Rishi Sunak says he would back Liz Truss’s controversial tax cuts if she wins the Tory leadership race and denied he will quit politics if he loses.
The outsider in the contest also rowed back on his controversial anti-lockdown comments – failing to name a single decision he would have taken differently during the Covid crisis.
Earlier this week, Mr Sunak hinted he would reject a job in a Truss cabinet after their bitter battle and refused to say he would back her £30bn-plus tax cuts which he has attacked as a “fantasy”.
But the former chancellor told the BBC the expected winner would enjoy his backing for her tax cuts, saying: “Of course I’m going to support a Conservative government. It goes without saying.”
Dominic Cummings has suggested Mr Sunak is ready to “quit politics’ if he loses on 5 September, but the struggling candidate said: “No absolutely not, of course not.”
Mr Sunak has been accused of rewriting history after attacking the “power” of Sage scientists who advised on the need for lockdowns, claiming the “trade-offs” for the economy and schools were not properly considered.
But he backtracked on the comments, saying he was not arguing the first lockdown should not have been imposed and that “everybody was doing the best job they could”.
Mr Sunak also insisted he could still win, saying: “There’s everything left to play for, there’s still weeks to run in this campaign.”
He told BBC Radio 4: “I will always, whether as a minister or as a backbencher, always support a Conservative government because I believe that’s the best thing for this country.
“I want to make sure that we beat Labour at the next election, so that kind of goes without saying that that’s what I would do.”
In an interview with The Spectator magazine, Mr Sunak made the explosive claim that Sage minutes were edited to remove dissenting voices and attacked the “fear narrative” peddled.
But, asked if he was arguing that lockdown could have been avoided, he replied: “No, that’s not the point I was making.”
He said: “Obviously, at the time, everyone was doing the best job they could in incredibly difficult circumstances dealing with something that we’ve never faced before.”
Mr Sunak added there was “no point in trying to second guess those decisions”, but added: “It’s right that we learned the lessons from it.
“I think we need to have all the facts and the trade-offs involved in those decisions, very openly and honestly.”
On the campaign, he added: “I’m working incredibly hard going around the country, talking about my ideas for the future, and actually having a very positive reception where I’m going,”
