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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Martin Belam (now) and Andrew Sparrow (earlier)

Tory leadership: Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak clash in heated BBC debate – as it happened

Sir Keir Starmer Liz Truss ​​Rishi Sunak Cosplay (Topic) Nadine Dorries
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during the BBC Conservative leadership debate.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during the BBC Conservative leadership debate. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA

Summary of the day …

  • The battle to become the UK’s next prime minister descended into fierce clashes as Rishi Sunak launched repeated attacks on the economic policies of the favourite Liz Truss in their first head-to-head TV debate. The two Conservative leadership hopefuls traded blows over tax cuts, China and inflation, with the former chancellor Sunak accusing the foreign secretary of seeking “a short-term sugar rush” by cutting national insurance. Truss accused her former colleague of raising taxes to their highest level for 70 years. The exchanges at the BBC debate followed a weekend of deeply personal attacks in the contest, including on-the-record criticisms singling out the former chancellor’s wealth and wardrobe, while Truss has faced claims of being economically illiterate and a former remainer. [More here]
  • David Trimble, Northern Ireland’s inaugural first minister and a crucial unionist architect of the Good Friday agreement, has died aged 77. His death on Monday was announced by the Ulster Unionist party (UUP), the party he led into a historic power-sharing arrangement between nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland. Lord Trimble was the first person to serve in the role of first minister, and won the Nobel peace prize, along with John Hume, leader of the nationalist SDLP party, for their part in negotiations for the Good Friday agreement. He was UUP leader between 1995 and 2005, accepting a life peerage in the House of Lords in 2006. [More here]
  • Downing Street has had to deny that the prime minister, Boris Johnson, intends to cling on to power after the Telegraph published an “exclusive” in which Lord Cruddas said Johnson “does not want to resign” as prime minister and wishes he could “wipe away” his departure.
  • Anger over the Partygate scandal has been reignited after Scotland Yard confirmed that it did not send questionnaires to Johnson before deciding against fining him for attending two Downing Street lockdown gatherings. Fines were issued to other attenders at the gatherings in 2020, including one at No 10 on 13 November, where the prime minister gave a leaving speech for his departing director of communications, Lee Cain, and another in the Cabinet Office on 17 December. [More here]
  • Sunak has said he will stop unions “holding working people to ransom” if he becomes prime minister in response to the announcement that the Transport Salaried Staffs Association union (TSSA) will stage railway strikes on 18 and 20 August.
  • Sunak has challenged Truss to agree to be interviewed by former GB News presenter Andrew Neil after it was confirmed that he will record an interview with Neil for broadcast on Friday.
  • Downing Street said travel delays seen at Dover are not caused by Brexit. It said the problems were down to a combination of factors “including a shortage of French border control staff”. Experts disagree.
  • Keir Starmer has given a speech in which he said promoting growth is now as important for Labour as redistribution, but confusion over the party’s position on the renationalisation of railways and utilities has lingered with several different briefings during the day.
  • Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has implicitly criticised the speech. In a series of tweets, Corbyn restated his call for the renationalisation of rail, energy, water and mail, saying Labour needed to offer a “bold alternative”. The Green party has also criticised Labour for abandoning its commitment to renationalising utilities as set out in the 2019 manifesto.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for the evening. Thank you for following our live coverage, and for all your comments this evening. The UK politics live blog will be back in the morning.

Updated

One of the more curious bits of tonight’s debate was when Liz Truss was directly questioned about saying that British workers are “among the worst idlers in the world” in a book, she for the first time appeared to claim that she hadn’t written that bit. She then said Dominic Raab wrote that chapter, and pointed out that he is supporting her rival for prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

This does not appear to have gone down brilliantly with Raab, who on BBC Newsnight this evening is criticising Truss for shifting her views on debt, as Lewis Goodall points out:

Truss and Sunak trade blows in acrimonious first TV debate – full report

Here is the full report of tonight’s debate, from Rajeev Syal, Ben Quinn and Jessica Elgot:

The two Conservative leadership hopefuls traded blows over tax cuts, China and inflation, with the former chancellor Sunak accusing the foreign secretary of seeking “a short-term sugar rush” by cutting national insurance. Truss accused her former colleague of raising taxes to their highest level for 70 years.

The exchanges at the BBC debate followed a weekend of deeply personal attacks in the contest, including on-the-record criticisms singling out the former chancellor’s wealth and wardrobe, while Truss has faced claims of being economically illiterate and a former Remainer.

Sunak, widely seen as having to make up crucial ground to win over the Conservative membership, who will vote from 5 August, repeatedly described his opponent’s plans on the economy as “not conservative”, interrupting her at one point to say: “You promised almost £40bn of unfunded tax cuts, £40bn more borrowing.

“That is the country’s credit card. It’s our children and grandchildren … everyone here … who are going to have to pick up the tab for that.”

Truss hit back over Sunak’s calls for a tougher stance on China, pointing out that the Treasury just last month was calling for closer bilateral and economic ties. Sunak accused his opponent of making pronouncements about a “golden era” between China and the UK. “I think that was almost a decade ago,” the foreign secretary snapped back.

Amid reports that Boris Johnson has not yet ruled out a political comeback, despite pledging to step down next month, both candidates also ruled out a role for the current prime minister in any government they might lead.

“I am sure he will have a role. I am sure he will be vocal, but he will not be part of the government,” said the foreign secretary, despite emphasising that she had been an early supporter of Johnson’s. She contrasted her continuing loyalty to him to those of others, adding that “it would have been a dereliction of duty” not to remain in her post.

Read more of our lead story on the debate here: Truss and Sunak trade blows in acrimonious first TV debate

My colleague Ben Quinn has this report tonight on another major political development that should not be overshadowed by the Conservative leadership TV debate – the death of David Trimble:

David Trimble, Northern Ireland’s inaugural first minister and a crucial unionist architect of the Good Friday agreement, has died aged 77.

His death on Monday was announced by the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the party he led into a historic power-sharing arrangement between nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland.

Lord Trimble was the first person to serve in the role of first minister, and won the Nobel peace prize, along with John Hume, leader of the nationalist SDLP party, for their part in negotiations for the Good Friday agreement. He was UUP leader between 1995 and 2005, accepting a life peerage in the House of Lords in 2006.

Trimble had played a “crucial and courageous role” in the Good Friday agreement negotiations, said Ireland’s Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, who said all in politics at the time had “witnessed his crucial and courageous role.”

Tributes from across Northern Ireland’s political divide and beyond were paid to a politician whose own political journey from hardline unionism to a risk-taking partner with his sworn enemies helped end decades of strife.

Describing Trimble as “a man of courage and vision”, the UUP’s leader, Doug Beattie, said: “He chose to grasp the opportunity for peace when it presented itself and sought to end the decades of violence that blighted his beloved Northern Ireland.”

