UK Politics

Rishi Sunak has been given a big boost in the Tory leadership race by winning the backing of the figure seen as the party’s ‘Mr North’.Ben Houchen, the influential Tees Valley mayor, had criticised the failure of the contest to guarantee that Boris Johnson’s pledge to ‘level up’ the country will be carried forward.Now Mr Houchen is endorsing the former chancellor as “a friend of the North” after securing a commitment to extend devolution deals with possible future freedoms over business rates and post-16 education.He also praised the creation of the first ever Treasury campus outside of London, in Darlington, and Mr Sunak’s championing of tax-slashing freeports.“I am delighted to give him my backing to become the leader of our party and the next prime minister of our great nation,” Mr Houchen said.Recommended“During his time in government, Rishi showed unwavering support for Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool. As chancellor, he played a huge role in the transformation of our region.“The relocation of civil service jobs from London to Darlington is giving local people the opportunity to forge rewarding careers in the heart of government, without having to leave the place they call home.”Mr Sunak remains the favourite candidate of Conservative MPs, ahead of further ballots from Monday to whittle down the five surviving candidates to a final two by Wednesday.But the winner will then be chosen by the 180,000-odd Tory members – who back Penny Mordaunt, according to a bombshell poll – before Mr Johnson leaves Downing Street on 6 September.The retention of so-called ‘Red Wall seats’, snatched from Labour in 2019 partly because of Mr Johnson’s levelling up promises, will be crucial to the party’s hopes of staying in power.As chancellor, Mr Sunak brought in the £4.8bn Levelling Up Fund, which has allowed local leaders to fund small-scale projects despite massive council cuts.However, the National Audit Office criticised it and the separate £3.2bn Towns Fund for picking projects too small to revive poorer areas and failing to analyse “what works”.There has also been criticism of “pork barrel politics” as allocations from the two funds have favoured Conservative areas – for voter-friendly schemes such as libraries and leisure centres.The leafy Richmondshire borough – which falls within Mr Sunak’s North Yorkshire seat – was given higher priority for the Levelling Up fund than struggling Barnsley.RecommendedMeanwhile, the Treasury’s own watchdog concluded that freeports – which enjoy controversial tax breaks to “generate trade and jobs” – will fail to boost the economy overall.On a visit to the Teesside freeport, Mr Sunak said: “I believe I’m the candidate who can bring opportunity and prosperity in northern powerhouses like Teesside, and restore trust in government, so we can rebuild our economy together.” More

‘Borrowing your way out of inflation is a fairytale’: Sunak and Truss clash over economy planTory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has been criticised for her support of homeopathy on the NHS.Homeopathy is a treatment based on using diluted amounts of natural substances, but is not currently funded by the NHS due to its “lack of effectiveness”.Ms Mordaunt has advocated the practice according to an analysis of her parliamentary record and past comments, and was one of 16 supporters of a motion in the House of Commons criticising the British Medical Association for withdrawing NHS support for homeopathy, in June 2010.Meanwhile, Liz Truss has pledged that families could receive tax breaks of up to £2,500 to help them take time out of work to look after children or other family members.Ms Truss has promised a radical overhaul of the taxation system if she gets into Downing Street that would also include ditching green levies on energy bills and reversing an increase to national insurance.It comes after the five contenders to become the UK’s next prime minister clashed over tax cuts and Boris Johnson’s honesty in a debate on Friday night.A snap Opinium poll found 36 per cent of viewers believed Tom Tugendhat performed best – while just 10 per cent of Tory voters said the same of Ms Truss.RecommendedShow latest update

