The National:

TORY leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has fallen victim to dirt digging and her own stupidity as a clip of her fulfilling a Royal Navy dare in the Commons resurfaced.

Mordaunt, favourite to win the race to the top of the Tory dung heap, fulfilled a forfeit back in 2014 for a "misdemeanour" during her Royal Navy training.

As part of her forfeit, the now trade minister said the word “cock” six times during a speech in the Commons.

She said: “The cause of hen and cock welfare is one raised with me by many constituents.”

Mordaunt continued: “In 'The Good Life' idyll one imagines several hens and a single proud cockerel, but one strutting coxcomb will lead to many chicks and what is to become of the male contingent with not a layer among them? I encourage people to consider homes for hens, but to think carefully about a coop for a cockerel.”

And concluded with: “When we eventually head into spring, let us have no cock-ups on hen welfare.”

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MPs get the opportunity to better the lives of their constituents by using their platform to raise real issues that affect people up and down the country. What a privilege that must be …

And what does Mordaunt do? She repeats a rude-adjacent word to get a laugh out of her old navy buddies.

The current basic MP salary is £84,144, which is more than double the UK mean average salary of £31,447 and yet Mordaunt found it appropriate to treat her job like a university piss-up.

It's even more laughable that she won an award for the speech, and in her acceptance acknowledged how low-brow the whole thing was. 

"Let’s face it, the reason I won this award is not because of the hours I put in or the carefully crafted speech, it’s because I referred to male genitalia during the course of it.” she said.

READ MORE: Who made it through to the second round of the Tory leadership contest? See the list

Reports suggest that Mordaunt is favourite to become Tory leader if she gets to the final two of the current contest as she polls well with Conservative party members.

If she does get into power, she looks well placed to trod along in the footsteps of Boris Johnson and the legacy of partygate.