Ben Bradley, the MP for Mansfield, has become the latest local politician to announce their support for one of the candidates bidding to become the next leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Mr Bradley who is also the leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, took to Twitter on Saturday (9 July) to declare his support for Kemi Badenoch the MP for Saffron Walden and former equalities minister.

On the social media platform, he wrote: ".@KemiBadenoch has been a brave signpost for common sense & the views of my constituents. She's laid out a real vision for how things should be that speaks the truth - Government doesn't have all the answers, & the sooner we level with people the better! I'm backing Kemi #KB4PM".

Kemi Badenoch (pictured) is being backed by Nottinghamshire County Council leader and Mansfield MP Ben Bradley. Image: (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

He follows Hucknall's MP Mark Spencer in declaring his support for a Conservative Party leadership candidate.

On Friday, Mr Spencer, who is currently the Leader of the House of Commons, tweeted his support for the former Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

So far, a total of 11 Conservative MPs have confirmed that they will stand for the leadership after the race was triggered by the resignation of Boris Johnson last Thursday (7 July).

Mr Johnson resigned as leader of the Conservatives in the wake of the Chris Pincher controversy. He will continue as Prime Minister until his successor has been elected, which is expected to happen by the first week in October.