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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Tory leadership race: Kemi Badenoch eliminated as Rishi Sunak tops poll of MPs – as it happened

Kemi Badenoch Penny Mordaunt ​​Rishi Sunak Liz Truss Tom Tugendhat Boris Johnson Graham Brady

Afternoon summary

Implied chances of winning by betting odds in Tory leadership contest
Implied chances of winning by betting odds in Tory leadership contest Photograph: Smarkets

The appalling behaviour that Forde calls out, including the repulsive racism and sexism shown to Diane Abbott and others, should have no place in a progressive party. Toxic factionalism is far from over - nor are persistent problems of racism and sexism - and action must be taken, as Forde makes clear.

Most of all, the party needs to decide what it is for and who decides that. Are we a democratic socialist party, run by members and affiliated unions, that aims for a fundamental transfer of wealth and power from the few to the many? Or are we something else?

Government releases further details of public sector pay awards

The government has now published various written ministerial statements with details of pay awards.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, has published details of the pay award for police officers. She says:

The review body recommends a consolidated increase of £1,900 to all police officer pay points for all ranks from 1 September 2022, equivalent to 5% overall. It is targeted at those on the lowest pay points to provide an uplift of up to 8.8%, and between 0.6% and 1.8% for those on the highest pay points. The government recognises that increases in the cost of living are having a significant impact on the lower paid. It is within this context and after careful consideration that we have chosen to accept this recommendation in full. As at March 2022 there are 142,526 police officers who will receive this consolidated increase.

Patel has also published details of the pay awards for police and crime commissioners.

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has said members of armed forces will get a 3.75% pay rise. The full details are here.

Steve Barclay, the health secretary, has released full details of the award for NHS staff. (See 4.31pm.)

James Cleverly, the education secretary, has released full details of the award for teachers. (See 5.16pm.)

Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, says he has decided judges should get a 3% pay rise, instead of the 3.5% recommended by the senior salaries review body.

And Raab says prison officers will get a pay rise of at least 4%, with more for lower paid staff.

Heather Wheeler, the Cabinet Office minister, says senior civil servants should get an across the board increase of 2%, instead of the 3% recommended by the senior salaries review body. But pay band minimums will increase too.

Experienced teachers in England to get 5% pay rise, government announces

Experienced teachers in England will get a 5% pay rise for the next academic year, the government has announced after recommendations from the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). PA Media says:

Both the NASUWT and NEU teaching unions, which have threatened strikes in autumn over pay, have said the proposed increase of 5% for more experienced staff is too low.

The NEU has said it will now consult its members on strike action in the autumn.

NASUWT previously said it would hold a national strike ballot if the government fails to “deliver pay restoration for teachers”.

And Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, previously said a 5% rise for more experienced staff would be “unacceptable”.

The government announced the starting salary for teachers outside London will rise by 8.9%, with salaries reaching £28,000 for the 2022/23 academic year.

It said this meant it had made “good progress” towards a manifesto commitment for starting salaries rising to £30,000.

“Those in the early stages of their careers will also benefit from significant increases, ranging from 5% to 8% depending on experience,” the government said.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the government had been “forced” by members to drop a previous proposal of 3% for experienced teachers, but added it had not “moved far enough”.

He said a 5% increase would mean “yet another huge cut” to the real value of pay against inflation, and that this would mean members were consulted over strike action in autumn.

“With RPI inflation at 11.7% according to the latest figures, experienced teachers would see a bigger pay cut than the one inflicted by last year’s pay freeze and even the increase to starting pay is below inflation so is a real-terms pay cut,” he said.

The rise is equivalent to an increase of almost £2,100 on the average salary of £42,400 this year.

Corbyn's supporters welcome Forde report as showing they were right about some party staff undermining his leadership

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters in the Labour party have welcomed the findings of the Forde report (see 2.29pm and 4.17pm), saying it vindicates claims they made at the time about how some staffers at party HQ were obstructive or hostile to the leadership. Here are some of their responses.

From Len McCluskey, the former Unite general secretary

From John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor

From Momentum, the pro-Corbyn Labour organisation

From Alex Nunns, the journalist and former Corbyn speechwriter

Andrew Fisher, Corbyn’s former head of policy, has criticised the Labour party’s response to the report.

And my colleague Owen Jones, who was one of Corbyn’s most prominent media supporters, has posted a long Twitter thread on the report. It starts here.

Police pay is going to go up by an average of 5%, with low earners getting more and high earners getting less, the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar reports.

Updated

Department of Health announces NHS pay awards, with eligible doctors getting 4.5%

The government is starting to release details of public sector pay awards. The Department of Health and Social Care says all NHS staff will get a pay rise of at least £1,400, with the lowest earners receiving up to 9.3%.

Eligible dentists and doctors will receive a 4.5% pay rise, it says. DHSC says:

All NHS staff under the remit of this year’s pay review will receive a pay rise. Over 1 million staff under the Agenda for Change contract, including nurses, paramedics and midwives, will benefit from a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year backdated to April 2022. This is on top of the 3% pay rise they received last year, despite a wider public sector pay pause.

