Who is Penny Mordaunt, the woman who stole the King’s coronation?

She held a giant sword upright for an hour, and designed her own regalia for the ceremony, and almost stole the show, but just who is Penny Mordaunt, the woman royal watchers are calling the “Pippa Middleton” of King Charles’ coronation?

In an almost inhuman show of strength and determination, the MP for Portsmouth North carried the sword of state upright throughout the ceremony, on Saturday, UK time.

It’s not clear how much the sword weight, but the scabbard along is lined in solid gold. King Charle’s crown, also solid gold, weighs a whopping 2.2kgs, so the sword, which is 1.2m long and more than 30cm across at the crossguard, could be around the same weight.

Mordaunt, who did press-ups to get herself in sword carrying shape, is the first woman in British history to perform this role at a coronation. So just who is Penny Mordaunt, and why is she so impressive?

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She has a background in comms (and being sawn in half)

Before she got into politics she worked mostly in PR and communications, including being Head of Broadcasting for the Conservatives under William Hague. Before that, however, she was a magician’s assistant.

In 2017, the Bournemouth Echo reported she said she had, “been sawn in half and chopped to bits in several Bournemouth hotel ballrooms”.

She’s a liberal Conservative

Earlier this year, Mordaunt wrote a letter to the Church of England supporting the church performing LGBTQ+ weddings.

“If [the issue] is not resolved,” Mordaunt wrote, “the matter will continue to fester and detract from the positive contribution the Church of England makes to our society.

“It is also important to recognise the pain and trauma that this continues to cause many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second-class citizens within our society.”

She is on the record as saying “trans men are men, transwomen are women”, but seemed to walk this stance back during her leadership challenge when she drew a distinction between biological men and women and trans folk. She was accused of “throwing trans people under the bus” for it.

In what some political commentators in the UK would call a rare show of empathy from a Tory, Mordaunt is has acknowledged that poor Brits ”feel the system is rigged against them”. She sees rebuilding trust in the government as central to overcoming this.

She wants to be PM

Mordaunt is the current leader of the UK’s House of Commons, a role she took on after backing out of a leadership tussle with Liz Truss in the wake of Boris Johnson stepping down.

Truss was framed by the British press as Mordaunt’s nemesis and at one point fellow Tory Sir Keir Starmer described the pair as “squabbling like cats in a bag”.

When Truss was eventually ousted, Mordaunt had another crack at leadership, but was beaten out by Rishi Sunak.

She signs

In 2019, as the international development secretary, Mordaunt was the first minister to deliver a statement in the House of Commons in sign language. Her speech, announcing a global disability conference, set to take place in London, received cheers and applause from both sides of the house.

She was a Brexiteer

She was a hardline Leaver, and went on the pro-Brexit campaign trail with Michael Gove as a newly minted cabinet minister in 2017.

In an interview with Andrew Marr around the same time, she said the Uk would have no way to stop Turkey joining the European Union, despite Britain having veto of union members, and Turkey never being considered for membership. She was Minister for Defence at the time.

Her statements were later clarified by David Cameron who called them “absolutely wrong”.