Despite being on resignation watch last Monday, Penny Mordaunt remains stubbornly in government. A week ago when asked if she was backing the PM she coldly told her local paper “I have continued to support him”. An op-ed from her in the next day’s Telegraph focused almost entirely on policy, only saying the previous day’s events had “brought division. It also brought a result.” Her leadership ambitions are hardly a secret – not now nor any time over the past half-a-decade…

Despite being a front runner in the bookies, it sounds like Penny’s manoeuvring may have hit a roadblock. Without hesitation anti-Boris rebels tell Guido that the most overt moves for the leadership are being made by Tom Tugendhat and Penny Mordaunt. There is some frustration with Mordaunt in light of her anti-Boris manoeuvring being carried out whilst still cashing a ministerial paycheck. Another anti-Boris rebel has independently voiced to Guido a similarly unimpressed review of her current Janus-faced stance…

Penny is a smart operator, has courage and ideas. Nevertheless at the start of the year Guido spoke to a key member of Boris’s 2019 leadership campaign, who when asked about Boris’s chance of staying on, said they’d be happy to offer advice to the campaigns of any leadership contender, apart from Mordaunt. Allies of the PM believe her inability to be a team player, and being too wet on social issues – especially trans – means she’ll struggle to get support beyond her friends in the metropolitan media. Penny’s overt positioning proves Maggie’s old adage right, that standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.