Much more unusual was the book Penny Mordaunt penned last year while serving as a junior Cabinet Office minister and little known outside Westminster.
Not only was it a manifesto for the future of the country but it attracted extraordinary acclaim from the great and the good.
Mordaunt’s book could be used as a blueprint for government policies if her campaign for Tory leader is successful
Bill Gates wrote the foreword; Sir Richard Branson described it as “inspiring”; Sir Elton John said it was “timely”; and Tony Blair described it as a “really important book”.
Now in a few weeks Greater: Britain after the Storm could become the blueprint for a future Conservative government after Mordaunt became the frontrunner among Tory members to become Boris Johnson’s successor.
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In it, she sets out an unorthodox platform for a Conservative leader, criticising the “antiquated” workings of parliament and suggesting an elected House of Lords, devolving tax-raising powers and splitting up the Treasury, and criticising the dominance of universities in politics.
She revealed that it was only during the writing of the book that she had dyslexia diagnosed after decades in which she “suffered headaches and tripped over words”.
Campaigning with Priti Patel, now the home secretary, before the EU referendum in 2016
It is certainly an extraordinary journey for the daughter of a former paratrooper who became the first member of her family to go to university and went on to become defence secretary.
It would also be an extraordinary comeback for a woman who was written off when she was demoted by Boris Johnson for having the temerity to back his rival Jeremy Hunt in the previous bitter leadership election fought by the Conservative Party in 2019.
So who exactly is Penny Mordaunt, what is her blueprint for the country and why does she attract such affection among Conservative supporters?
Named after the navy cruiser HMS Penelope, Mordaunt, 49, was born in Torquay, where her father served in the parachute regiment and her mother worked as a special needs teacher.
At the Westminster dog of the year competition with her labrador cross Penny Lane in 2012
When she was 15 her mother died from breast cancer and her father had cancer diagnosed a year later. He recovered, but Mordaunt had to act as the primary carer for her younger brother Edward and became a magician’s assistant to help support the family and fund her studies.
She also signed up as a reservist in the Royal Navy, a role she has maintained throughout her political career.
Her interest in politics began at Reading University, where she read philosophy and served as student union president. She was a Conservative Party member early — becoming the party’s head of youth under John Major and later serving as William Hague’s head of broadcasting. She also worked for George Bush’s second presidential campaign in 2004.
She was elected MP for Portsmouth North in 2010 and swiftly climbed the ministerial ladder. Her first post came as a local government minister in 2014, followed by armed forces minister and disabilities minister. She joined Theresa May’s cabinet in 2017 as international development secretary and was briefly defence secretary in 2019.
But she has never been a conventional politician. She attracted scorn from Tory traditionalists and merriment from many others when she admitted in 2014 that she had delivered a speech on poultry welfare to parliament for the sole purpose of saying “cock” several times as a puerile forfeit for a “misdemeanour” during Royal Navy training.
She also agreed to take part in Tom Daley’s Saturday-night diving show Splash! in 2014, despite admitting that she had the “elegance and drive of a paving slab”.
To critics, such antics have been depicted as unbecoming of a serious politician but in a similar way to Boris Johnson — with whom she would not like to be compared — it has endeared her to party members. MPs who are backing her for the leadership say it is in part because of the way she is perceived among their members as a long and assiduous participant in the so-called “rubber-chicken circuit” of fundraising dinners.
“She has a way of connecting with people that is very rare in politics,” said one MP backing her. “She is a big-hearted woman and genuinely warm.”
For some, her stance on trans issues and being a staunch advocate of LGBT rights could be problematic as her record comes under scrutiny during the contest.
Her twin brother James is gay and attacked Mordaunt’s colleague Oliver Dowden for his and other Tories’ stance on so-called “woke issues”.
“I’m done with these people,” James Mordaunt said in a recent tweet. “A white straight man saying how dangerous the ideology of woke is and how threatening it is having to use pronouns.
“What the hell do you know about threat, you privileged entitled awful man. Not a shred of compassion for people different to you.”
Critics also claim that Mordaunt does not have the intellectual rigour for the most difficult job in politics.
But, regardless, she does have a plan. She is pledging to reform Whitehall — breaking up government departments and governing with a smaller cabinet.
She is also promising to cut VAT on fuel by 50 per cent and raise income tax thresholds by the rate of inflation.
If you take her book at face value she could also split up the Treasury, create an elected House of Lords and give MPs their own pot of money to hand out to worthy social causes in the constituencies.
The race is, of course, far from over and MPs may yet prevent Mordaunt from testing her popularity in the Tory shires.
But as it stands the magician’s assistant is still on track to amaze people who don’t really know who she is — by appearing on the steps of Downing Street as prime minister.