Kate Plummer
Jul 20, 2022
Indy
Penny Mordaunt has today been knocked out of the Tory leadership contest, after making it to the final three candidates.
She got the support of 105 MPs, but Liz Truss got 113 votes and Rishi Sunak got 137 so the latter two will now go head to head and face the wider membership of the Conservative party. The results of that final vote are expected in early September and then we will have a new PM.
Ah, democracy.
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Mordaunt fought a fierce campaign and at one point was the bookies' favourite but she also suffered from numerous gaffes which set her back none more so than on her Twitter account.
Here we look back at some of those campaigning slip-ups.
1. 'Murdering' the Tory party tweet
Today, Mordaunt deleted a tweet sharing an article from The Daily Telegraph with the headline: “Tory MPs - vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love," which was a comment piece written by Allison Pearson.
People found the rhetoric tasteless not least because two MPs have actually been murdered in recent years and after it was deleted a source in her campaign reportedly told The Independent: “The campaign tweeted this in error without having seen the headline.”
Oops.
\u201cfor some reason Penny Mordaunt has deleted the tweet about her rivals wanting to murder the Tory party\u201d— Jim Pickard (@Jim Pickard) 1658307164
2. Awkward videos
Mordaunt launched her campaign with a video featuring a Paralympian who subsequently asked to be removed from it, Oscar Pistorius of all people and Jo Cox.
People weren't best pleased, as you can imagine.
A week or so later, she made another video that went down a bit better but was still pretty embarrassing and she got roasted in the replies.
\u201cThe real me. #PM4PM \ud83c\uddec\ud83c\udde7\u201d— Penny Mordaunt (@Penny Mordaunt) 1658176523
3. Graphics that don't make sense: Part one
Mordaunt shared a graphic the other day boasting that just as many people would prefer "none" of those standing for leadership of the party than her. The same graphic showed that Rishi Sunak was the most popular leadership candidate and no-one has any idea why she featured such a colossal L.
\u201c#PM4PM\u201d— Penny Mordaunt (@Penny Mordaunt) 1658143200
4. Graphics that don't make sense: Part two
That wasn't the only weird graphic Mordaunt shared and we are just going to leave this one here because... ?! We're lost for words.
\u201cPenny Mordaunt has now deleted this tweet. Did anyone ever work out what the hell it meant?\u201d— Adam Bienkov (@Adam Bienkov) 1657923958
Not the most slick campaigns operation that we've ever seen, it has to be said.
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