Next Conservative Leader Odds: Top five in the betting to become the next Tory leader after Liz Truss' exit

Wow. For those who haven’t been following political affairs, Liz Truss announced at 1:30pm on Thursday 20th October that she will be resigning as Conservative Party leader and Prime-Minister, making her the shortest serving PM in history.

We will now be moving onto our third PM and Tory leader of 2022 alone, and after the long-process to decide that Truss was to be the one who’d take over the role from Johnson, the departing leader also stated that this decision will be made within the week.

At the immediate time of writing, Jeremy Hunt, who was third in the betting, has ruled himself out of standing for the leadership. We’ve taken a look at the top five candidates in the market below.

*This article will be updated should any candidates drop out*

Rishi Sunak

As alluded to in our look at the next PM article just days ago, Rishi Sunak is the favourite to go one better from last time out, and be the leader of the Conservatives. Following Liz Truss’ disastrous six weeks in charge, a move towards Sunak’s fiscal plan was sought, and it seems likely that he’ll be the man to move into number 10.

Penny Mordaunt

Admired by many Tory Party members outside of the MP’s, Penny Mordaunt gained plenty of admirers during the last leadership contest. Currently serving as the Leader of the House of Commons, it remains to be seen. At the time of writing however, Mordaunt is attracting a lot of interest in the betting, and looks to be Sunak's main rival.

Ben Wallace

The British Defence Secretary has definitely had his hands full with plenty to do over the ongoing war in Ukraine. Wallace, however, ruled himself out early-on in the previous leadership contest, giving his endorsement to Liz Truss. Whether he’d be willing to do similar this time remains to be seen.

Boris Johnson

Seen by many within the Conservatives as the only person to stand any sort of a chance of overcoming Labour in a General Election, there’s no doubting that Boris would love to fling himself back into the limelight. Johnson is still the subject of a Commons investigation into his PartyGate actions, but if there’s one thing to consider about Bojo, it’s that nothing is off the cards.

Kemi Badenoch

It’s unlikely that she’ll make it to the top job, but the consensus amongst Tories online seems to be, if we can’t have Boris, give us Kemi. She handled herself well throughout the last leadership contest, but doesn’t seem to possess the same star quality and charisma as many of her other contenders.