Fresh faces Mordaunt and Badenoch are riding high – but for how long?

The current bout of Mordaunt mania and the accompanying fuss over former levelling up minister Kemi Badenoch shows how difficult it is for a government to renew itself in office

Perhaps we’re all missing a trick in our coverage of the Conservative leadership contest. Predicting the two MPs who will battle it out for the members’ vote is tricky: Conservative MPs are a notoriously fickle electorate, sometimes professing allegiance to one candidate in public before scuttling off to vote for their nemesis when no one’s watching.

So to gauge the genuine level of enthusiasm, maybe we should instead base our judgement on room temperature. The sweatier the venue, the more genuine the excitement about the candidate in question.

Penny Mordaunt’s launch yesterday – at a stifling room in the Cinnamon Club – certainly passed the sweatometer test. And there’s a smattering of science about the apparent surge in support for the trade minister too.

In last night’s first ballot, she clinched 67 votes from her fellow MPs, putting her within touching distance of the first-placed former chancellor Rishi Sunak. Add to that a snap YouGov poll of 879 Conservative members, carried out for Sky News and the Times, suggesting Mordaunt was best placed to beat the erstwhile frontrunner Sunak if she made the final two – securing 67 per cent backing to Sunak’s 28 per cent.

In truth, the current bout of Mordaunt mania, and the accompanying fuss over former levelling up minister Kemi Badenoch shows how difficult it is for a government to renew itself in office. After 12 years in power, Sunak and his leadership rival, foreign secretary Liz Truss, risk looking like figures of the past.

They’ve been in prominent, frontline jobs during turbulent times. They’ve been wounded in political battles and punished by the grassroots for making decisions – as every government must – that aren’t necessarily politically popular.

By contrast, although they’re both ministers, Mordaunt and Badenoch have kept a relatively low profile, with the trade minister’s critics even nicknaming her “Penny Dormant”, so quiet has she been in her frontline post. Indeed, a Savanta ComRes poll found just 11 per cent of the public could correctly name Mordaunt when shown a picture of her.

Badenoch said at her launch that her lack of experience is a “huge advantage” because she does not come with “the baggage of so many of the decisions that have been made” in recent years. “People want a fresh face, and they can’t have somebody who has been in cabinet a very long time,” she added.

The public knows little about their past and what we’re learning now sounds inspiring. Mordaunt, aged 15, cared for her little brother after her mum died of cancer; Badenoch grew up in Nigeria and America before settling here. They haven’t had to raise taxes like Sunak or endure public humiliation at the hands of Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

There’s no doubt that Mordaunt has the big momentum. For how long remains in question. The next few days will show us if she’s the Rory Stewart of this leadership election. The former international development secretary enjoyed a rush of support in the second round of the 2019 leadership election before crashing out in the third. The same fate may await Mordaunt.

And then there’s the small task of actually wearing the crown if she does pull off the feat of ousting the pretender to the throne.

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Because the fact remains that no matter how fresh the face at the helm, the Conservatives – as Badenoch correctly identified – are weighed down by a huge amount of baggage. The highest tax burden since the 1940s, an NHS creaking at the seams, schools starved of real terms investment for years and public sector workers threatening strikes after years of simmering discontent over pay and conditions.

This winter will be brutal. Energy prices are forecast to soar further, the possibility of war with Russia looms and a recession is now – despite this week’s better than expected economic figures – far more likely than not.

Any prime minister would struggle to get through that, let alone a government with 12 years of trouble and strife behind it, and a party tearing itself apart.

After a few weeks in office even an unlined face will start to look distinctly careworn. No wonder Labour MPs are dusting off that tried and trusted election slogan: “Time for a change.”

Cathy Newman is presenter and investigations editor of ‘Channel 4 News’