The Daily Mail seem determined to block Penny Mourdant from becoming the Conservative Party’s next leader – and therefore the UK’s next Prime Minister – as they target her once again using her previous stance on trans rights.
When Penny Mourdant ran for the Tory leadership last time, she placed third behind Rishi Sunak and the ultimate lettuce loser, Liz Truss.
There are many who believe that Mourdant would have won had the Daily Mail not went out of its way to target her in order to push forward the Boris-supporting Truss.
With another leadership race now underway in the same party, the Mail are doing it again in order to secure victory for Johnson and the same Brexit-supporting, tofu-hating, bigoterati wing of the party.
There are said to be four main candidates this time – Rishi Sunak, Penny Mourdant, Boris Johnson, and Suella Braverman.
Each candidate needs at least 100 votes from Tory MPs before they can be considered. If only one manages to get 100+, they will become leader.
If more than one manages it, they will be put to the Tory membership. Considering it costs just £25 to join the Tory Party, getting two exclusive votes to make someone UK PM is quite the perk. You don’t get that with many Patreon subscriptions.
Despite Truss resigning less than 24 hours ago, the Daily Mail have decided the race is between Sunak and Johnson.
They are throwing their weight behind Johnson, as you can see from how they frame their coverage and the space they’ve given to each candidate in their Friday edition:
It is Johnson’s name that comes first on the front page and it is his face that is centred, above and below.
I guess we should be thankful they aren’t backing Braverman, although don’t rule that out in the future if something happens to stop Johnson’s bid or to remove him a second time.
He is due to be investigated by the Privileges Committee in November which looks like it could be very damaging for the former PM as plenty queue up to give evidence over ‘Partygate’.
Should Johnson be found guilty of deliberately misleading the House of Commons, he could be suspended or expelled. Any suspension over 14 calendar days could lead to recall petition in his constituency.
In 2019, Johnson won that seat with 52.6% of the vote. He is expected to lose when it next comes up for election, with Labour taking 55.5% and Johnson dropping to around 27%.
One thing’s for sure, Mourdant’s previous respect for trans people has made her completely unsuitable for the role in the eyes of the Daily Mail and some Tory MPs, none of whom are prepared to put their names beside their statements.
One former cabinet minister (probably Suella Braverman) without evidence told the Mail, “Penny Mordaunt’s views on transgender people are a massive impediment to her ambitions to be Prime Minister. If she were to win the contest, female voters would stay away in droves.”
If the former minister means Mourdant’s current views on trans people, then they are correct, anti-trans views do repel most cis women. I suspect, however, they are referring to Mourdant previously being very clear that “trans women are women”.
Another nameless ‘senior Tory’, peddling hearsay and gossip, added, “There’s lots of talk that wherever she goes she leaves a chaotic mess behind her. But I’m also not sure what her views are. I don’t know of any original idea that has ever come to her in the course of her life.
“I don’t know what makes her tick, and there are definite issues about her trans position that will put a lot of people off.”
Even if I don’t think what the Daily Mail are doing is right I should be clear, I don’t care much for Mourdant at all.
After being generally supportive of trans people throughout her career, she threw us under the bus in order to try and secure the votes of a few bigots. It was a move borne of nothing more than naked ambition and both sides saw it for what it was.
She burned her bridges with the LGBTQIA community but the alien-obsessed loons could never forgive her for being nice about trans people in the first place.