1657983369Rishi Sunak dismisses question about Boris Johnson’s Chequers party amid heatwave emergencyRishi Sunak dismisses question about Boris Johnson’s Chequers party amid heatwave emergencyJoe Middleton16 July 2022 15:561657982806Penny Mordaunt refuses to say if she trusts other Conservative leadership candidatesPenny Mordaunt refuses to say if she trusts other Conservative leadership candidatesJoe Middleton16 July 2022 15:461657981092Remainer Tugendhat committed to delivering BrexitTom Tugendhat, the one candidate without ministerial experience, said on Saturday that he was committed to delivering on Brexit, despite having been a strong Remain supporter in the 2016 referendum.He said there were still important issues relating to the working of the Northern Ireland Protocol which needed to be resolved with the EU.“One of the other things I’ll be making sure is delivered is Brexit,” he told GB News.“What Boris Johnson has done is delivered most of Brexit, let’s be honest there’s still Northern Ireland, and that’s a really big issue. Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s going to be easy because it’s not.”Despite having seen his tally of votes fall in the second ballot of MPs, in which he finished fifth, the former Army officer said he had no intention of dropping out.“I have never turned down a challenge because the odds were against me. I don’t plan to start now,” he said.Joe Middleton16 July 2022 15:181657979457Sunak’s Tory leadership odds shorten after first leadership debateRishi Sunak’s odds have shortened to 7/4 from 11/4 after the first leadership debate, but Penny Mordaunt remains the favourite to become the next Tory leader at odds-on 10/11 to replace Boris Johnson, according to Betfair Exchange.Odds for the next Conservative leader:Penny Mordaunt: 10/11Rishi Sunak: 7/4Liz Truss 5/1Kemi Badenoch 20/1Tom Tugendhat: 33/1Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom said: “Public reaction to the debate has continued to be favourable for Rishi Sunak and his Tory leadership odds suggest he is picking up momentum at a key time.“The former Chancellor is now the clear second favourite on Betfair Exchange at 7/4 from 11/4, ahead of Liz Truss who is drifting in the betting. Penny Mourdant remains the frontrunner, marginally odds-on at 10/11.“Another candidate to watch is Tom Tugenhadt, as the rank outsider continues to see his odds shorten, as they plummet to 33/1 from 119/1 in 24 hours.”Joe Middleton16 July 2022 14:501657978676The Conservatives face their ‘wrong brother’ momentIs this going to be the Conservative Party’s David Miliband moment? It looks as if the final two candidates will be Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, with the main uncertainty in the next few days being the battle for third place between Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch.Then it will be up to Conservative members to make the final choice. A YouGov poll of members this week suggested that Mordaunt was preferred to Sunak by a large margin, 67 to 28 per cent, and she is consequently the betting favourite, writes John Rentoul.The Tories are in danger of rejecting their David Miliband: the well-qualified leader tainted by his association with the old regime. Mordaunt is their Ed: the new face appealing to a party that yearns to be liberated from the constraints of reality. More

They say a week is a long time in politics. It certainly must have felt that way for Rishi Sunak this week. The frontrunner to be the next prime minister had had an understandably busy few days before he stood before Tory MPs in a quiet committee room off a Westminster corridor on Tuesday night. But, for a moment, he appeared to forget that he was no longer the chancellor, referring in passing to his “department”. And yet it was his decision to resign as chancellor a week before that kicked off a series of events that saw Boris Johnson ousted from power and left Mr Sunak in pole position to replace him.To be fair to Mr Sunak, the race to become the next Conservative leader was also accompanied by temperatures rarely seen in Westminster. On Monday, a student on work experience fainted in the basement of the Churchill War Rooms museum while listening to cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi set out his pitch to become the next prime minister. Over the next few days, Mr Zahawi and a number of his rivals would also fall like flies.With 10 entrants in the race, campaigns tried to add personality to their launches by offering cooling snacks. Sajid Javid’s saw supporters handed ice creams; Tom Tugendhat’s team tried to look modern with smoothies. Perhaps in keeping with his decision not to offer tax cuts until inflation is under control, Rishi Sunak’s launch had a small amount of tea, coffee and biscuits. Or “austerity shortbread” as they were quickly dubbed by at least one attendee.But as the temperatures rose, so did the vitriol. As one wag quipped early in the week: “You think things in the leadership race are febrile now; wait until no one has slept for three days straight because of the heat.”Campaigns privately admitted that they had been promised votes in subsequent rounds when MPs’ first choices fell out of the running. But the electorate with the reputation as one of the most duplicitous in the world appeared to conform to type, with the word “liar” bandied about freely.RecommendedIt is in the battle for second place where the real surprise has emerged.The foreign secretary Liz Truss has been pushed into third behind the trade minister, the much less high-profile Penny Mordaunt. She has come under fire from Ms Truss’s supporters, who have accused her of not being up to the job. Ms Mordaunt’s supporters, in turn, have accused her critics of “black ops”. Cool heads have tried to prevail. Senior figures in the Mordaunt camp have played down the idea that the race is all about momentum, which their candidate has in spades. “If it was, we would win,” one said, forlornly. “But it is actually just a long, hard slog”.By Friday morning, Ms Mordaunt was calling for an end to mudslinging in the race. But that call, like previous ones from some of her rivals, is expected to land on deaf ears. Female Tory activists working on a number of different campaigns fear an “avalanche of sexism” before the results of the next round of voting are declared on Monday evening. By then temperatures in London are forecast to have reached a historic 41C. More