“He will forever be associated with the leadership he demonstrated in the negotiations that led up to the 1998 Belfast agreement.”

On the nationalist side, the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said on Twitter that she was “saddened” to hear of Trimble’s death, adding: “His contribution to building the peace process in Ireland will stand as a proud and living legacy of his political life.”

David Trimble (R) poses with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, Social Democratic Labour Party leader John Hume and US President Bill Clinton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, in 2000.
David Trimble (R) poses with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, Social Democratic Labour Party leader John Hume and US President Bill Clinton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, in 2000. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

Read more of Ben Quinn’s report: David Trimble, key architect of Good Friday agreement, dies aged 77

Here are some verdicts from around social media. The Truss team have been accusing Sunak of interrupting her a lot – saying he did so 22 times in the first 12 minutes. Steven Swinford, political editor at the Times has tweeted to say that a spokesperson for Truss has claimed this shows “Rishi Sunak has tonight proven he is not fit for office. His aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour is desperate, unbecoming and is a gift to Labour”

Sunder Katwala has questioned whether there is a right hand/left hand situation going on within the Truss camp.

The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy makes the point that Truss during the debate said she had stayed loyal to Boris Johnson. Creasy says “As Liz Truss thinks Rishi Sunak was a mansplaining boorish public schoolboy and that makes someone unfit for office, I imagine she refused to have anything to do with Number 10 under Boris Johnson.”

Pollster Opinium was measuring the reaction to tonight’s debate among “1,000 regular voters” and according to Sky News they put the result at “Rishi Sunak is just ahead at 39%, with Liz Truss at 38%.”

You can tell a little bit about what each campaign think they did well tonight judging by the clips they immediately put out. Sunak’s social media team have gone big on his family backstory, going with “I’m standing here because of the sacrifice and love of my parents” and “They worked day and night, saved and sacrificed to provide a better future for their children.”

The Truss team have gone for “I’m straightforward, straight-talking and honest. I do what I say I will do. I’ve done it in trade. I’ve done it in the Foreign Office. And I’ll do it as prime minister.”

The clips chosen also talk to some of the massive contradictions in their campaigns. Truss boasts of her record of delivery, while also saying the country needs a complete change in approach from the government she has been part of, while Sunak, who would be one of the wealthiest prime ministers in history, wants to focus on his humble beginnings.

Updated

Snap verdict

My tuppence? The debate was acrimonious, will make stitching back together the parliamentary Tory party in September more difficult, and almost certainly won’t move the dial in the leadership race.

All polling suggests that Truss is well in front with the Conservative membership, so Sunak needs her to somehow sink her own campaign in these debates. And she did not. In fact, she said she wasn’t the slickest media performer, and got one of the few rounds of applause for saying that.

Sunak has staked not raising taxes and not paying off Covid debt as moral questions about piling the burden on to future generations. Truss seemed woollier on the economics, but cites historical precedent on debt after the second world war as a reason to take it slower and expand the economy.

Nobody landed a killer blow. Sunak was as assured as ever, if a bit aggressive and more likely to interrupt his opponent, but Truss avoided disaster. They both said they could work together in the future, but I can’t believe anybody, including them, believed it.

Updated

They both finished with a promise that they could work together in the future in a rather awkward exchange, where Truss pointedly said she would welcome Sunak into her team (but not cabinet) and Sunak … did not.

Updated

Section 9: Quick-fire round

The live blogger’s nightmare.

Is Brexit to blame for delays at Dover: both no

Would you both ban railway strikes: yes

What score would you give Boris Johnson out of 10: Truss said seven, Sunak did a thing where he gave 10/10 for Brexit and the election.

I missed one. I can’t read my own handwriting. I blame the Leeds comprehensive that Truss frequently cites.

Updated

Section 8: Trust in politics

One thing that is good about this debate format? Fewer “worst Kraftwerk tribute band ever” jokes because there are only two of them.

A bad thing? The audience are just not being invited to ask direct questions, which then makes it a bit odd for politicians to respond to them directly.

Truss is going in for the fact that in 2019 we promised not to put up taxes. She says: “I might not be the slickest presenter in the business” but she keeps her promises. There is applause.

Updated

Sunak, who was in government until three weeks ago as the most powerful financial minister, says he wants to be the change the country needs.

Truss says this debate is about who will beat Keir Starmer at the next election.

I had thought the temperature between the two of them had cooled a bit in the last 10 minutes, although Sunak just had another interrupting run at Truss.

Updated

Section 7: Boris Johnson

Truss says she doesn’t think the mistakes that Johnson made – which include being fined for breaking his own Covid rules and appointing Chris Pincher to a senior role – meant he deserved to lose his job and she stayed loyal to the end.

Sunak says Johnson is one of the most amazing politicians he has worked with and he is proud of what they achieved in government.

Updated

Section 6: The tone of the campaign

There was a long section that essentially hinged around the tweet from Nadine Dorries that Liz Truss had thrifty earrings and Rishi Sunak had expensive shoes.

The important thing it seemed to me was Truss was being asked if she would disown that sort of attack, and she made great play of praising Sunak’s dress sense, and playing to the crowd that they weren’t interested in this sort of thing.

But crucially, she didn’t seem to answer the question, would she disown personal attacks like that.

She also said she didn’t know how Dorries knew the cost of the earrings.

Section 5: Climate crisis

The two candidates were asked what they thought the three most important things people could do for the environment were. Sunak said his children were the experts, and cited energy efficiency, recycling, and a faith in British innovation to solve problems. Truss, who often tries to smudge her Liberal Democrat past, said she was “a teenage eco-warrior before it was fashionable.”

Section 4: Ukraine

Both Truss and Sunak rule out direct navy involvement in the Black Sea. Both are proud of the work in government they have done to support Ukraine.

Rishi Sunak

Updated

Liz Truss goes a bit further than you often hear a foreign secretary going, specifically calling out China for its support of Russia, the treatment of Uyghurs and Chinese actions in Hong Kong. Sunak touts his record of cracking down on tech companies in response to a question about what the government will do about TikTok.

Updated

Section 3: China

Truss and Sunak are now clashing over China. Truss says we should not make the same mistake we made with Russia. Sunak points out that Truss once said we were entering a “golden age” of relationships with China.

Sunak has said that he thought he had visited Stoke more than anywhere else while he was chancellor.

Truss goes back to her upbringing in Paisley and Leeds, saying that she grew up facing low expectations.

Updated

Section 2: Levelling up in the 'red wall'

The BBC studio audience is made of people who voted Conservative in a so-called red wall seat in 2019, and the audience wanted to know what levelling up meant for them locally, and what these two would do in the next two years.

