THE Tory leadership race is set to finally come to an end this morning after weeks of fun, and Boris Johnson is expected to be named the party’s new boss.
After Theresa May announced she would step down on 24 May after failing three times to deliver Brexit, Britain has enjoyed almost nine weeks of the gruelling contest.
Boris emerged as the front-runner from the very beginning, and has been tipped for the top job for months.
But the race saw a total of 13 declare they wanted to run to replace Mrs May as Tories squabbled for pole position.
It was whittled down to 11 who secured enough votes from MPs to stand, and finally down to the final two – Boris and rival Jeremy Hunt.
Here’s some of our favourite moments from the campaign to become Britain’s next PM.
The leadership race kicked off with a bang with the revelations that Michael Gove had previously taken cocaine on several occasions.
He said he deeply regretted it and wanted to be forgiven, but his leadership bid was knocked from by the news.
It prompted all the other leadership hopefuls – from Andrea Leadsom to Esther McVey and Matt Hancock – to be grilled on whether they’d taken drugs when they were younger too.
Jeremy Hunt admitted to having a cannabis lassi when travelling, what a rebel.
Remainer Rory went into the race as a relative outsider, apart from in Westminster circles.
The International Development Secretary shot to fame online (and in book sales) through posting a number of videos of him walking around speaking to voters.
But he was ridiculed after it was revealed that he posted a snap of himself pretending to take a selfie… which was actually taken by a member of his team.
Quite weird, Rory.
The will-he-won’t-he drama continued as Rory desperately scrambled to get enough MPs to support him to get him through each round of voting.
And in the first BBC leadership debate the public went nuts as he decided to take his tie off in the MIDDLE of the live set.
Viewers were gripped to the chaos.
Shortly into the race the news was dominated by the news that front-runner Boris had got into a fuming row with his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds.
Their neighbours taped them shouting at each other in her flat and even called the police – but were later forced into hiding over the furious backlash.
Perhaps the oddest part of the incident was that it was all over a glass of red wine, which Boris appeared to have spilled on the sofa.
Carrie was reported to have told him: “You don’t care for anything because you’re spoiled.”
The incident then led to an intriguing snap of the two posted in a pub garden – which many believe was staged to try and show the pair looking happy together once again.
Which led us on to perhaps the most bizarre moment of the entire leadership race.
As part of a huge media blitz to try and distract everyone from his row with Carrie, Boris gave an interview to talkRADIO where he admitted that in his spare time he likes to make models of buses.
He said: “I like to paint. I make things. I make models.
“I make models of buses. I get old wooden crates and I paint them, and they have to contain two wine bottles.
“I paint the passengers enjoying themselves. On a wonderful bus.
“Low carbon of a kind that we brought to the streets of London that reduces CO2, reduces Nitrous Oxide, reducing pollution.”
If it was meant to distract the media from speaking about his love life, it certainly worked.
Boris used an interview to boat that he could beat his rival Mr Hunt in a mud-wrestling fight.
In a hilarious intervention today the Tory frontrunner boasted he would definitely come out of such a fight with his head held high, but Mr Hunt strongly disagreed.
Boris was asked whether he felt “compelled to challenge him to a nude mud wrestling contest”.
And he told ConservativeHome: “I would defeat anybody in such a contest, were I obliged to do so, but that’s not how I propose to win this”.
Mr Hunt hit back this afternoon, tweeting: “absolutely not.”
He added: “If he turns up to the debate we can have a quick wrestle after.”
The Sun’s Final Showdown debate saw Boris and Hunt face off against each other for the final time.
And Boris was asked about who he wanted to win ITV’s Love Island.
He joked that the Work and Pensions secretary should go home with £50k after audience members clamoured for ‘Amber’ to win.
When asked if he had been watching the show, he said: “I have been watching it very dimly.
“Seems to involve these people with very few clothes on.”
He then asked the audience who they think should win – with dozens of onlookers shouting ‘Amber’ in reply.
He replied: “Amber? Amber is in Love Island!”
But leadership rival Jeremy Hunt said: “I don’t know, I don’t watch it.”
And to top it all off, Boris appeared at his last Tory leadership hustings of the campaign brandishing a kipper.
He waved the fish, which was wrapped in plastic, around as he gave a speech on stage.
He claimed EU rules meant it cannot be posted without a plastic ice pillow, in an extra cost for taxpayers.
But the bloc hit back the next day, saying those aren’t actually EU rules, they are British ones…
Boris is set to be crowned as Tory leader this morning, and will enter No10 tomorrow.
He has spend the past few days finalising his top team and getting ready for Brexit.
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