Tory leadership race favourite Penny Mordaunt is under fire for her support of homeopathy from critics of the use of alternative medicine.The former defence secretary has frequently advocated the practice – the use of natural substances to help the body heal itself – according to an analysis of her parliamentary record and past comments.Ms Mordaunt was one of 16 supporters of a motion in the House of Commons sharply criticising the British Medical Association for withdrawing NHS support for homeopathy, in June 2010.It argued that “overwhelming anecdotal evidence that homeopathy is effective, frequently in cases when patients have not found relief through conventional medical treatments”.In July 2014, in a Twitter exchange over a criticism of it as “bunkum medicine”, Ms Mordaunt said GPs “should have freedom to decide”, The Guardian reported.RecommendedMichael Marshall, a project director at the pro-science charity Good Thinking Society, said he hoped the candidate would now show “greater consideration for evidence and reason”.“Homeopathic remedies have no place in modern healthcare, given they have been proven to be ineffective and can be actively dangerous when patients are led to believe they might work,” he said.“It is concerning to think that a leading contender for the highest office has such a poor appreciation of the importance of evidence when it comes to healthcare and science, and that she feels confident standing publicly against the conclusions of medical experts.”Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrats’ health spokesperson, said: “It’s alarming that someone who could be appointed prime minister in a few weeks’ time has repeatedly supported homeopathy being provided by the NHS, despite concerns about the practice among health experts.“Penny Mordaunt should make clear that she will focus on fixing the real issues facing the NHS like soaring ambulance waiting times, not on imposing homeopathic treatments.”The Independent has asked Ms Mordaunt to respond to the criticism of her stance.The row comes after she struggled to make an impression in the first live TV leadership debate, being judged to have won it by just 12 per cent of voters in a snap poll.Outsider Kemi Badenoch questioned her denial that she pushed for people to be able to self-identify as a different gender – while Rishi Sunak attacked her tax-cutting plans.Hitting back in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Ms Mordaunt protested at being targeted by smears in what she called a “black-ops” campaign.RecommendedPointing to achievements including ending a dispute with striking firefighters, securing all soldiers the living wage and shaping the UK’s cyber strategy, she said: “Look at my record, look at what I’ve done. I do get stuff done.”Ms Mordaunt also argued she can be trusted on Brexit more than Liz Truss – who voted to stay in the European Union in the 2016 referendum – because she believes in it to her “core”. More

More voters are deserting the Conservative party because of inaction on cost of living and rising bills than animosity to Boris Johnson, a new poll has found.The findings, seen by The Independent, come after Tory MPs forced the prime minister out of office, believing he had become an electoral liability.But a survey by ComRes of wavering Tories suggests that it is rising energy bills more than Mr Johnson himself who is most to blame – though he is also a significant drag on support.The findings will make difficult reading for Tory MPs who hope that a change of leader will revive the party’s fortunes. It has lost support, including in the so-called “red wall”, with national polls showing it consistently behind Labour since the autumn.The party also now risks losing seats in the south of England to the Liberal Democrats, who have won a series of stunning by-election victories across the bottom half of the country, including in previously save Tory seats.RecommendedComRes interviewed a weighted sample of 2,208 UK adults between 8 and 10 July 2022, just after Mr Johnson resigned.Asked whether they were more or less likely to vote Conservative than this time last year, 43 per cent said yes, with 38 per cent saying they were no more or less likely to do so. 10 per cent said they were more likely.Out of Conservative voters who responded and said they were less likely, 26 per cent cited rising energy bills as their primary concern, ahead of 20 per cent who cited Boris Johnson personally and 14 per cent general corruption and sleaze. Bills were far and away the main reason given in wavering Tories’ top three concerns, cited by 54 per cent, ahead of 35 per cent Mr Johnson and 34 per cent corruption and sleaze.The government has been criticised for not doing enough to control bills and prices of essentials, with the perception particularly damaging to frontrunner Rishi Sunak because of the former chancellor’s association with the economy. Yet despite the energy price cap increasing by a record 54 per cent in April 2022, Tory leadership candidates have largely talked about tax cuts and culture war issues.Bill are expected to rise substantially again in October. The chief executive of regulator Ofgem has said the price cap is likely to rise again in the autumn by another 40 per cent to around £2,800.The House of Commons library says that more recent forecasts have put the likely increase in the region of £3,250. Fixed price deals in April averaged over £3,000.Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said the cost of living and energy cap rise was “the elephant in the room” during the Tory leadership contest.“That announcement will send a shiver down the spine of millions in the country who simply can’t afford energy bills of over £3,000 a year,” she said.“Yet all we’ve heard from Conservative leadership candidates is bluster and nonsense to woo Conservative MPs. They have said absolutely nothing on how they plan to help people with energy bills.”She added: “These candidates are out of touch and out of ideas. Frankly, this country is sick and tired of the Conservative party. They have no answers on the cost of living crisis and will fail to help struggling people through a tough winter of price hikes.”RecommendedGovernment help on the cost of living has been relatively modest compared to many of Britain’s neighbours. Mr Sunak initially announced a £200 energy bill loan in his budget, but increase this to a £400 grant this year. The grant will offset some of the cost increase of an annual energy bill. Other countries such as Germany, Spain, Italy and France facing rising bills have offered free or very cheap public transport to offset rising costs, deployed subsidies to keep bills down, or introduced price controls at a wholesale level. More