Truss says people want “urgent action” and to get “spades in the ground”. She pushes her “low tax investment zones” and reduce planning restrictions. “We can turbocharge” local businesses, she says.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss

Updated

This is an astonishingly argumentative debate between people in the same political party. Chris Mason is mentioning a book where Truss said British workers were lazy. She has said she didn’t write that bit, it was Dominic Raab, and he is supporting Sunak. It sounded just like me saying “I never wrote the headline actually” when I am getting bodied about something on social media.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss

Updated

Liz Truss deploys the phrase “Project Fear”, Sunak says “only one of us was on the Leave campaign”.

This is incredibly tense and aggressive. The two of them were in the same cabinet, the same government, just three weeks ago.

Truss says “I’m prepared to take on the orthodoxy” and then compares Sunak to Gordon Brown.

Updated

“It’s not moral” to ask our children to pick up the tabs for the bills, says Sunak. It is a clear dividing line between them. “We are an outlier,” Truss says, because other leading economies are not raising taxes or rushing to pay back debt.

Updated

“If we follow Rishi’s plans we are heading for a recession,” says Truss. That is the kind of thing that makes it hard to see how these two could ever work together again. Or be a loyal backbencher.

“Taxes are completely different from interest rates,” says Truss, not exactly bolstering her credits as being more insightful on the economy than the former chancellor.

Updated

Truss is bringing up her upbringing in Leeds – Nesrine Malik was sensational writing about the class cosplay of these two candidates.

Updated

Sunak is asking whether the country should put the cost of Covid on the never-never. Truss says she will hold paying it back for three years. Sunak interrupts and says there’s nothing conservative about not paying back debt.

“One of the last things I did as chancellor,” says Sunak, was helping out people with the crisis. “I’m always going to respond to support people.”

He says for the long term we need better insulated homes, and more affordable answers generated at home. Presenter Sophie Raworth interrupts him, saying she specifically asked for what they would do as short-term help.

Rishi Sunak

The first thing Truss says is that Trimble was “a political giant”.

She says people are struggling with “the worst cost of living crisis in generations”.

She commits again to reversing the national insurance increase and putting a moratorium on green levies.

Updated

Section 1: Cost of living crisis

Chris Mason and Faisal Islam appear to be sitting in Countdown’s dictionary corner to provide meta-commentary on the debate. That’s a twist on the format. The first section is going to be on the cost of living. They go to the audience, and it is more of a comment than a question to start with.

Rishi Sunak has begun by paying tribute to David Trimble.

Updated

Tonight’s debate pitches the former chancellor and the current foreign secretary against each other – both of them promising a fresh start after their party has been in power for 12 years, and both of them having held one of the highest offices in the land.

Updated

First TV debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss begins

The two people vying to be the next leader of the Conservative party, and consequently crowned the new prime minister by Tory party members in September, have taken to their podiums in Stoke-on Trent. One of Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak will be in No 10 in six weeks.

Updated

Taoiseach Micheál Martin says Trimble was 'courageous' as tributes widely paid

Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has been among those to pay tribute to UUP leader and former first minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, who has died aged 77.

Martin said:

He played a key role as leader of the UUP, and his was a long and distinguished career in Unionist politics and in the politics of Northern Ireland. All of us in politics at the time witnessed his crucial and courageous role in the negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement and his leadership in building support in his party and his community for the Agreement.

Fittingly, his contribution was recognised internationally and most notably by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to himself and John Hume ‘for their joint efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland’.

As the first first minister of Northern Ireland he began the arduous work of bedding down the executive and delivering for the people of Northern Ireland. In his speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Trimble spoke about the ‘politicians of the possible’, a phrase which I think sums up the David Trimble we all knew, and it speaks to his achievements over many decades, often in challenging circumstances.

The work of reconciliation begun in the Good Friday Agreement continues, and as new generations pick up the mantle of this work, it is fitting that we pay tribute to Lord Trimble for his central contribution in setting us on the path to peace and reconciliation.”

Tributes have been paid cross-party and cross-border. The British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab has described Trimble as “a statesman of enormous courage, who made the peace process in Northern Ireland possible. He will be sorely missed, but he leaves an extraordinary legacy.”

Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill tweeted: “It is with genuine regret that I have learned of the passing of former first minister, David Trimble. I wish to offer my sincere condolences to his wife Daphne, their four children and the wider family circle who will feel his loss deeply. His very significant contribution to the peace process and his courage in helping achieve the Good Friday Agreement leaves a legacy a quarter century on for which he and his family should be rightly proud.”

Several people in their tributes have pointed to Trimble’s 1998 Nobel lecture, where he himself said:

We have started. And we will go on. And we will go on all the better if we walk, rather than run. If we put aside fantasy and accept the flawed nature of human enterprises. Sometimes we will stumble, maybe even go back a bit. But this need not matter if in the spirit of an old Irish proverb we say to ourselves, “Tomorrow is another day”.

David Trimble.
David Trimble. Photograph: Reuters Photographer/Reuters

Updated

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss set for Conservative leadership TV debate

At 9pm the first televised Conservative party leadership debate between the two candidates being put to party members will begin.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have spent the weekend surrounded by increasingly rancorous briefings against each other, which have included the pair appearing to outbid each other on who can be tougher against asylum seekers, tougher on China, and even who spends the most on clothes accessories.

Sunak goes into the debate the clear leader among Conservative MPs to be the next prime minister, but polling puts Truss well ahead with the members who will actually decide. The result will be announced at the beginning of September.

Tonight’s debate on BBC One will last an hour, and is being held in Stoke-on-Trent. Sophie Raworth, and the BBC’s recently appointed political editor Chris Mason, will host.

Liz Truss arriving to take part in the BBC Conservative leadership debate.
Liz Truss arriving to take part in the BBC Conservative leadership debate. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

While we are waiting for it to start, here are my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti on who could be in the next cabinet under Sunak or Truss, Patrick Wintour on how Sunak has tried to outmanoeuvre Truss on China, and Polly Toynbee on how neither of them are facing up to dire state of the NHS.

Rishi Sunak arrives at Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.
Rishi Sunak arrives at Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Here is a little video clip of what it looks like to be behind the podium at tonight’s TV debate.

