Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss now look to be fighting each other to take on Rishi Sunak in membership vote
Kemi Badenoch has been eliminated from the Conservative leadership race, setting up a battle between Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss to join Rishi Sunak in the last round.
Sunak, the former chancellor and the frontrunner, won 118 MPs’ votes, just short of the 120 needed to guarantee a spot in the next stage of the process.
Continue reading...Graham Brady announces outcome of third round of race to replace PM, who faced Labour anger during vote of no confidence debate
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says the refusal of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to attend a TV leadership contest debate tomorrow shows they are treating the public with contempt. In a statement he says:
The Conservatives say they want to lead but they won’t even turn up to debate the issues that matter to our country.
Each of them are treating the nation with utter contempt and they’ve been taking people for granted for long enough.
Continue reading...Pressure still on foreign secretary in leadership race as she gains just seven new backers in latest round
Supporters of Liz Truss have said her key rival, Penny Mordaunt, has “topped out” of backers, as the foreign secretary gained ground in the fight for second place in the Conservative leadership contest.
Mordaunt lost a vote in the latest ballot of Tory MPs – a key sign her campaign had stalled after a weekend of bruising attacks – but remained behind frontrunner Rishi Sunak.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Tory leadership candidates prepare for second TV debate as Monday’s round of voting looms
The expectation of record temperatures will be dominating headlines in the UK over the next couple of days. The chief executive of the College of Paramedics warned on Sky News this morning that the “ferocious heat” could result in people dying.
Tracy Nicholls said: “This isn’t like a lovely hot day where we can put a bit of sunscreen on, go out and enjoy a swim and a meal outside. This is serious heat that could actually, ultimately, end in people’s deaths because it is so ferocious. We’re just not set up for that sort of heat in this country.”
Continue reading...Shadow minister to say PM hopefuls are vying ‘for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, promising tax cuts for the wealthy’
The shadow communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, will claim the Conservative leadership contest has shown the government’s commitment to levelling up is dead, as she announces plans to give local communities the right to buy up assets such as empty shops.
Nandy will use a speech in Darlington to say Labour would press ahead with handing power to communities outside London and the south-east in an attempt to rebalance the UK’s economy.
Continue reading...The five candidates face off in a televised Channel 4 debate
Penny Mordaunt also rejected the idea that attacks on her for being too “woke” on issues such as trans rights could be the issue that ends her bid to replace Boris Johnson.
She told Sky News this morning:
Look at how we’re doing in the polls in the country, in London, in Scotland, with young people, with women, with Red Wall, with Blue Wall.
It’s not having an impact on my campaign, and it’s not having an impact on my parliamentary campaign. And I think the reason for that is that people recognise it for what it is.
I think it is important we don’t trash our record, because actually we have done an awful lot of good things.
I care about my colleagues. I have great colleagues and we have to, at the end of this contest, come together as a party.
You can see from my campaign, I’m not engaging in any of that.
I have just been getting on with my job, but I have thought long and hard about what this country needs. I feel really compelled to do this. It would be a huge honour to be prime minister.
Continue reading...Head-to-head sees open arguments over tax and identity politics, with no candidate willing to say Boris Johnson is honest
The Conservative leadership race has exploded into acrimony and recrimination after the first televised debate saw open arguments over tax and identity politics with also none of the five candidates willing to say Boris Johnson is honest.
Coming hours after Liz Truss sought to reinvigorate her faltering campaign with a sudden announcement of new tax cuts costing more than £20bn a year, Rishi Sunak the ex-chancellor, openly ridiculed his former colleague’s plans during the Channel 4 broadcast on Friday evening.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary announces tax cut proposals worth billions of pounds during online leadership debate
Liz Truss has sought to breathe new life into her faltering Conservative leadership campaign with a flurry of uncosted tax cut promises worth billions of pounds, as the five remaining candidates took part in their first mass debate.
Truss, who has the third highest number of Tory MPs’ votes – behind Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, promised to scrap a planned rise in corporation tax and suspend green energy levies, costing more than £20bn a year overall.
Continue reading...Latest updates: 1922 committee announce latest vote tally
Q: Lord Frost says Penny Mordaunt is not up to the job. You have worked with her. Do you agree with him?
Truss says she will not be making any disparaging comments about her opponents. The contest shows a broad range of talent. And the party did not get there through identity politics.
Continue reading...Field narrows to five candidates as Sunak wins highest number of votes with Mordaunt consolidating second place
Penny Mordaunt was handed another key boost in the race to make the final two of the Conservative leadership race, with votes putting her in pole position to take on frontrunner Rishi Sunak, at the latest voting round which eliminated Suella Braverman.
