Gloves come off quickly as Tory leadership candidates go head to head in TV debate

Five candidates for the Conservative leadership have clashed on tax, trust and trans rights, in the first televised debate in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson. Although all the candidates said they wanted to run a positive campaign, they were making personal attacks on one another within minutes.

Former chancellor Rishi Sunak accused foreign secretary Liz Truss of peddling fairy tales by promising to borrow billions to cut tax without fuelling inflation. Trade minister Penny Mordaunt refused to say that she trusted the other candidates and foreign affairs committee chair Tom Tugendhat suggested that those who served in government with Mr Johnson enabled his misdeeds.

Kemi Badenoch, who is campaigning as a right-wing culture warrior, accused Ms Mordaunt of lying about her views on transgender rights when she was equalities minister. Ms Mordaunt, who is the favourite in polls of the party membership, said she was flattered by the attacks on her from rival camps in recent days.

“We’re all responsible for our own campaign and I take it as a big fat compliment no one wants to run against me,” she said.

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The candidates faced questions from a studio audience, none of whom raised their hands when they were asked if they trusted politicians.

Much of the focus was on economic policy, with Mr Sunak defending his decision not to cut taxes until inflation was under control. He took aim at Ms Truss, who has suggested that debt run up during the coronavirus pandemic should be treated as war debt and paid off over decades.

“There is no such thing as Covid debt. Debt is debt. Inflation is the enemy that makes everybody poorer,” he said.

Ms Truss, who has promised tax cuts that would cost £30 billion, said Mr Sunak’s policies were strangling economic growth and that it was only by growing the economy that the public finances would improve.

“You cannot tax your way to growth. I think it is wrong that we are putting up taxes at a time when we are trying to attract investment globally,” she said.

“That requires not just a low tax rate but also doing the supply side reforms, liberating money from our pension funds so we can invest it in high-tech businesses. But the way to get that is not raising taxes.”

Mr Tugendhat, who is trailing the field and battling to remain in the race, said that trust in politics was collapsing and that he represented a “clean break” from Boris Johnson’s approach to government.

“What I’ve been calling out and what I’ve been demonstrating over the last few years is I’m someone who fights and I’m willing to call out my friends as well as my enemies. What I’ve been doing is holding a mirror to our actions and asking those in our party, those in leadership positions: ‘Is that what the public really expects?’” he said.

The leadership contest is a two-stage process, with Conservative MPs voting in a series of ballots to select a shortlist of two to go before the entire party membership. The second round of voting among MPs on Thursday left Mr Sunak in front with 101 votes, followed by Ms Mordaunt on 83 and Ms Truss on 64. Ms Badenoch received 49 votes and Mr Tugendhat 32.

Attorney general Suella Braverman, who was eliminated on Thursday, has endorsed Ms Truss but it is not clear that all 27 MPs who backed her will follow suit. There will be a second televised debate hosted by ITV News on Sunday evening, and a further ballot of MPs on Monday will see another candidate eliminated from the contest.