Summary of the day so far …

  • Tributes have been paid after David Trimble, a key architect of Good Friday agreement, died aged 77. The Ulster Unionist Party, which he used to lead, said in a statement that the former first minister of Northern Ireland had “passed away peacefully earlier today following a short illness.”
  • Downing Street has had to deny that prime minister Boris Johnson intends to cling on to power after the Telegraph published an “exclusive” in which Lord Cruddas said Johnson “does not want to resign” as prime minister and wishes he could “wipe away” his departure.
  • Former Conservative Party chair Francis Maude has warned Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss not to trash the Conservative party brand during tonight’s televised leadership debate, which is scheduled to start at 9pm.
  • Bloomberg has published an economic analysis saying that Truss’s plans for tax cuts could add 0.6% to GDP in 2023. But “that boost may be short-lived because it would likely prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates.”
  • Sunak has said he will stop unions “holding working people to ransom” if he becomes prime minister in response to the announcement that the Transport Salaried Staffs Association union (TSSA) will stage railway strikes on 18 and 20 August.
  • Sunak has challenged Truss to agree to be interviewed by former GB News presenter Andrew Neil after it was confirmed that he will record an interview with Neil for broadcast on Friday.
  • Downing Street said travel delays seen at Dover are not caused by Brexit. It said the problems were down to a combination of factors “including a shortage of French border control staff”. Experts disagree.
  • Keir Starmer has given a speech in which he said promoting growth is now as important for Labour as redistribution, but confusion over the party’s position on the renationalisation of railways and utilities has lingered with several different briefings during the day.
  • Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has implicitly criticised the speech. In a series of tweets, Corbyn restated his call for the renationalisation of rail, energy, water and mail, saying Labour needed to offer a “bold alternative”. The Green party has also criticised Labour for abandoning its commitment to renationalising utilities as set out in the 2019 manifesto.

We have a news story on the death of David Trimble here. My colleague Ben Quinn will be updating that as we learn more, and more tributes are paid.

Among other tributes, PA Media quotes SDLP leader Colum Eastwood saying Trimble had left an “indelible mark on our shared island’s story” and that without him there would not have been a Good Friday Agreement.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has described Trimble as “a towering figure of Northern Ireland and British politics.”

Newspapers across the north of England have a united front page for tonight’s social media (and for tomorrow morning’s newsstands) ahead of the Truss/Sunak debate. Dan O’Donoghue, who is Westminster editor across a range of titles including the Manchester Evening News, says “A lot was promised in 2019 and we want to see delivery.”

Politicians are already beginning to pay tributes on social media to David Trimble, who has died aged 77. The former first minister and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has been praised by cross-party figures in the UK.

Brandon Lewis, recently Northern Ireland secretary in Boris Johnson’s government, said:

Incredibly sad news that David Trimble has died. A brilliant statesman and dedicated public servant, his legacy as an architect of the Good Friday Agreement will live on forever. The people of the UK owe him an immense debt of gratitude for all he achieved for our Union.

Alistair Campbell, part of Tony Blair’s team in the late 1990s and early 2000s, described Trimble as someone who “could be a difficult and mercurial character but he was the right man in the right place at the right time.”

Updated

David Trimble, former first minister of Northern Ireland and UUP leader dies aged 77

David Trimble, the former first minister of Northern Ireland and former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has died aged 77 according to a statement from the UUP.

It said:

It is with great sadness that the family of Lord Trimble announce that he passed away peacefully earlier today following a short illness.

Trimble was the first person to serve in the role of first minister, and won the Nobel Peace Prize along with SDLP leader John Hume for his part in negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement. He was UUP leader between 1995 and 2005.

Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly chamber at Stormont.
Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble speaking in the Northern Ireland Assembly chamber at Stormont. Photograph: Brian Little/PA

Updated

PA Media are carrying a quote from a Downing Street spokesperson, saying that despite the Telegraph’s “exclusive” earlier [see 19.09], “the prime minister has resigned as party leader and set out his intention to stand down as prime minister when the new leader is in place.”

Allies of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have been accused of “bullying” and firing “poisonous” criticism in pursuit of their leadership rivalry, as Nadine Dorries upped the ante of “blue-on-blue” attacks by mocking the former chancellor’s expensive outfits.

Amid fears the Tory race was descending into “horrific nastiness”, some MPs urged the two remaining candidates to stop “knocking seven shades of shit out of each other” and pull out of the remaining head-to-head TV debates.

Many of the briefings against the pair have come under the cloak of anonymity from their rival’s supporters. But Dorries, who is backing the foreign secretary, went public with criticism of Sunak’s expensive attire after his campaign emphasised his family’s humble beginnings.

“Liz Truss will be travelling the country wearing her earrings which cost circa £4.50 from Claire Accessories [sic],” Dorries tweeted. “Meanwhile … Rishi visits Teeside [sic] in Prada shoes worth £450 and sported £3,500 bespoke suit as he prepared for crunch leadership vote.”

In retaliation, a Sunak ally called the criticism “nonsense”, adding: “It’s a bit rich for a cabinet minister earning £140,000 to pretend they’re somehow just like everybody else.”

A former minister lamented that “the prize is not worth winning if that’s how low you have to go” and said they were keeping their head down during such a “nasty, poisonous campaign”. Angela Richardson, who is supporting Sunak, also expressed her exasperation on Twitter, commenting: “FFS Nadine! Muted.”

Read more of Aubrey Allegretti’s report here: ‘FFS Nadine! Muted’: fears Truss-Sunak race is plunging into horrific nastiness

Sunak criticises railway unions for new strike dates

Rishi Sunak has said he will stop unions “holding working people to ransom” if he becomes prime minister.

Commenting on new strike action announced today, PA Media quotes the former chancellor saying: “These irresponsible strikes will cause hardship for millions of ordinary workers across the country. Keir Starmer and the Labour Party should stand up to their union paymasters instead of joining them on the picket line.”

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association union (TSSA) earlier called on Sunak’s former cabinet colleague, transport secretary Grant Shapps, to intervene in the summer’s rail pay and job security disputes, as it announced it will strike on two days during August.

“The Labour Party are on the side of the strikers - the Conservatives are on the side of the strivers,” Sunak said.

“As prime minister, I will stop the unions holding working people to ransom. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that unions cannot dictate how the British people go about their daily life.”

The TSSA union, which represents around 17,000 workers in railways ferries, bus services, transport authorities and the travel trade, including station staff, operational, maintenance, supervisory and management staff, has said that its members “do not take strike action lightly”, but that in an inflationary cost-of-living crisis, those workers “are going into a third or fourth year of pay freezes and seeing their real take home pay decrease.”

Johnson 'does not want to resign' – Lord Cruddas in Telegraph

The Telegraph has just published what it describes as an “exclusive” by Christopher Hope, in which he writes that Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch has told him that outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson “does not want to resign” and said he was hoping a campaign among Conservative party members to keep him on would succeed.

Hope writes:

Boris Johnson has told a former treasurer campaigning to keep him in office that he “does not want to resign” as prime minister and wishes he could “wipe away” his departure.

The prime minister also told Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch at Chequers over lunch on Friday that he “wants to fight the next general election as leader of the Conservative Party”, the peer said.

The pair discussed Lord Cruddas’s “bring back Boris” campaign for a second vote among the party’s grassroots to confirm whether they think Johnson should have to resign. The peer said Johnson had told him he was “rooting for your campaign to succeed”.