Tom Tugendhat has emerged as the clear winner of the first live televised debate in the Tory leadership race, according to snap polling which placed him significantly ahead of frontrunner Rishi Sunak.The five candidates went head-to-head on Channel 4 on Friday evening, with Mr Tugendhat having only narrowly survived the second ballot the previous day, receiving the votes of just five more Tory MPs than attorney general Suella Braverman, who was eliminated.His decision to fight on and take part in the televised debates appeared fruitful, as polling by Opinium of 1,159 people who watched Friday’s contest found 36 per cent thought the relatively unknown foreign affairs committee chair had performed the best.This placed him nine points ahead of Mr Sunak, the former chancellor who appeared most likely to make it to the final two after receiving 101 votes from Tory MPs on Thursday.Penny Mordaunt, who is in second place after enjoying a remarkable surge of backing from Conservative MPs and is a clear favourite among the Tory Party members who will ultimately decide Boris Johnson’s successor, appeared to be less well received by the public during Friday’s debate.RecommendedThe former defence secretary received just 12 per cent of the vote – the same share as ex-equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, an MP on the right wing of the Tory Party who also holds a relatively low public profile.But the first debate appears to have gone most awry for Liz Truss, the foreign secretary who despite having spent months being touted as a potential successor to Mr Johnson now finds herself in third place behind Ms Mordaunt.Ms Truss will be hopeful that Conservative MPs do not agree with the assessment of those polled by Opinium – just 6 per cent of whom believed she performed best in the debate – as she seeks to hoover up the support of Ms Braverman and Ms Badenoch in order to make it to the final two.But a breakdown of the polling by Opinium by voter-intention suggests otherwise, showing the foreign secretary as effectively coming last in Friday’s debate in the eyes of Conservative voters, Labour voters and swing voters alike.The race was tighter at the top among Conservative voters than the general population, however, with 29 per cent believing Mr Tugendhat had performed best – placing him just one point ahead of Mr Sunak.Ms Mordaunt and Ms Truss also enjoyed a slightly higher percentage of backing for their performance on Friday among Tory voters, winning 18 and 10 per cent of the vote respectively, the pollster found.It almost appeared as though Ms Truss’s campaign team were seeking to run damage control before the debate was over, with an unfortunately-timed tweet sent out from her official Twitter account reading: “It’s only by walking the walk – not talking the talk – that we really restore trust.”Mr Tugendhat was the first of the five candidates to win a round of applause from the Channel 4 studio audience, after he was the only contender to give a straight answer on whether they believed Mr Johnson was an honest man. RecommendedHe quickly began shaking his head and answered “no” before host Krishnan Guru-Murthy had finished asking the question.Promising Channel 4 viewers a “clean start”, which is his campaign slogan, and calling for “a break from those Johnson years”, Mr Tugendhat added: “I’ve been holding a mirror to many of our actions and asking those in our party, those in our leadership positions, to ask themselves ‘is that what the public really expects?’“Are you serving the people of the United Kingdom or are you serving your career? Because that’s the real question tonight. That’s the real question for all of us.”Asked why people should trust him, the 49-year-old appeared to paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, the beloved headmaster in the Harry Potter series, as he told viewers: “It’s easy to stand up to your enemies – it’s sometimes harder to stand up to your friends.”Mr Tugendhat appeared savvy to this, however, as he sought to deal a heavy blow to Mr Sunak’s central campaign message of being a responsible realist willing to take tough decisions.Citing a private conversation with the chancellor, Mr Tugendhat claimed Mr Sunak had told him that he only acted to hike National Insurance contributions – thereby raising funds for health and social care –because the prime minister had wanted him to.Meanwhile, an expert in political forecasting suggested that Ms Truss’s “implosion” during the debate could significantly “move the dial” on the leadership race.“I’ve followed the markets on leadership debates professionally for more than 20 years and it’s rare they move the dial more than a tiny bit,” said Leighton Vaughan Williams, an economics professor who heads Nottingham Business School’s political forecasting unit.“That changed tonight, when Liz Truss imploded. If she survives this, let’s just call off debates in future.” More

