Here we go: the race begins today. The 1922 Committee will meet late this afternoon to formally launch the process of selecting Britain’s next Prime Minister; the big question hovering over the meeting is what – not if – number of backers they’ll increase the qualification threshold to. Currently eight, however with 11 candidates plus a likely Priti attempt it’s expected it could increase anywhere from 20 backers to 36. A tenth of the parliamentary party…

The state of play this morning looks almost the same as last night, albeit after a frantic weekend – Guido disputes it was anything of the sort – by the end of which 44% of MPs have backed a horse, it’s unsurprising movement’s slowing down.

Saying that, Liz Truss has managed to draw into joint third place after her campaign launch in the Telegraph last night. Kwasi Kwarteng was the big name to back her, however it’s a triple ministerial byline in The Times from Ranil Jayawardena, Wendy Morton and Vicky Ford who have helped her overtake Nadhim. Harking back to the now-infamous 2019 triple Boris-backing-byline by Rishi, Jenrick and Dowden…

Rishi remains well in the lead, beating second place Penny Mordaunt by 13 backers.  Before the 1922 Committee writes the rules for the contest, there’s the small business of electing a new executive – a process that, just a week ago, was dominated by talk about whether there’d be enough anti-Boris members to force a rule change. It’s unlikely Sir Graham will be leaving his post…

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, nominations must be submitted to Sir Graham by 6pm on Tuesday, with voting due to start on Wednesday after PMQs. The first result will be announced early on Wednesday evening. Thursday, another vote will be held ad infinitum until we have two final candidates to go before the Tory membership. Strap in for another mad week…

The backers in full can be found here: