Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have clashed over economic policy, foreign relations and trust in politics during the first head-to-head debate of the Conservative leadership contest. The former chancellor of the exchequer and the foreign secretary both praised Boris Johnson but Mr Sunak said it was right that the prime minister should go.
Both candidates began the hour-long debate on BBC One by paying tribute to David Trimble, whose death was announced just over an hour earlier. But they soon began trading blows over tax policy, with Ms Truss insisting that immediate tax cuts were needed to ease the cost of living crisis.
Mr Sunak taunted Ms Truss with her own economic adviser Patrick Minford’s prediction that interest rates in Britain could rise to 7 per cent under her policies.
“We need to get a grip of inflation and if we don’t do that now it’s going to cost you and your plans, your own economic adviser has said that would lead to mortgage rates, interest rates going up to 7 per cent. That’s thousands of pounds in their mortgage bill. It’s going to tip millions of people into misery and it means we’re going to have absolutely no chance of winning the next election either,” he said.
Mr Sunak won the first two rounds of applause from a studio audience of Conservative voters when he defended his private education as a product of his parents’ sacrifice and cited his long-standing support for Brexit as evidence of his consistency and trustworthiness.
Senior Conservatives have warned that personal attacks in the leadership contest were damaging the party’s image and storing up trouble ahead of the next general election. Culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who is supporting Ms Truss, drew widespread condemnation when she attacked Mr Sunak on social media for wearing a bespoke suit and Prada shoes.
“Liz Truss will be travelling the country wearing her earrings which cost circa £4.50 from Claire Accessories [sic]. Meanwhile, Rishi visits Teeside in Prada shoes worth £450 and sported a £3,500 bespoke suit as he prepared for crunch leadership vote,” she tweeted.
The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that Boris Johnson has told a friend that he does not want to resign and would “wipe away” his departure from office if he could. Peter Cruddas, a big-money donor to the Conservative party who has organised a petition to keep Mr Johnson as leader, said the prime minister wants to lead his party into the next general election.
“There was no ambiguity in Boris’s views. He definitely does not want to resign. He wants to carry on and he believes that, with the membership behind him, he can,” he said.
Lord Cruddas, who received a peerage from Mr Johnson against the advice of the body that vets potential peers, said the prime minister understood why some party members were unhappy that he had stepped down.
“He said that he wished that he could carry on as prime minister. He said he does not want to resign,” he said.
“He also said that if there was a general election tomorrow and he was leader of the Conservative party, he would win a general election.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer on Monday dismissed the contest between Mr Sunak and Ms Truss as “Thatcherite cosplay” involving two politicians who were intimately involved in all the major decisions of the Conservative government.
“What a choice it is. In one corner you have Rishi Sunak, the architect of the cost-of-living crisis. In the other you have Liz Truss, the latest graduate from the school of magic money tree economics. Neither of them have the answers to the economic challenges that we face,” he said.
