Former Chancellor Lord Hammond praised the “very positive” message from Tory leadership contender Dame Priti Patel about the need to unite the party and reach across the centre ground of British politics.
Former Home Secretary Dame Priti, MP for the Essex seat of Witham, has been seen on the Right of the Conservative Party.
But Lord Hammond voiced support for her stance appealing across the party, rather than swinging to the Right.
“We are going to hear messaging from all the candidates,” he told Sky News.
“Priti Patel, for example, who has traditionally been thought of as a candidate on the Right of the party, has gone out of her way to say that the party needs a unity candidate, it needs to find that centre ground again, and pull all the strands of thinking in the party together, which is a very positive message.”
Six senior Tories have entered the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.
Shadow housing secretary Kemi Badenoch is the early favourite with bookmakers, while former immigration minister Robert Jenrick looks set to challenge her on the Tory right.
Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, shadow home secretary James Cleverly, Dame Priti and shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride complete the field of candidates who received the support of 10 MPs in order to enter the race.
A “yellow card” system has been introduced by Tory party chiefs to issue warnings to campaigns if they cross the line in attacks on rival candidates.
Lord Hammond stressed that he has yet to make up his mind about who to vote for in the leadership election which will be concluded in early November.
But he made clear what type of candidate he would back after Labour gained 411 seats to the Tories 121, with vote share respectively of 33.7 per cent and 23.7 per cent.
“Labour has won a very significant electoral victory with actually quite a modest share of the vote,” said the peer.
“They have done it by pitching to the middle ground in English politics across a very broad swathe of constituencies.
“If the Tory party wants to come back to overturn what is a large majority in terms of parliamentary seats but a relatively small margin in terms of percentage of popular vote, the Tory party has to adopt the same strategy.”
He explained further: “It has to be in that middle ground, it has to be competing with Labour on economic competence, management of public finances, all areas where until very recently the Tory party always scored very highly but the events of the last few years have damaged the brand.
“We have got to rebuild that brand and we can only do it from the centre of politics.
“So it’s very important that the Tory Party chooses a leader that is committed to that strategy, to the centre ground of politics.”
MPs will vote off two of the contenders in September so the final four go to the party’s conference in Birmingham to make their leadership pitch.
Conservative MPs will then eliminate two more, with the final pair going to a ballot of Tory members with the winner announced on November 2.
The backbench 1922 Committee confirmed the six candidates after nominations closed on Monday afternoon.
The party faces the twin challenges of responding to the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right, as well as winning back former heartlands in southern England which shifted to the Liberal Democrats.
