Penny Mordaunt claims she’s the Tory candidate Labour ‘fears the most’

Penny Mordaunt has claimed she is the Tory leadership candidate that Labour “fears the most” and the party’s “best shot” at winning the next general election in her pitch to activists.

Launching her campaign, the minister also warned the Conservative Party has “lost its sense of self” in the last few years, as she set out her pitch for low taxation and a reduction in the size of the state.

“We need to get back to that,” she said. “We’ve got to stave off recession. We’ve got to catch up after Covid and we have a war. We have a manifesto that we have to deliver and standards and trust to restore”.

Pressed on where she stood on gender issues, she added: “I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said ‘Every prime minister needs a Willie‘. A woman like me doesn’t have one.”

Ms Mordaunt’s remarks come less than 24 hours after she progressed through to the next stage of voting among MPs in the Tory leadership contest, gaining over 20 MPs’ nominations to make the ballot.

Along with seven other candidates she will now face the tough battle of winning enough of her colleagues’ support as the party’s 1922 committee whittles down the contenders to just two to face a membership vote.

Speaking at her launch event in central London, Ms Mordaunt brushed off claims that she was less well-known than other candidates in the race to succeed Boris Johnson in No 10, saying: “I am the candidate that Labour fear the most — and they’re right to”.

“If we do not win the next general election all those opportunities and the vision the British people had from us leaving the EU will not be realised. We must win that election. I am your best shot at winning that election,” she added.

After Ms Mordaunt’s campaign launch, a Labour spokesperson, however, told The Independent: “Whoever succeeds this lying, damaging, discredited prime minister, will inherit a damaging, discredited government, a record of 12 years of failure, a stagnant economy as a result of their choices, and a general public who know they deserve better. We don’t fear any of them.”

Flanked by former cabinet ministers Andrea Leadsom and David Davis, the international trade minister also insisted she is “very different” from her would-be predecessor but indicated she would not call an early general election to win her own mandate if she entered No 10.

Pressed on whether she would need a new mandate from the British public if she wins the Tory leadership race, saying: “I think what the public want us to do is deliver on that [manifesto] now.

“I stood on the same platform as Boris Johnson and every other member of parliament in my party. We have a mandate and a big majority and I think the British people want us to get on and deliver for them.”

The naval reservist and former defence secretary pledged to return to traditional Conservative values of “low tax, small state and personal responsibility”. She also vowed to fix a “broken” Whitehall machine through the “white heat of modernisation” with a “tighter” cabinet.