Boris Johnson takes lead in run-up to the election of PM

In the United Kingdom, Prime Ministerial race has narrowed to five candidates from six after a crunch vote last night when ruling Conservative Party MPs voted in a secret ballot for the second time to whittle down the list of contenders further. 

Boris Johnson once again came top of the second ballot, with 126 votes, 12 more than in the first round, with former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab falling three short of the required 33 votes to be officially out of the race



now.

Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid and Rory Stewart also got enough votes to make it into the next round. The remaining candidates will face a further ballot later this week, where the bottom-ranked MPs will be knocked out until only two candidates are left. 

The final two names will then be put to a postal vote of the 1 Lakh 60 thousand Tory party members with the winner expected to be announced by 22nd of next month.