Sunak, the former chancellor, is still the frontrunner and added 13 new supporters but Mordaunt pulled away from the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who added fewer MPs to her tally despite a high-profile launch on Thursday.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary forced to regroup after trailing behind Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt after first round ballot
Liz Truss will seek to reinvigorate her campaign to be the next prime minister by promising an “aspiration nation” on Thursday, after she was unexpectedly beaten into third place by Penny Mordaunt in the first round of voting.
Long seen as one of the favourites to be the next Tory party leader, the foreign secretary has the backing of Boris Johnson super-loyalists Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Continue reading...Local MP and councillor angered by comments about Roundhay school, rated ‘satisfactory’ when foreign secretary attended
Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss has been criticised for comments about the quality of education at her Leeds school, which she claims caused children to be “let down”.
Speaking at the launch of her economic plan, the foreign secretary is expected to describe seeing “children who failed and were let down by low expectations” during her time at Roundhay school in the 1990s.
Continue reading...Latest updates: prime minister takes penultimate PMQs as Conservatives wrangle over who will replace him as leader
Mordaunt says she is committed to the manifesto commitments on defence spending, and meeting the Nato defence pledge.
But she would also take some tasks away from the defence forces, she says. She says she wants to set up a civil defence force to deal with civil defence matters.
Continue reading...Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi garner enough support
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, and Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, have just told Sky News that they are backing Liz Truss for the Tory leadership.
Rees-Mogg says Truss had been his strongest supporter in cabinet in terms of seeking Brexit opportunities. He went on:
When we discussed taxation, Liz was always opposed to Rishi’s higher taxes. That again is proper Conservatism. And I think she’s got the character to lead the party and the nation.
Liz Truss is the best candidate. She’s a proper Eurosceptic. She will deliver for the voters. She’ll deliver for the voters. She believes in low taxation.
Continue reading...Senior Tories say the former chancellor is the main focus of the ousted leader’s anger as bitter infighting breaks out
Senior Tories accused Boris Johnson of trying to torpedo Rishi Sunak’s bid to succeed him as prime minister – and of refusing to leave No 10 with good grace – as the leadership race descended into bitter infighting.
As a trio of cabinet ministers entered the contest last night, senior MPs said the battle now risked inflicting even more damage on the party than the fall of Margaret Thatcher more than three decades ago.
Continue reading...Cabinet trio add names to increasingly crowded field of candidates to replace Boris Johnson
A trio of cabinet ministers declared they were running for the Tory leadership on Saturday night, amid calls to alter party rules to thin out the increasingly crowded field of candidates.
Foreign secretary Liz Truss, chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and transport secretary Grant Shapps all threw their hats into the ring.
Continue reading...String of candidates announced on Saturday including Kemi Badenoch, Liz Truss, Grant Shapps and Nadhim Zahawi
Tory MP Rehman Chishti has confirmed he is “actively considering” running for leader.
The newly appointed Foreign Office minister retweeted quotes attributed to him by the BBC, stating: “We need leaders who best reflect modern Britain and can provide solutions to the challenges our nation is facing now.”
Continue reading...Former chancellor says it it time to restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country
More now from the 1922 Committee’s Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who says that while in an “ideal world” deputy PM Dominic Raab would have been made caretaker prime minister after Johnson’s speech yesterday, “that ship has sailed”.
I think in an ideal world, Dominic Raab, as deputy prime minister, should have been the caretaker prime minister, but that ship I think has sailed and we must we must now live with the fact that Boris Johnson will be prime minister until a successor can be voted on.
[Johnson] has said very clearly that he won’t be making any major changes during that period. And I think that is a good thing.
Continue reading...Analysis: Suella Braverman is lone frontbencher to voice leadership plan as Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and others hang back
Even before Boris Johnson delivered his ill-tempered exit speech, Conservative MPs’ focus had already switched to who might succeed him – and unlike in 2019, when he had been the prince across the water for months, this time there is no obvious successor.
Rishi Sunak, who walked out of the Treasury on Tuesday within minutes of Sajid Javid quitting, had been widely seen as the frontrunner until a series of missteps, including the botched spring statement.
Continue reading...A number of senior Tory MPs are preparing leadership bids as Johnson’s hold on power weakens
Leadership jostling kicked off among leading Conservative MPs as Boris Johnson clung to power, with departing cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid the favourites, and Eurosceptic Steve Baker publicly saying he would “reflect seriously on whether to run”.
Baker, a former chair of the European Research Group who was one of the “Spartan” holdouts against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was the second to go on the record with leadership ambitions, saying it was “accurate” that he was thinking about a bid.
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