All eyes are fixed on the fight for the top job in politics. And today the result of the first ballot was announced at midday. Boris Johnson has proved to be the favourite and his supporters, like me, expected him to do well. However, we were all surprised at just how well he did. The votes were as follows: Michael Gove, 37. Matt Hancock, 20. Mark Harper, 10. Jeremy Hunt, 43. Sajid Javid, 23. Boris Johnson, 114. Andrea Leadsom, 11. Esther McVey, 9. Dominic Raab, 27. And Rory Stewart, 19. Three of them did not reach the threshold needed, so Esther, Mark and Andrea fall out of the race, leaving seven. I detect a feel in the Party that it now wants a winner and even those who would not normally back Boris are or will do so. I find it sad that some of the contenders are quite so personal about their colleagues, with Boris receiving most of the fire. As I've said before, I am baffled why some of them are standing at all, not least because they were quite willing to go along with May's disastrous deal. Politics, eh! Meanwhile, plenty of constituency work to be getting on with and down here Members are looking forward to meeting the last two contenders.Â