He said Johnson had told him he was “enjoying following” the peer’s petition, adding: “There was no ambiguity in Boris’s views. He definitely does not want to resign. He wants to carry on and he believes that, with the membership behind him, he can.”

Read more here: Daily Telegraph – Boris Johnson tells friend: I don’t want to resign and will stay on if Tory members back me [£]

The social media teams of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been posting videos ahead of getting ready to clip up the best bits of their performances in the debate tonight.

Truss has gone for the message “I am the only person who can deliver the change we need to the economy in line with true Conservative principles”

It is a message which does somewhat beg the question of which principles the Conservative party have been following in the twelve years that they have currently been in government, much of which she was part of.

Sunak’s team have opted to re-promote a video of their man dropping into a virtual conference call for volunteers of his campaign and surprising them. In the message accompanying the video, Sunak claims his campaigning support has now topped 20,000 members.

Former Tory chair cautions Truss & Sunak not to 'trash brand' during leadership debate

Former Conservative Party chair Francis Maude has warned Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss not to trash the Conservative party brand during tonight’s televised leadership debate, which is scheduled to start at 9pm.

Lord Maude, who was also formerly minister for the cabinet office, told the BBC’s PM programme this evening “One is obviously going to win the leadership, but if the behaviour of the teams and their language has been uncontrolled, and it has damaged the party’s standing or the way people see the party, then it could end up being a Pyrrhic victory.”

He said that the increasingly fractious tone of interventions from the campaign teams over the weekend had begun to appear like “a race over who can sound more right-wing, as if that’s the only game in town.”

Urging them to “remember it is generally an error to trash the brand”, he said that “people’s impressions will be formed by how they behave in this leadership election” and Sunak and Truss should “reflect and concentrate more on showing why they are the best person to be the prime minister of this country.”

Updated

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association union (TSSA) has called on transport secretary Grant Shapps to intervene in the summer’s rail pay and job security disputes, as it announced it will strike on two days during August. Union members will walk out on 18 August and 20 August.

The TSSA said thousands of its members – including station staff, operational, maintenance, supervisory and management staff – will take part in industrial action. Strike action will be taken in Avanti West Coast, c2c, East Midlands Railway, CrossCountry, Great Western Railway, LNER, and Southeastern.

PA Media quotes Manuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary, saying:

Most of our members are going into a third or fourth year of pay freezes, seeing their real take home pay decrease. For many rail workers in our union this is the first time they have been directly involved in an industrial dispute.

We do not take strike action lightly, but enough is enough. The Conservative government is the clear block to a deal for rail workers.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps must either personally come to the table or empower train operators to reach a deal on pay, job security and conditions.

Instead of wanting to resolve this dispute, we now see proposals for hundreds of ticket office closures and widespread job cuts across our railways.

The proposed strike days are the same dates that the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) is striking against Network Rail and 14 train operators.

  • This is Martin Belam in London taking over the live blog for the rest of the evening. I’ll be covering the live debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss which is set for 9pm. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com or message me on Twitter – @MartinBelam.

Bloomberg has published an economic analysis saying that Liz Truss’s plans for tax cuts could add 0.6% to GDP in 2023. But “that boost may be short-lived because it would likely prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates”, the analysis says. It suggests that under Truss’s plans interest rates would have to rise more than expected, reaching 3.25% by the middle of next year.

The same analysis says that economic outlook for the UK would change little from what it is already under Rishi Sunak because, in economic terms, he is the continuity candidate.

That is all from me for tonight. My colleague Martin Belam is now taking over.

Rishi Sunak has had endorsements from two ministers who served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet (Peter Lilley and Michael Howard), as well as former Tory leader first elected to parliament when Thatcher was prime minister (William Hague), Greg Hands, a Sunak supporter, points out.

Yesterday a report by Michael Savage in the Observer quoted three other ministers who served in Thatcher’s cabinet - Malcolm Rifkind, Chris Patten and Norman Lamont - also siding with Rishi Sunak, and describing Liz Truss’s proposed tax cuts as irresponsible.

In the Thatcher era, and afterwards, Lilley and Howard were seen as very much on the right of the Conservative party. It says something about how much the party has changed that Sunak, the person they are now supporting, is seen as the candidate of the party’s “left” - or at least not the candidate of the party’s right.

(Only in a Tory leadership contest could Sunak be described as being on the left, and even then the label is a bit of a stretch.)

Updated

The Green party has criticised Labour for abandoning its commitment to renationalising utilities as set out in the 2019 manifesto. (See 12.50pm.) Commenting on what Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer said this morning, Adrian Ramsay, the Green party’s co-leader, said:

It is depressing to see Labour abandoning their traditional support for public ownership of essential services at a time when this is so popular amongst voters. Their attempt to compete with the Tories will see ordinary people and the planet pay the cost as a result.

It’s clear for all to see that the privatisation of essential services like energy, transport and water has served only to line the pockets of shareholders, rather than ensure that these services we all depend on are reliable and affordable.

The Green party believes it is essential that public services are publicly owned, both in order to guarantee the level of service required to meet society’s needs and help tackle the climate crisis, and to ensure good pay and conditions of those working within them.

Make UK, which represents British manufacturers, has welcomed Keir Starmer’s decision to promise a renewed focus on industrial strategy if he wins the next election. (See 10.57am.) Its chief executive, Stephen Phipson, said:

Industry will welcome the focus on industrial strategy which is a concept that companies understand and have long campaigned for. Most developed economies have such a strategy which joins up wide strands of economic policy on innovation, skills, infrastructure and energy at both national and regional level. Time after time this has been shown to feed through into wider gains on productivity.

Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves inspecting a robot dog during a visit to the Manufacturing Technology Centre at the Liverpool Science Park today.
Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves inspecting a robot dog during a visit to the Manufacturing Technology Centre at the Liverpool Science Park today. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

In his speech this morning Keir Starmer said that because of the UK’s recent record of low growth in recent years “the average British family is £8,800 poorer than their equivalents in other advanced countries”. The post originally said £1,800, because I misheard the figure, but I’ve now corrected it. (See 10.41am.)

Starmer was quoting a figure implied by this report from the Resolution Foundation thinktank. In its press release summarising the report, the RF said:

Britain’s toxic combination of low growth and high inequality has left it trailing behind the comparable economies of Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands, with disastrous consequences for low- and middle-income households ...

Comparing the UK, not to the world’s most productive or equal countries, but to a group of five comparable nations – Australia, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands – the report illustrates the scale of Britain’s challenges, but also catch-up potential. If the UK had the average income and inequality levels of these countries, typical household incomes in Britain would be a third higher – equivalent to £8,800 per household – and those of the poorest households 40 per cent greater.

