Why do more and more Tory MPs keep joining the race for leader?

The Conservative leadership race is now so contested that you could field an entire cricket team from the candidates.

Mark Harper’s entry into the contest on Thursday took the total number of candidates to 12 – significantly more than in previous contests.

The field could grow further still, with Penny Mordaunt, the defence secretary, and Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, still considering whether to join.

Yet few of those running genuinely believe they will win. Instead, some are standing in the hope of raising their profiles and boosting their chances of a cabinet job in the next government, while others want to to make their case on Brexit.

The 12 candidates can be divided into three groups: those with a genuine prospect of winning; those with an outside chance; and those with no realistic hope at all.

The candidates with a real chance of becoming the next prime minister are Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab and Sajid Javid.

While the early indicators are that Johnson, the former foreign secretary, is the favourite, Gove, the environment secretary, and Hunt, the foreign secretary, have also started the race strongly.

Raab, a former Brexit secretary, has a lesser chance of winning and has lost some of the anti-EU Tory support to Johnson and Gove, while Javid, the home secretary, has been slow out the blocks but will hope to gain ground in the coming weeks.

All are running because they think they can win, and many have been plotting their campaigns for months.

The candidates with less of a chance of winning are Matt Hancock, Rory Stewart and Andrea Leadsom. They are running because they believe they have little to lose by doing so, and will be mindful that David Cameron was initially given almost no chance of winning the 2005 leadership contest before going on to David Davis, the favourite.

Hancock, the health secretary, has impressed as a minister but is relatively inexperienced. So too is Stewart, who has only been in the cabinet for a month, but who has captured attention with his unconventional method of campaigning, which has seen him travelling around the country speaking to voters and filming “selfie” videos. If that continues, he will be well placed for a promotion under the next prime minister.

As the representative of the One Nation group of Tory MPs, he has also led the case against a no-deal Brexit and is likely to see it as his role to take on the Brexiteers in the contest, by highlighting the dangers of leaving the EU without an agreement.

Leadsom, the former Commons leader and a vocal Brexiteer, reached the final round in the 2016 contest against Ms May – she will be hoping that another strong showing will leave her well placed for a plum job in the next government, particularly under a Eurosceptic prime minister.

Then there are the candidates who, when the contest culminates in mid-July, will likely be described as ”also-rans”. This group consists of James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse, Esther McVey and Mark Harper.

Cleverly and Malthouse are currently junior ministers and will hope that the exposure they gain in the coming weeks will burnish their credentials for a top job under whoever succeeds Ms May. Harper, a former chief whip, is likely to have made a similar calculation.

McVey is slightly different. As a former work and pensions secretary, she already has a high profile. She is running to promote a hard Brexit agenda and a right-wing stance on other issues, and caused a stir last week with her suggestion that parents should be free to withdraw their children from school lessons on LGBT+ relationships.

These four candidates have made a calculated gamble – but they are playing a risky game. While a strong campaign by a little-known contender helps to raise their profile and boost their prospects of securing a top role in the next government, performing badly and falling in the early stages without securing any real support is potentially humiliating and does little to advance their cause.

Still, of the four candidates who were defeated by Theresa May in the 2016 contest, three ended up with cabinet jobs. There have long been calls for a clear-out of the current cabinet and for a new generation of Tory MPs to be promoted. That seems certain to happen whoever wins the leadership, meaning junior ministers are already jockeying for position.

They may not have long to make their mark. The size of the field has led to calls from some senior Tories for party rules to be changed to narrow down the contest. If that happens, those with a genuine chance of becoming the next prime minister will be quickly distinguished, while those running simply to enhance their career credentials will have to wait to see, when the next leader chooses their top team, whether their gamble has paid off.