THE race to Number 10 gathered pace this week – as South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt emerged as a front-runner to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister.

Boris Johnson remains the odds-on favourite to win the Tory leadership contest after storming to victory in the opening three ballots of Conservative MPs.

However, his replacement as Foreign Secretary, Mr Hunt, remains in second place ahead of Michael Gove and Sajid Javid.

All four remaining candidates will be whittled down to two during today’s ballot.

Mr Hunt’s week began on a sour note after neighbouring East Hampshire MP Damian Hinds declared his support for Mr Gove.

However, he has in his camp other Tory heavyweights such as Penny Mordaunt and Amber Rudd – and won plaudits for strong showings in both the Channel 4 and BBC debates on Sunday and Tuesday, in which he repeatedly took the fight to Mr Johnson.

“Where is Boris?”, Mr Hunt queried during the Channel 4 discussion after Mr Johnson refused to participate – and the pair clashed further over Brexit during the BBC debate.

Mr Johnson’s erroneous claim that British-Iranian mum Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “training journalists” when arrested in Iran in 2016 also came back to haunt him – with the charity worker’s husband, Farnham man Richard Ratcliffe, refuting his remark that the gaffe “made no difference”.

For full story, see this week’s Herald.