Braverman out of contest as Sunak maintains lead - second ballot results Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, is announcing the results now. Rishi Sunak - 101 (up 13) Penny Mordaunt - 83 (up 16) Liz Truss - 64 (up 14) Kemi Badenoch - 49 (up 9) Tom Tugendhat - 32 (down 5) Suella Braverman - 27 (down 5) That means Braverman is out. Early evening summary Penny Mordaunt was handed another key boost in the race to make the final two of the Conservative leadership race, with votes putting her in pole position to take on the frontrunner, Rishi Sunak, and the outsider Suella Braverman being eliminated. Boris Johnson is planning to stage parliamentary interventions on Ukraine, Brexit and levelling up, with allies of the outgoing prime minister hinting that those are the areas of his legacy he believes to be most under threat from his potential successor. Proposals to reform gambling laws have been postponed for a fourth time amid turmoil at the top of the Conservative party, sparking outrage from campaigners who warned the delay would cost lives. Nicola Sturgeon has accused Labour of giving “the proverbial two fingers” to Scottish voters, as she warned that regardless of who wins the Tory leadership race it is “virtually certain” to mean a further shift to the right for the UK. According to the Times’ Henry Zeffman, Tory MPs believe that Andrea Leadsom will be chancellor if Penny Mordaunt becomes prime minister. The last time Leadsom came close to being offered the post of chancellor by a campaign was in 2016, when Boris Johnson was meant to offer her the post in return for her endorsement. But a letter containing the pledge was never handed over, Leadsom decided to run herself, and the setback contributed to Michael Gove deciding to withdraw support from Johnson, and Johnson abandoning his campaign. Braverman claims Mordaunt"s record on gender-neutral language in bill shows she did not stand up for women Suella Braverman, the attorney general who is now out of the Tory leadership contest, has accused Penny Mordaunt, who is now the favourite, of not standing up for women. Referring to legislation passed to allow her as attorney general to take maternity leave (the Ministerial and Other Maternity Allowances Act), Braverman said Mordaunt was to blame for gender-neutral language in the original draft which referred to a pregnant person, not a pregnant woman. She told Sky News: Penny is a very good politician, I disagree with Penny on some key issues, in relation to one specific matter, ie the maternity bill that was passed for my benefit when I had my baby last year. I do have to say that Hansard and the record shows that Penny Mordaunt. as the bill minister, the minister responsible for passing that legislation, did oppose and did resist the inclusion of the word woman and the word mother and did only concede after unsustainable pressure from the House of Lords. I was quite disappointed by the way in which it was handled and the responsible minister, I’m afraid, didn’t stand up for women and didn’t actually reflect the views of a lot of our party on wanting women to be authentically represented on the face of the bill and in legislation. Mordaunt has said she changed the language in the bill, which was originally drafted by someone else. Braverman also told Sky News she would consider her options before deciding who to back in the next ballot. But she said a key factor would be who would do the most to stop illegal migration across the Channel. In a later interview with the PM programme on Radio 4, Braverman said she did not consider Mordaunt an authentic Brexiter – even though Mordaunt backed leave – because Mordaunt voted for Theresa May’s Brexit deal. And she criticised Mordaunt’s stance on trans rights. She said: My perception of Penny is she takes a different view to me when it comes to gender ideology and the position of trans. For example, I think she said a trans woman is a woman. I disagree with that. And here are takes from three more journalists on what the results of the second ballot mean. From the FT’s Stephen Bush Kemi Badenoch says the results today show a growing number of Tories support her brand of “honest politics and conservative principles”. My colleague Aubrey Allgretti posted this yesterday giving the timings for the remaining parliamentary ballots in the Tory leadership contest. According to the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, bookmakers’ odds suggest Penny Mordaunt is now more than twice as likely to be the next Tory leader as Rishi Sunak. David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who is backing Penny Mordaunt for next Tory leader, has described the Lord Frost comments about Mordauant (see 9.20am and 11.31am) as part of a “black ops” operation. He told Sky News: It’s absolutely clockwork - you get to the point that somebody gets ahead and looks to be the real challenger, and then the black op starts, the incoming fire starts. A supporter of Liz Truss said her campaign had picked up “solid momentum” in what had been a “difficult round” for them, PA Media reports. Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, said there was a limited pool of support they could have plausibly won over from the supporters of the candidates eliminated in the first round. This is very much on the trajectory we thought. We are attracting broad support from people across the party. Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary and Liz Truss supporter, has urged MPs to unite behind Truss. Her message seems to be aimed particularly at Suella Braverman’s supporters, who now must choose someone else to vote for, and supporters of Kemi Badenoch, another rightwinger. The point about Truss being someone “who actually has the ability to lead the country” seems to be a reference to Penny Mordaunt’s relative inexperience.