Renationalising services like energy and rail would be pragmatic, says Corbyn's former policy chief

Andrew Fisher, head of policy for Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader, told Radio 4’s World at One that it was “very silly” for the party’s leadership to rule out renationalistation of utilities on cost grounds. Referring to Rachel Reeves’ comments in an interview this morning (see 11.33am), he said:

The reason why private companies want water and rail and energy in private ownership is because they make money out of it. They’re revenue generating assets. So if you take them into public ownership, then you gain that revenue generating asset. So it actually brings in money.

That seems to me a very silly thing for Rachel Reeves to have said. The energy companies are making huge profits.

Fisher said that Keir Starmer said he would take a pragmatic, rather than an ideological, approach to renationalisation. (See 12.50pm.) Fisher went on:

Well, there’s a very strong pragmatic case for public ownership of energy, of water, of the railways, which is why all three of those things are in public ownership throughout most of Europe.

Fisher also said that Starmer’s focus on growth in the speech was potentially problematic for Labour. He explained:

Clearly we’re in a point where we could dip into recession at the moment ... But by the time of the next election the economy will probably be growing again, because economies pick up after recessions, they tend to be fairly short, and then the economy revives. And the worry is that, if the Tories are delivering growth at that point, what else is Labour saying?

Earlier Fisher posted this on Twitter to show the polls suggest the public is in favour of renationalising utilities.

Andrew Fisher (right) with Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
Andrew Fisher (right) with Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
 Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Updated

This is from Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and Tory leadership candidate, who has been campaigning in Staffordshire.

The set for the Liz Truss/Rishi Sunak debate in Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent. It will be on BBC 1 at 9pm.
The set for the Liz Truss/Rishi Sunak debate in Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent. It will be on BBC 1 at 9pm. Photograph: Jeff Overs/BBC/PA

Downing Street says the delays we’ve seen at Dover are not caused by Brexit. (See 1.43pm.) But my colleague Lisa O’Carroll has written an explainer on the traffic delays at the port and, in response to the question, “Is Brexit to blame?” she writes: “To a large degree, yes.”

Who’s right? Well, Lisa, obviously.

Here’s an extract from her Q&A.

Criticising the French, as [Liz Truss, the foreign secretary] did, was to deny the consequences of the hard Brexit the UK Conservative government fought for and won.

The port handled almost 142,000 passengers over the weekend and each of those passports had to be manually stamped because of Brexit, taking the average time each passenger had to spend at passport control from 48 seconds to 90 seconds.

Writing in the French English-language newspaper, the Local, the veteran commentator John Lichfield said “strictly speaking” the gridlock was not the fault of Brexit but “the fault of successive British governments who have failed to prepare for Brexit and failed to educate the British public on what Brexit means”.

And here is her full article.

Updated

Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, has implicitly criticised the speech given this morning by his successor, Keir Starmer. In a series of tweets, Corbyn restated his call for the renationalisation of rail, energy, water and mail (Labour manifesto commitments in 2019), saying Labour needed to offer a “bold alternative”.

Labour 'is committed to public ownership of rail', says shadow transport secretary

Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, has said that Labour is “committed to public ownership of rail” - even though her leader, Keir Starmer, did not sound particularly keen on the policy when asked about it this morning. (See 12.50pm.)

What a commitment to public ownership of rail might mean in practice is not especially clear. Under the Tories the Northern Rail and east coast mainline services have been renationalised because their private sector operators were failing. And during the pandemic, after the government agreed to take on the financial risk of rail franchises, the Office for National Statistics argued that in accounting terms (in terms of how debt is measured) the whole service had been nationalised.

Updated

Starmer's economy speech shows he wants to 'adopt Tory policies wholesale', SNP claims

And the SNP has accused Keir Starmer of adopting Tory policies. This is from Kirsten Oswald, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster.

Keir Starmer’s rhetoric on the economy and growth would carry an ounce of credibility if his party were not the handmaidens of disastrous Tory policies which are harming the UK economy, hammering businesses, and making us all poorer.

The reality is that while the Tory leadership candidates try and out-Thatcher Thatcher, Keir Starmer believes that Labour’s path back to power is to adopt Tory policies wholesale – regardless of the damage they are doing to the economy.

On Brexit, freedom of movement, privatisation – you can no longer put a piece of paper between the two main Westminster parties.

Updated

Starmer's opposition to nationalisation 'neoliberal dogma', says Momentum

Momentum, the Labour group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn and his agenda when he was leader, has dismissed Keir Starmer’s comments on nationalisation this morning (see 12.50pm) as “neoliberal dogma” rather than smart politics.

Updated

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson also said it had been Boris Johnson’s “strong wish” for Ukraine to host next year’s Eurovision song contest. Commenting on the decision to hold it in the UK instead, after the European Broadcasting Union decided it coud not safely be held in Ukraine, the spokesperson said:

It’s deeply regrettable that a Ukraine-hosted Eurovision will not be possible.

But we are confident the BBC and UK will pull out all the stops to make sure it is an event that celebrates and honours the country, the people and the creativity of Ukraine.

The spokesperson also said that in talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymur Zelenskiy, last week, Johnson and Zelenskiy “agreed that wherever Eurovision 2023 is held, it must celebrate the country and people of Ukraine”.

Liz Truss has “no plans at the moment” to record an interview with Andrew Neil, her campaign says. (See 1.37pm.)

No 10 claims delays at Dover not caused by Brexit

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson insisted that the delays at Dover seen over the weekend were not caused by Brexit. He said the problems were down to a combination of factors “including a shortage of French border control staff”. He went on:

So these are not scenes that we think are necessitated by leaving the European Union.

We think we have operational procedures and processes in place that do not need to see these levels of queues.

Asked whether the UK would like the French to stop stamping travellers’ passports, the spokesperson said:

Generally speaking we have a good relationship working with our French counterparts on these juxtaposed controls.

It is for, obviously, individual governments to decide how to carry out checks at the border. Our view is that these should be done proportionately and sensibly given the good working relationships that we have.

Asked whether the government thought the French approach to controls at the border was proportionate and sensible, the spokesperson replied:

It’s not for me to pass judgment.

We did see significant improvements over the weekend where they deployed more staff which has significantly reduced congestion, and that is welcome, and we will continue to have discussions with our French counterparts to ensure that there is sufficient planning ahead of any increase as we move into next weekend.

The French government insists that Brexit is a major factor. And experts agree.

Updated

Sunak challenges Truss to agree to interview with Andrew Neil, as he has done

Rishi Sunak has challenged Liz Truss to agree to be interviewed by Andrew Neil, after it was confirmed that he will record an interview with Neil for broadcast on Friday. (See 1.20pm.)

Neil is widely seen as the most ferocious political interviewer in British broadcasting at the moment – partly because of his combative style, but mostly because he is always remarkably well briefed, with the result that he can frequently leave his interviewees looking inept.

