LAST UPDATE | 15 Jul 2022
FIVE UK CONSERVATIVE politicians took part in the first televised debate for party leadership this evening.
Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat faced off against moderator Krishnan Guru Murthy who highlighted that public trust in the government and the Tory party had been eroded by the Boris Johnson administration.
Sunak led the second round of votes with 101 votes from fellow Tory MPs, followed by Mordaunt with 83, Truss with 64, Badenoch at 49 and Tugendhat with 32.
The new UK prime minister will be announced by 5 September, after Conservative party members vote on the two candidates chosen by Conservative MPs.
The candidates clashed over tax cuts and records on transgender rights.
All candidates are university educated and in their 40s, facing questions from a live audience of undecided voters.
The candidates had mixed responses when asked: “Yes or no, is Boris Johnson honest?”
Badenoch said “sometimes,” while Truss highlighted what she believed were his achievements before admitting he was not honest when pressured for a one-word answer.
Mordaunt refused to answer yes or no, saying it was a complex question before saying that Johnson has caused severe issues and paid the price for them.
Sunak said that Johnson was not honest and that honesty was a reason he resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequor.
Truss also attempted to speak on Johnson’s achievements but acknowledged that Johnson himself had admitted to not being honest.
Tugendhat simply shook his head which led to a round of applause from the audience.
Answering “Why should we trust any of you?”, Truss said that as part of the Brexit negotiating team she had delivered the Northern Ireland protocol bill.
She said she doesn’t over promise and has a proven record of delivery.
“I raised issues with Boris Johnson in private and I supported him for the leadership election. I was part of his cabinet, and I showed my loyalty. What I’m saying to you is that in every statement I’ve ever made in government I’m always somebody who has acted with honesty and integrity.”
Sunak, who was the second most powerful member of government under Johnson’s leadership, had the most to answer for in terms of his continued loyalty to Johnson.
“I’ve had disagreements with the Prime Minister in private during my time in office and I’m not going to walk away from everything he and the government did in the past few years,” he said.
Mordaunt, a betmaker’s favourite to enter Number Ten, said that she had spoken truth to power against Johnson and that trust was important in order to fight through the cost of living crisis.
“It’s not just about people up here, vying for your vote. The challenges that we are facing right now are very, very grave indeed. And unless we can actually get our country to pull together, unless people pull together we are not going to get ourselves out of that.”
The studio audience remained still when Guru Murthy asked them to raise their hands if they trusted to politicians.
Responding to criticism of UK government posts being awarded based on loyalty to Boris Johnson rather than talent, Liz Truss said she is “not a cliquey person” and believes in a system of “meritocracy”.
“I believe in promoting the best people to the job, and I believe in being very very clear about what we’re planning to do, and then delivering it and doing it,” she said.
Asked whether she “had the dogs out” to attack Mordaunt, Truss said: “I’m running an entirely positive campaign which is about the great challenges we face and what we need to do to deliver for the people of Britain because we are facing a cost-of-living crisis, families are struggling.”
She told the Channel 4 leadership debate: “This campaign is about how do we fix the economy, how do we get Britain growing again. That’s what I care about.”
When asked about tax cuts, Tugendhat said that he would cut taxes so that families hit by the cost of living could keep more of their pay cheque.
Truss stated that she would increase public services by taking longer to repay the government debt caused by Covid-19.
Sunak responded by saying that he had to make a difficult decision to raise taxes in order prevent the NHS from reaching breaking point due to a lack of funding.
“Even though it was politically inconvenient and even though I’m now getting attacked for it and many people want to reverse it, I wanted to make sure that the NHS, our number one priority was properly funded. And if I’m Prime Minister, you can be assured NHS will continue to be my number one public service priority,” he said.
He argued with Truss over whether borrowing more money was a wise decision, branding further borrowing “a fairytale”.
She responded that the UK’s debt compared to GDP was less than that of Canada, Japan and the US respectively.
Mordaunt stated that she would spur economic growth in order to avoid tax hikes.
This led to Sunak arguing that she had already proposed on cutting VAT on petrol and increasing income tax brackets.
Tugendhat made a point that he was the only candidate who didn’t vote to increase National Insurance tax, which caused scorn from Sunak who said that the NHS simply needed the extra money which was why he supported it.
Tugendhat responded: “What we did is we had a long conversation about it and you set out your position and I asked why and you told me because the boss wanted it,” referring to Johnson.
Additional reporting by Press Association.
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