Tom Tugendhat has said that Boris Johnson is not an honest man, breaking with other Tory leadership rivals who were unable to give a straight verdict on the prime minister’s integrity.The foreign affairs committee chair won the first round of applause of the night from the audience at Channel 4’s live debate for his response to the question – posed to each of the five candidates – of whether Mr Johnson was honest.Following lengthy answers by each candidate save for Kemi Badenoch, who laughed and said “sometimes”, Mr Tugendhat began shaking his head and replied “no” before host Krishnan Guru-Murthy had finished asking him the question.Mr Tugendhat narrowly survived the second round of voting among Tory MPs on Thursday, after securing just 32 votes – five more than the attorney general Suella Braverman, who was eliminated.But the former army officer’s campaign insisted he was “in it to win it” and was looking forward to the three televised leadership debates – in which frontrunners such as Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, and to a lesser extent Liz Truss, appeared to have more to lose.RecommendedPromising Channel 4 viewers a “clean start”, which is his campaign slogan, and calling for “a break from those Johnson years”, Mr Tugendhat said: “I’ve been holding a mirror to many of our actions and asking those in our party, those in our leadership positions, to ask themselves ‘is that what the public really expects?’“Are you serving the people of the United Kingdom or are you serving your career? Because that’s the real question tonight. That’s the real question for all of us.”The debate saw candidates clash over taxes, with ex-chancellor Mr Sunak accusing Ms Truss of touting economic “fairytales”, and striving to paint himself as a sole realist among the contenders, willing to take tough decisions such as hiking National Insurance to better fund the NHS and social care.But this central pillar of Mr Sunak’s campaign risked being somewhat undermined, after Mr Tugendhat claimed the former chancellor had told him privately he was only raising National Insurance “because the boss wants it”. As he grappled with the question of whether his boss in Downing Street was dishonest, Mr Sunak said: “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible and ultimately I reached the conclusion that I couldn’t, and that’s why I resigned.“There were a number of reasons that I resigned but trust and honesty was part of that.”Ms Mordaunt – who was fired by Mr Johnson as defence secretary in 2019 over her support for his then-leadership rival Jeremy Hunt – said that “there have been some really severe issues” and that Mr Johnson “has paid a price for that”.Ms Truss, who as foreign secretary was in Indonesia during the implosion of Mr Johnson’s government and remained silent until after he announced his plans to resign, said the prime minister had “been very clear himself that he made mistakes in government” and she had taken his explanation for inaccurate statements over the Partygate scandal “at face value”.RecommendedShe added: “I stood by Boris Johnson, of course, I raised issues with him in private, but I supported him for the leadership election. I was part of his Cabinet and I owed him my loyalty.”A snap poll of 1,159 viewers by Opinium found that 36 per cent believed Mr Tugendhat had performed best in the debate, placing him 11 points ahead of the frontrunner Mr Sunak. Ms Truss, meanwhile, appeared to have a disastrous outing, as polling broken down by voter-intention found that just 10 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 thought she had performed best – a figure which fell even lower among the general population. More

Trans rights, the net-zero carbon target, and whether Boris Johnson is honest were key talking points during the first Tory leadership debate.Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch clashed over Ms Mordaunt’s stance on gender identity, while former chancellor Rishi Sunak took aim at the other candidates over their “fairytale” tax cut plans.Here are the key points raised during the hour-and-a-half long debate aired on Channel 4:Only Tom Tugendhat directly said he did not think Boris Johnson was trustworthy.The candidates were asked to reply yes or no over whether they believed the outgoing prime minister was honest.RecommendedMs Badenoch said Mr Johnson was “sometimes” honest, while Ms Mordaunt said he has “paid a price” for “some really severe issues” with his premiership.The recent chancellor, Mr Sunak, said: “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible and ultimately I reached the conclusion that I couldn’t, and that’s why I resigned… There were a number of reasons that I resigned but trust and honesty was part of that.” More