Sunak is regarded as a better media performer than Truss, and this may help to explain why he has agreed to sit down with Neil. But his decision to accept the Neil invitation, and challenge Truss to do likewise, is also indicative of his standing as the underdog in the contest. Candidates who are well ahead in an election (as the polling suggests Truss is) are often reluctant to debate because they have little to gain and much to lose.

The Truss campaign has not said yet whether or not Truss will grant Neil an interview.

Updated

Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and Tory leadership candidate, is going to record an interview with Andrew Neil for Channel 4 for broadcast on Friday. This is from ITN’s Ian Rumsey.

Louisa Compton, head of news and current affairs and specialist factual and sport at Channel 4, said:

After the success of our first audience debate we’re delighted that Rishi Sunak has confirmed he will be interviewed by Andrew Neil on Channel 4.

We hope that Liz Truss also now agrees - and allows the British public to better understand what she stands for.

Updated

Starmer indicates he no longer favours bringing rail companies back into public ownership

When Keir Starmer was running for the Labour leadership after the 2019 general election, he issued 10 pledges which included: “Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water.” He has been in retreat from these every since, but his comments today probably take him a bit further down the path of burying Labour’s interest in renationalisation.

At the Labour conference last year, after abandoning the commitment to renationalising energy companies, Starmer argued that his commitment to “common ownership” was different and he implied that his support for that still applied.

More recently he has refused to restate his commitment to all of the leadership campaign 10 pledges - including “common ownership”, his watered down version of nationalisation.

In her interview on the Today programme this morning Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, was specifically asked about the renationalisation of water, energy and rail. Rail is particularly problematic because Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, told the rail union Aslef earlier this year that the party was “totally committed” to public ownership of rail. Labour claims Reeves was not categorically ruling this out. (See 11.33am.)

But Starmer implied that renationalising rail companies was not an option he favoured. In the Q&A after his speech this morning, in response to the first question on this, from a journalist asking if he was still interested in common ownership, he replied:

I take a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological one and agree with what Rachel Reeves said this morning.

Having come through the pandemic, it’s very important that we have very, very clear priorities and that’s why we’ve set our fiscal rules already as an opposition ...

And my priority, as I hope is obvious from this morning, is growth. The mission of the next Labour government will be growth.

Starmer was then asked directly if taking rail companies back into public ownership was a priority. He again said that his approach was pragmatic, not ideological. He said:

Whether it comes to rail or [energy], I think what some of our mayors and metro mayors are doing with public transport is the right way forward: absolutely focus on keeping the price down and making sure there’s control over where things go, particularly buses ...

I think that is the difference that Labour metro mayors can make in power.

Keir Starmer delivering his speech in Liverpool.
Keir Starmer delivering his speech in Liverpool. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Updated

Here is a link to the full text of Keir Starmer’s speech on Labour’s approach to growth.

Beijing has urged British politicians to exercise restraint in their comments on China, saying “hyping the China threat” would not help solve the UK’s own problems, my colleague Vincent Ni reports.

Reeves suggests Labour would not renationalise rail, water or energy

In his Q&A Keir Starmer said that he agreed with what Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said in an interview this morning about nationalisation. (See 11.05am.) That is not the most helpful answer because what Reeves said has been subject to some clarification.

On the Today programme Reeves was asked if Labour was now ruling out nationalisation of water, energy companies and rail companies if it won the election. She replied:

I’ve set out fiscal rules that say all day to day spending will be funded by day to day tax revenues ...

Within our fiscal rules, to be spending billions of pounds on nationalising things that just doesn’t stack up against our fiscal rules.

And when it was put to her that nationalisation was a commitment, she replied:

They were a commitment in a manifesto that secured our worst results since 1935 ... We have scrapped the 2019 manifesto. That is not the starting point. We’re setting out distinct policies under Kier Starmer.

But subsequently, as Sienna Rodgers from the House magazine reports, Labour said Reeves was not categorically ruling out rail nationalisation in her answer. (But the Labour clarification also does not make rail nationalisation sound particularly probable either, which is also what Reeves was implying.)

Updated

Q: Some members of the shadow cabinet say Labour remains committed to public ownership of rail. Are they right?

Starmer starts by saying he knows what train journeys in the north of England are like. He has travelled by train in the region many, many times. He understands why people feel let down.

But he wants to be “pragmatic, not ideological”, he says.

He says some Labour metro mayors have been providing a good example, by focusing on prices for passengers, not ownership.

That’s it. The Q&A is over.

Starmer is now taking questions.

Q: What is your positon on nationalisation of energy and water firms?

Starmer says he takes a pragmatic approach. He agrees with what Rachel Reeves said about this in an interview this morning.

His priority is growth, he says.

He is pragmatic, not ideological.

Starmer says he wants Labour to move on from its “old ideas”. He says redistribution cannot be secure if the country does not have strong growth. Without growth, people will be left in insecure jobs. That is why he is saying growth is as important, he says. (See 9.29am.)

Starmer says Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, is looking at how new forms of economic devolution could drive regional growth.

Starmer says his proposed industrial strategy council could be as influential as OBR

Starmer says the government needs an industrial strategy. This government does not have one, he says. And an industrial strategy isn’t about growing the size of the state; it is about partnership with business and university.

He confirms that Labour would legislate to set up a new industrial strategy council.

He suggests this could shape policy like the Climate Change Committee, or the Office for Budget Responsibility. It could focus on national priorities that go beyond the political cycle, he says.

Updated

Starmer says Labour’s approach to levelling up will be based on a practical plan, unlike the government’s.

And he says he was impressed by the approach of Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, whom he met in Berlin recently. Starmer suggests Britain could learn from the way new battery factories are located in poor regions in Germany.

Updated

Starmer promises 'no magic money tree economics' under Labour

On the topic of being financially responsible, Starmer says Labour will set a target to reduce debt as an overall share of our economy.

The Tories are proposing to waste more money. But Labour will offer sound finances, he says.

There will be no magic money tree economics with us.

Starmer sets out five principles he says will form basis of Labour's approach to promoting growth

Starmer says Labour’s approach to boosting growth will be based on five principles.

First we will be financially responsible.

Second, we will be distinctively British.

Third, we will work in partnership with business.

Fourth, we will re energise communities and spread economic power.

And fifth, we will refocus our investment on boosting productivity.

Starmer also argues that growth will allow the government to pursue the net zero strategy.

People claim growth and net zero are in conflict, he says. But he says he rejects that argument completely.

A plan for net zero needs growth. A plan for growth needs net zero.

Starmer says the UK needs “growth, growth, growth”.

And he says he has told the shadow cabinet that every policy they propose will be assessed by whether it is likely to promote growth.

Without growth, the government cannot fund decent public services, unite the country, pay for national security or promote social mobility, he says.

