Penny Mordaunt enters Tory party leadership race, here is all you need to know about her

Penny Mordaunt has entered the Tory party's leadership race, again. In the previous Tory party leadership race, Mordaunt was the second runner-up, standing behind Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

After the previous Tory leadership contest ended, Mordaunt was appointed as Leader of the House of Commons. Under Boris' premiership, she served as the Minister of State at the Department for International Trade from 16 September 2021 to 6 September 2022. According to reports from Times, she enjoys considerable support amongst the Tory party's membership. 

Mordaunt has held several positions in the government. As per information on the government of UK's website, Mordaunt's previous positions in government include: Minister of Local Government (2014), Minister for the Armed Forces (2015), she was the first woman to hold this position, Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (2016). She served as Secretary of State for International Development (2017), Secretary of State for Defence (2019), the first woman to hold this post as well and Paymaster General (2020). Due to the culture war in the US and UK, the issue of trans people is a controversial one, with many believing equating trans people to women is wrong. 

Mordaunt perceived as being 'woke'

The controversy has only gathered steam in recent years after Wall Street Journal's Abigail Shrier published a book documenting how young teenagers are transitioning their gender, due to fuzziness around the concept of gender and the parents of these children are apparently unable to do anything to prevent their children from undergoing surgeries. Conservatives in Britain and Republicans in America are generally perceived to be against equating trans people with women. During the Tory party leadership contest, Mordaunt ended up facing the flak of her own party members when her earlier statements equating trans people with women came to light. During the contest, she walked back from those earlier comments, as per a report by the BBC. 

Mordaunt served in the Royal Navy

Mordaunt has also been criticised by her former boss Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister. He said that sometimes he didn't even know where she was. Mordaunt comes from a family that has strong connections with the British armed forces and her advertisement during the Tory leadership contest reflected that. It talked about the British Royal Navy, and the war with Argentina and sought to establish her credentials as someone with an armed forces background. Mordaunt served in the Royal Navy as a reservist, her father, who was a paratrooper, named her after the battleship HMS Penelope.