Penny Mordaunt has had a good start to the leadership race, storming into second place with 16 names, even though she is yet to declare. But is the Portsmouth MP worried about her past views coming back to haunt her? Mr S was surprised to see Mordaunt fire off a late-night ten-part Twitter thread shortly after midnight, in which the Royal Navy reservist tried desperately to prove that she really isn’t woke.

Having complained that she wants to talk about ‘how we get our economy growing’, Mordaunt then shared a graphic captioned ‘Do I know what a woman is?’ Taking a sideswipe at the Times for using an image of her on a gameshow, the trade minister declared that ‘Some people born male and who have been through the gender recognition process are also legally female. That DOES NOT mean they are biological women, like me.’

Mordaunt then listed her involvement in gender equality campaigns before declaring that in government ‘I challenged the trans orthodoxy with real and genuine concern’. The bizarre thread ends with her moaning that ‘Some want to damage my reputation for whatever reason. they want to depict me as “woke”.’ She concludes: ‘I’ve fought for women’s rights all my life. I would NEVER do anything to undermine them. I will continue to protect them.’ Penny Mordaunt: definitely, positively, 100 per cent NOT woke. Got it??

It’s a far cry from March last year, when Mordaunt stood at the despatch box in the House of Commons and declared that ‘trans men are men and trans women are women.’ Clips of it have been circulating on Twitter with today’s Mail on Sunday quoting campaign group Conservatives for Women which describes Mordaunt as a ‘committed warrior for the trans lobby.’ The paper also references a 2018 Cabinet discussion in which she reportedly described trans rights as ‘the fight of our age.’

Mordaunt has many fans but if she wants to go far in this race, she will have to be a bit less rattled and a bit more clear about her stance on gender self-identification.