Updated

Starmer claims Tory failure to secure stronger growth has left families £8,800 worse off on average

Starmer says Britain’s economy is weaker than its competitors. That is why Labour is making growth a priority.

He says tonight people will hear from two other candidates to be the next PM.

But he says Rishi Sunak is “the architect of the cost of living crisis”. And Liz Truss is “the latest graduate from the school of magic money tree economics”.

Neither of them have the answers to the economic challenges that we face, Starmer says.

Under the Tories the average British family has become £8,800 poorer than their equivalents in advanced economies, he claims.

(That figure, presumably, is based on how much richer the UK would be if the economy had grown in line with international norms over the last 12 years.) He goes on:

That’s not just a failure of policy. It’s a failure of philosophy and this leadership contest is not going to change that.

UPDATE: Originally this post used the figure £1,800, not £8,800. That mistake was due to a mishearing. The £8,800 figure is explained here.

Updated

Keir Starmer's speech on Labour's plan for growth

Keir Starmer is due to start his speech on Labour’s plan for growth shortly.

There is a live feed here.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is introducing him. She says families are due to be hit by a huge hike in energy bills in October. She says Labour will address this, but it will have a plan for growth too.

She says she would like to be able to introduce Starmer as the next PM. But who knows how many more leaders the Tories will get through, she says. So she introduces him as the next Labour prime minister.

Updated

Truss has been warning about threat posed by China for much longer than Sunak, says one of her key allies

James Cleverly was the most senior member of the government giving interviews this morning. Cleverly is education secretary. (But only just, according to Caroline Wheeler and Harry Yorke in the Sunday Times yesterday; writing about Boris Johnson’s final reshuffle, they report: “Another former cabinet minister, who briefly took charge of the reshuffle, said “Not So” Cleverly, as he is known by rivals, was suggested as education secretary as a joke. He was later appointed.”) But this morning Cleverly was answering questions mostly in his capacity as a leading support of Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, for the Tory leadership.

Here are the main points from his interview.

  • James Cleverly said that Rishi Sunak, Truss’s rival for the Tory leadership, is only just catching up with her in terms of taking the threat posed by China seriously. As my colleagues Aubrey Allegretti and Vincent Ni report, Sunak is describing China as the biggest long-term threat to Britain.

In response, Cleverly said:

[Truss has] been talking about [the influence of China] for a long time. So I’m very glad that Rishi’s now talking about the issues that Liz has been talking about for quite some time, and of course we do need to look at China’s influence, not just on the world stage but here in the UK.

  • Cleverly said he would not say whether the government would close the Confucius institutes attached to British universities, as Sunak is proposing. He said:

I’m in a position as education secretary where it would be unwise for me to make significant policy announcements in response to the positions that have been put out through a leadership campaign.

  • He said he would like to remain education secretary if Truss became PM.
  • He attacked Sunak’s plan to house asylum seekers on cruise ships as bad for tourism. In a briefing issued at the weekend Sunak said he wanted to stop people coming to the UK seeking asylum being housed in hotels, and his campaign said he would “deliver thousands of new beds through a range of existing and novel solutions, including the use of cruise ships”. Commenting on this, Cleverly said:

I haven’t seen the practicalities of that. I do think that it would be interesting to see where those ships would be moored because typically the places where you can moor a cruise ship are holiday destinations.

And I’m not completely sure that that would suit the tourist industry in our coastal towns which need I think a boost rather than what might be reputationally quite a negative thing, but I will look at that.

What is interesting about this is that initially, in a briefing attacking the Sunak plan yesterday, the Truss camp criticised this on the grounds that holding migrants indefinitely on cruise ships would be “illegal under the Human Rights Act and the ECHR [European convention on human rights]”. But this argument is probably too “woke” for Conservative party members, not all of whom are big fans of the Human Rights Act, and so instead Cleverly latched onto a different objection.

  • Cleverly said that Truss did not want to see interest rates rise to 7%. When it was put to him that Patrick Minford, the economist backing Truss’s plan for immediate tax cuts now, accepted that rates might have to rise to that sort of level in response, to contain inflation, Cleverly replied:

Ultimately we want to keep interest rates modest.

A big jump in interest rates will hit people who are already finding bills difficult, and that’s not what we want to see. But ultimately what we need to do is make sure that we have that economic boost.

  • Cleverly said he would be “comfortable” to see Boris Johnson offered a post in Truss’s cabinet. But it was a decision for her, he said. In the TV debate last Sunday, Truss indicated she would not offer Johnson a job.

Updated

This Tory leadership contest has been described as one of the nastiest ever, judged by what the various candidates have been saying about each other. Normally the snide, personal stuff is briefed to the media unattributably, from “sources”. But this morning Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary and a Liz Truss supporter, has posted a message on Twitter under her own name making a dig about Sunak’s taste for expensive clothing, and his wealth, while depicting Truss as a champion of frugality.

The Tory MP Angela Richardson, who is supporting Sunak, posted this response.

UPDATE: And these are from the Critic’s Robert Hutton.

Updated

Starmer dismisses Tory leadership contest as ‘Thatcherite cosplay’ as he says Labour will care about growth as much as redistribution

Good morning. Keir Starmer will make a speech this morning arguing that a key problem facing Britain is that, for at least a decade, growth has been feeble. It is an argument that Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been making for some time (the trend rate of growth was higher before the financial crash, when Labour was in power, and low growth ultimately means lower living standards and less money for public services). But suddenly this territory is now rather crowded. In the Tory leadership contest Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are both promising to unleash growth, and some of Truss’s comments in particular about how dismal the government’s record has been over the last decade could be copy and pasted straight into a Starmer speech.

Starmer will address that point in his speech. According to extracts released in advance, here are two of the points he will make.

  • Starmer will dismiss the Tory leadership contest as “Thatcherite cosplay”. He will say:

You will see a clear contrast between my Labour party and the Thatcherite cosplay on display tonight [in the Tory leadership debate]. The difference between a Labour party ready to take Britain forward. And a Tory party that wants to take us back into the past.

Between Labour growth and Tory stagnation. That will be the choice at the next election and we are ready.

  • And he will say that promoting growth is now as important for Labour as redistribution. He will say:

The approach to growth I have set out today will challenge my party’s instincts.

It pushes us to care as much about growth and productivity, as we have done about redistribution and investment in the past. Not to hark back to our old ideas in the face of new challenges.

As my colleague Robert Booth reports in his preview of the speech, Starmer will also set out plans for a new industrial strategy council, established on a statutory footing to become “a permanent part of the [economic] landscape”.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Keir Starmer gives a speech in Liverpool on Labour’s policy for growth.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

9pm: Liz Truss debates Rishi Sunak in Stoke-on-Trent in the BBC’s Tory leadership debate.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com

Updated

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