Rishi Sunak tightened his grip on the race to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister and secured 101 votes on Thursday; that places him at the top after the second round of voting on Thursday.
There are now five candidates left in the leadership contest; Suella Braverman, the Goa-origin Attorney General, was knocked off the shortlist with the least votes at 27.
Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt (83 votes), Foreign Secretary Liz Truss (64 votes), former minister Kemi Badenoch (49 votes) and Tory backbencher Tom Tugendhat (32 votes) remain on the radar. The next few rounds of voting will whittle this list down to just two by next Thursday.
All eyes will now be on which way Braverman and her backers swing, handing those 27 votes to shore up one of the remaining five.
In a dig at frontrunner Sunak earlier, Truss said she had been 'loyal' to Boris Johnson, and it was not the time for 'business as usual economic management'.
She dodged questions on whether she was worried about the threat from Mordaunt, who has become a surprise contender for the top job. But allies have taken the gloves off, branding the trade minister 'untested', 'underwhelming' and unable to 'master detail'.
While Penny Mordaunt has been in the lead in opinion polls, some of her controversial views on LGBTQIA+ rights have come under the scanner.
The race is now narrowing down into a three-way fight between Sunak, Mordaunt and Truss with the others expected to throw their weight behind one of these three campaigns in the hope of securing a good Cabinet post under a new leader.
