Penny Mordaunt becomes the UK’s first female defence secretary after being tipped for the job two years ago after the sacking of Michael Fallon.
It is a post that seems more suited to her background than her previous job as international development secretary.
Mordaunt is a Royal Navy reservist, a former minister for the armed forces and the MP for Portsmouth, home of HMNB Portsmouth.
She is also an enthusiastic Brexiter, one of the leading faces on the Vote Leave campaign, but someone who has stayed loyal to the prime minister throughout the rows over the Chequers summit, the withdrawal agreement and the meaningful vote, despite her obvious reservations.
Mordaunt’s outspokenness has not always been to her benefit and she was accused by the then prime minister David Cameron of making “a very misleading claim” during the referendum campaign that Britain would not have a veto on Turkey joining the EU.
Asked whether Britain had a veto on the issue, Mordaunt had said: “No it doesn’t.” She then argued: “I do not think that the EU is going to keep Turkey out. I think it is going to join. I think the migrant crisis is pushing it more that way.”
Mordaunt has avoided any major gaffes since joining the cabinet to replace Priti Patel, just two weeks after Gavin Williamson replaced Fallon.
Her name has been in the frame for the Tory leadership as a dark horse Brexiter candidate without the baggage of Boris Johnson or Michael Gove. She ran the campaign of Andrea Leadsom, now the Commons leader, who conceded to May in the leadership race following the Brexit vote.
Mordaunt has a family history in the armed forces. Her father was in the parachute regiment, which she mentioned during her maiden speech in parliament.
Known to colleagues as an occasional mischief-maker, she admitted that a speech she delivered on the welfare of poultry had been made with the sole purpose of saying the word “cock” in the House of Commons, imposed as a forfeit by cheeky Royal Navy colleagues during training.
At the international development department (DfID), Mordaunt has been an aid budget sceptic and argued for more involvement from the private sector to help the UK meet its 0.7% aid target, remarks that drew stern criticism from the aid sector.
She told cabinet ministers she would aim for DfID to become a fundraising department rather than a spending one, telling them it was unsustainable to continue to meet the spending target with taxpayer cash.
Mordaunt has also enthusiastically embraced the role of minister for women and equalities, one she will keep.
In that role, she has been outspoken on abortion law, privately pushing the prime minister to work to end the ban in Northern Ireland and also oppose Donald Trump’s “global gag” which ends US aid to women’s health charities involved in family planning.
She has spoken tongue-in-cheek before about the difficulties of being a woman in the armed forces. In her 2014 “loyal address” before the Queen’s speech, she called for the armed forces to become more accessible by highlighting her own training.
“I felt that the lecture and practical demonstration on how to care for the penis and testicles in the field failed to appreciate that some of us attending had been issued with the incorrect kit,” she said.
