johnson’s « parting shots », those naughty little shots you make when you leave to troll the opposition and the « Libs ».

See this Guardian article for details on these right-wing press attacks on Mordaunt link.

The aroused media have all supported the hardliner Liz Truss (a former Remainer but who knew how to fire her cuti at the right time and has since been a relentless Brexiter), who promises a « low tax » economy (income taxes, corporation tax, etc. .) and a « family policy » (without giving any details either in terms or financing).

She promises Liz a lot, and pours into « fantasy ecomomics » say her detractors, « voodoo economics » as Americans have said since George W Bush (« an economic policy perceived as being unrealistic and ill-advised, in particular a policy of maintaining or increasing levels of public spending while reducing taxation. »).

Mordaunt tried to talk family (I mentioned a few weeks ago, in this post link, as it’s been hustle and bustle at the moment, since the release of the 2021 census results at the end of June 2022 – analyzed by the right-wing press as « let’s not let immigrants repopulate the UK, let’s make good kids from home ») but she is seen as little or less credible on these subjects by the right-wing press because she is childless (Truss has two). premiere – who by the way supported Mordaunt, but probably because she fell out with everyone else).

Mordaunt is however not a sweetheart (her voting history in parliament attests to this), she is a pure and hard Brexiter, etc. but these media needed a first-rate bitch, Badenoch or Truss, and Mordaunt did not correspond sufficiently to the profile sought, deemed too soft.

3) How I also assumed on July 13, a series of cabals in parliament and elsewhere (highly criticized by ministers, ex-ministers, Tory politicians, etc. including by this scum of David Frost link) set in motion to discredit her, and therefore push MPs not to vote for her (cabals and whoredoms mainly orchestrated by supporters of Liz Truss, it is said).

4) The elimination of the ultra-hardliner Kemi Badenoch (07/19, with 59 votes) worked in favor of Liz Truss, and therefore against Mordaunt.

The postponement of votes for Badenoch, nicknamed « Bad Enoch » favored Truss (nickname in reference to the extreme rightist Conservative Enoch Powell, see in this article Teenage Kicks link the passage on his infamous racist speech from 1968 link, then approved by 74% of the British).

5) Mordaunt did not really burst the screen in the two TV debates and fell just as dry in the polls, which undoubtedly had some influence on the hesitant or floating deputies, as I wrote on the 13th. All there’s a transactional element to these or similar primaries (MPs or whatever backing favorites who hold out positions for them), so it all sort of follows the polls, and when the polls started, a few mooches changed donkeys and Mordaunt had more difficulty finding new supporters to vote for her.

I only saw excerpts from these two TV debates but it’s true in what I saw, it was not transcendent, it appeared more withdrawn than the others, let’s say. That said, the others haven’t really uprooted the trees either, eh, except (in the opinion of all, and of those polled) perhaps the Franco-British Tom Tugendhat ( link « Tom Tugendhat clear winner of first Tory leadership debate, snap poll finds ») but almost unknown and as a Remainer he had no chance.

And Tugendhat played on velvet since he was the only one on the set to have never held a ministerial position so he had the advantage of being able to attack the others on their balance sheet. Kemi Badenoch did relatively well too, especially on the second debate (or so it seems, according to the poll I read). Praised for her punchy side and her elocution (she lies and is totally delirious but she does it properly, and we know how much the talents of orator impress the populace; it is the eternal debate content-container, signified-significant, etc. ).

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