May's Tory leadership bid backed by top cabinet ministers
Theresa May's bid to become the next Conservative party leader has won the backing of a number of senior cabinet ministers within hours of her announcing she was "the best person to be prime minister".
The Home Secretary, who appears to be the front runner in the race to be the next leader, has already been hailed as the 'bookies favourite' to win and has now been endorsed by high-profile party members including Michael Fallon and Patrick McLoughlin.
Cabinet colleague Mr Fallon declared his backing for Ms May by stating "she is the right person to steer Britain through the serious challenges we now face" and Mr McLoughlin wrote in The Sun that "her track record shows that when Theresa arrives in Brussels, Europe's bosses sit up and listen".
Their support was echoed by Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock who told BBC Two's Newsnight he would be supporting Ms May because "I think we need somebody with a steady hand on the tiller who has got proven leadership credentials."
The public declarations of support for Ms May came as leadership rival Michael Gove prepared to set out his case for becoming prime minister in a speech in Westminster on Friday.
Mr Gove made a last minute decision to run for the post, which was announced late on Wednesday night, after coming to the conclusion that fellow Vote Leave campaigner Boris Johnson "cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead".
Other rivals hoping to secure the keys to Number 10 include Stephen Crabb, Andrea Leadsom and Liam Fox.
The five contenders in the leadership race have until Tuesday, July 5, to gather support from the Conservative party's 329 MPs before the first round of voting begins and the MP with the fewest votes will be eliminated from the race. After that the MP with the next lowest votes will be knocked out and this will continue until there are just two contenders left.
At the end of voting the new Conservative leader is set to be announced on September 9.