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Penny Mordaunt on Wednesday discovered the perils of being a favourite to become Britain’s next prime minister, as rivals attacked her competence and the Tory leadership campaign turned increasingly ugly.

After coming second in the first ballot of Conservative MPs with 67 votes, the briefing against the trade minister was in full swing. The headline on the Spectator magazine’s front cover summed up the mood: “Blue Murder”.

A YouGov poll of Conservative members on Wednesday electrified the contest: it revealed she was the favourite among activists who will have the final say on who should be Britain’s next prime minister.

There was an even greater buzz in Westminster’s wood-panelled committee corridor at 5pm after Mordaunt’s strong showing, with bookmakers’ odds shifting sharply in her favour.

All Tory candidates are now eyeing her nervously. One minister backing Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, argued that Mordaunt was “not serious” when it came to economics, as the country enters a cost of living crisis.

At her pugnacious official launch speech in Westminster, Mordaunt caused some consternation when she declared: “My monetary policy will be on controlling inflation.”

Sunak’s supporters rolled their eyes at the suggestion that Mordaunt, rather than the independent Bank of England, might be running monetary policy. One said: “This is no time for an amateur.”

Mordaunt also said that Whitehall was “broken”, prompting claims from one former permanent secretary that the minister was not held in particularly high regard by her officials.

“I doubt you’ll find a single civil servant who’s worked closely with her who thinks she is prime ministerial material,” the former mandarin said. Mordaunt’s team strongly dispute that.

Sunak has borne the brunt of the negative briefing so far in the leadership campaign, having been accused of “treachery” by Boris Johnson’s allies and of being a “socialist” by Johnson loyalist Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Allies of Mordaunt claimed that Sunak’s campaign was being secretly driven by Sir Gavin Williamson, a former chief whip seen as an expert in Westminster’s dark arts. Williamson denies this.

The former chancellor’s team are also worried that the influential Daily Mail newspaper was trying to “foment a betrayal [of Boris Johnson] narrative”. One said: “The idea that Rishi is a socialist is self-evidently ludicrous.”

After securing what one supporter called a “solid” total of 88 votes in the first round of voting, Sunak will be relieved that his rivals are now starting to come under scrutiny — and criticism.

Jeremy Hunt, the former foreign secretary who crashed out of the race with only 18 votes, called for restraint: “Smears and attacks may bring short term tactical gain but always backfire long term,” he wrote on Twitter. “The nation is watching and they’ve had enough of our drama.”

The Conservative parliamentary party — once self-described as the world’s “most sophisticated electorate” — is in danger of descending into fratricide in one of the most open leadership contests of recent years.

Urgent talks were being held among MPs on the Tory right on Wednesday about whether to unite now behind Liz Truss, who finished with 50 votes, to ensure she ends up on the final two-person shortlist.

There was talk of whether Suella Braverman, a former Brexit “Spartan” who narrowly scraped into the second round with 32 votes, should now back Truss to help the foreign secretary overtake Mordaunt and possibly Sunak too.

But as one supporter of Sunak pointed out, predicting how votes will shift as candidates are eliminated is not easy in this contest. “It will be a mosaic,” he said.

On Wednesday evening the fight was on between rival campaigns to mop up the 18 votes secured by Hunt and the 25 who backed Nadhim Zahawi, the chancellor, whose campaign also crashed at the first hurdle.

Earlier on Wednesday, Johnson struck a valedictory note in the Commons, declaring he would leave office with his “head held high”, but already he felt like yesterday’s man.

Johnson, cheered by many of the same Tory MPs who moved to oust him last week, nevertheless sounded like a prime minister considering his legacy. “People around the world might hope this will be the end of Brexit — they are wrong,” he vowed.

Johnson has bowed to Labour pressure to provide parliamentary time for a no-confidence vote in his government next Monday, but it will be something of a sideshow: the Conservatives are certain to win.

But Tory MPs are now fixated not on Johnson’s government, but on the new leader who will take the party into a treacherous autumn of soaring inflation, strikes and a living standards crunch.

As one cabinet minister told the Financial Times: “We’re heading for a shit storm — we’d better choose someone who knows what they are doing.”

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