Signals Point To Sunak Coronation As New PM, Mordaunt Struggles For Support

It is looking increasingly likely that former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will be made the next leader of the Conservative Party at 1400BST (0900ET, 1500CET), when nominations for the leadership contest close, given that he may be the only candidate to gain the required nominations to get onto the ballot.

• Sunak's potential coronation as leader without having to face a members vote comes following the announcement by former PM Boris Johnson that he would not be running in the contest (see 2312BST bullet on 23 Oct).
• The other publicly announced figure in the contest, Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, is well short of the 100 signatures from Conservative MPs to get on the ballot (27 public backers at present according to the Guido Fawkes blog).
• Data from Smarkets shows an implied probability of 95.2% that Sunak becomes the next Conservative Party leader, and therefore PM. While his campaign so far has been a low-key one, he is likely to seek to govern according to his summer campaign that he lost to Liz Truss. This focused on a fairly traditional 'fiscal conservative' model, with maintaining sound public finances put above either tax cuts or broad spending commitments in terms of govt' priorities.

Source: Smarkets