By quite some considerable distance the favourite to win the contest. He’s also the butt of just about every other candidates’ jokes and attacks.
And, quite surprisingly for Johnson, he’s been relatively quiet so far. While all the other candidates run towards the TV cameras, the former foreign secretary has given only a handful of interviews. Michael Gove accused Johnson of hiding in his bunker.
Yesterday’s tax plan was a disaster in terms of winning over Scottish MPs, but will have done well with the elderly, rich Tory Party membership.
Odds: 4/7
Jeremy Hunt
The Foreign Secretary could be the only candidate to put any pressure on Johnson. He has the weight of the Tory establishment behind him. He secured the most senior endorsements of the contest so far, with Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd and Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt giving him their support – despite disagreeing with his views on lowering abortion time limits from 24 weeks to 12.
At the launch Hunt warned that the Tories will be “annihilated” if they go into a General Election without having delivered Brexit first.
Odds: 9/2
Andrea Leadsom
Leadsom effectively gifted Theresa May the Tory leadership when she quit the contest in 2016. Since then she’s been an effective, and well-liked, leader of the House of Commons. She’s also been one of purest of all the Brexiteers in Cabinet.
Leadsom launches her campaign today with a promise to have Britain of the EU with a “managed exit” by October 31 2019.
Odds: 8/1
Michael Gove
Gove is struggling to recover from the weekend’s cocaine revelations and the charges of hypocrisy. Questions over the Class A drug dominated his campaign launch and look set to dominate his time in the contest.
Despite the loss of momentum, and the calls to quit, the Aberdeen-raised Environment Secretary insists he’s still “in it to win it”.
He also said he’d be prepared to delay Brexit for “a day or a week or whatever’s required in order to get that deal over the line if we were making progress.”
Odds 16/1
Sajid Javid
The Saj. The Home Secretary, who reportedly refers to himself in the third person, has received the backing of some big Tory beasts, including Ruth Davidson.
The Remainer-turned-Leaver has previously described devolution as “nothing short of constitutional vandalism” and claimed that it was only “done to shore up support for Labour”.
He told the Conservative Home website that he’d “oppose a second Scottish independence referendum. Voters were clear in 2014 that they wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom.”
Odds: 20/1
Dominic Raab
The Brexiteer’s Brexiteer. At his campaign launch, Raab said he would not appoint any Cabinet minister who failed to sign up to the possibility of leaving the EU without a deal.
“We won’t be taken seriously in Brussels unless we’re clear we are prepared to walk away on WTO terms,” he said.
“To deliver Brexit I would put together a Cabinet reflecting the different views we have across our party but I would insist that this team is united in its resolve to deliver Brexit by the end of October.”
Odds: 20/1
Rory Stewart
Of all the Tories trying to be the next Tory leader, Stewart is the one who seems least like a Tory – though, and let’s be quite clear about this, he definitely is.
His campaign strategy is pointing out how awful some of his rivals are, especially Boris Johnson.
“I don’t believe it’s patriotic to bullshit,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s Conservative to bullshit. I don’t believe it’s democratic to bullshit.
“Believing in something is no excuse if it’s nonsense ... He [Johnson] is not my country. He’s not my conservatism.”
Odds: 25/1
Esther McVey
McVey, a former TV presenter, had a shocker of a day with her campaign launch upstaged by a terse encounter with former colleague Lorraine Kelly.
During Good Morning Britain, where McVey was appearing as a guest, Susanna Reid genially asked Kelly if she remembered the Tory “from her GMTV days?”
Kelly shook her head and said curtly: “Yeah, yes I do,” and then moved the conversation on.
Piers Morgan then asked Kelly: “So you got on with Esther then, Lorraine?” The presenter replied: “I don’t remember love, I don’t remember at all, it was an awful long time ago.”
Odds: 100/1
Matt Hancock
The Health Secretary is very much an outsider in this race, though he has secured the support of some of the Scottish Tory MPs.
Hancock has said his Brexit delivery plan is the only credible Brexit delivery plan to actually deliver Brexit.
But there’s still little uncertainty about what that plan involves or how it will be delivered. What it definitely doesn’t deliver is the current deal, or no deal.
Odds: 100/1
Mark Harper
Harper has next to no profile outside the party, but as a former chief whip he knows where all the bodies are buried.
He has said he would be prepared to leave the EU with no deal, but has said a further extension to Brexit talks should not be ruled out.
Odds: 100/1
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