This means that the lowest earners such as porters and cleaners will see a 9.3% increase in their basic pay this year, compared to last year. The average basic pay for nurses will increase from around £35,600 as of March 2022 to around £37,000 and the basic pay for newly qualified nurses will increase by 5.5%, from £25,655 last year to £27,055.

Dentists and doctors within the Doctors and Dentists’ Remuneration Body (DDRB) remit this year will receive a 4.5% pay rise as the government accepts the recommendations of the independent NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB) and the DDRB in full.

Across the public sector, these are the highest uplifts in nearly 20 years, reflecting the vital contributions public sector workers make to the country and the cost of living pressures facing households.

Updated

Back to the Tories, and the Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt campaigns are both trying to win over Kemi Badenoch’s supporters.

A Truss campaign spokesperson said:

Kemi Badenoch has run a fantastic campaign and contributed enormously to the battle of ideas throughout this contest.

Now is the time for the party to unite behind a candidate who will govern in a Conservative way and who has shown she can deliver time and again.

Liz has a bold new economic agenda that will immediately tackle the cost of living crisis, boost economic growth and continue leading the global fight for freedom in Ukraine.

And Mordaunt said:

This afternoon colleagues once again put their trust in me and I cannot thank them enough. We are so nearly across the finish line. I am raring to go and excited to put my case to members across the country and win.

I want to pay tribute to my friend Kemi Badenoch who electrified the leadership contest with her fresh thinking and bold policies. She and I both know that the old way of government isn’t working as it should. Voters want change and we owe it to them to offer a bold new vision for this country. Kemi’s passion for this showed and I’m glad she put herself forward to be heard.

10 takeaways from the Forde report into factionalism in Labour party

The Forde report into factionalism in the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn, and specifically into a leaked report exposing anti-Corbyn staffers making racist and sexist comments, is available online in full here. Here are 10 takeaways from what it says.

1) Supporters AND opponents of Corbyn using the issue of antisemitism within the party “as a factional weapon”. Both “sides” were thus “weaponising the issue and failing to recognise the seriousness of antisemitism”.

2) Factional warfare undermined the party’s ability to function. Under Corbyn, the party was “spending more time occupied by factional differences than working collaboratively to demonstrate that the party is an effective opposition”.

Both sides blamed one another for this inability to properly function. The report says:

Both genuinely believed that the other side was trying to sabotage their work in this period – sometimes with a degree of justification, and sometimes not.

On the 2017 election, Forde concludes it was “highly unlikely” that the parallel campaign run by anti-Corbyn staffers cost the party the election by, for example, funnelling support elsewhere. He says: “The two sides were trying to win in different ways.”

3) There is not clear evidence that Corbyn’s team or others overtly interfered in investigations about alleged antisemitism. The report finds most of the problems were created by a lack of clarity on procedures, aggravated by factionalism.

4) The report dismissed the complaint by Labour staffers that derogatory messages were “cherrypicked and selectively edited” in the leaked report. It says they were “deplorably factional and insensitive, and at times discriminatory, attitudes”.

5) Corbyn himself declined to be interviewed for the report, though signed a joint submission to the inquiry. Forde described the Labour leader as “notably silent”.

6) Forde also finds there is a “vociferous faction in the party sees any issues regarding antisemitism as exaggerated by the right to embarrass the left”.

7) He also finds that the leaked report itself – authored at Unite’s headquarters – was “a factional document with an agenda to advance, and that the quoted messages were selected pursuant to that agenda”.

8) There is significant work still to be done to combat racism in the party, Forde finds. Authors of the WhatsApp messages “should have considered … the fact that Diane Abbott is a black woman, and has been vilified on that basis over several decades”.

9) But Forde also finds the messages’ authors “were not given a right of reply before their messages were included in the leaked report; that was a clear breach of natural justice”. He says some were reported in a “selective way”.

10) Forde praises the changes under Keir Starmer to the disciplinary process. He says;

We must commend the party for its efforts more recently to achieve a greater degree of independence in its system of regulation, with notable reforms approved at the party conference in 2021.

Updated

This is from Kemi Badenoch.

Candidates often enter a leadership contest not really expecting to win, but hoping to raise their profile in the party. Badenoch has achieved that more successfully than most fourth-placed candidates, and, whoever wins, she can expect a promotion in the reshuffle.

Updated

Tory leadership ballot result - snap verdict

Rishi Sunak is almost certain to be on the final ballot for party members, and he is more likely to be facing Liz Truss than Penny Mordaunt, these results suggest. (See 3.03pm.) But nothing is certain from these numbers – other than the fact that Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister, is now out of the contest.

Sunak is now only one vote away from the point where he is guaranteed a slot on the final ballot. Previously 120 (just over a third of the total electorate, 357 MPs) was the point where it became mathematically impossible for both other candidates to get more votes, but, with Tobias Ellwood now banned from taking part, 119 is the benchmark. Sunak is on 118. It is almost impossible to believe he will not get there tomorrow. But he has been finding it increasingly hard to pick up votes. In the second ballot he was up 13 votes, and in the third he was up 14 votes. Today he is up just three.

Mordaunt is up 10 votes on yesterday. But she was expected to do quite well with the 31 Tom Tugendhat votes released last night, but instead more of them may have gone to Truss, who is up by 15 votes. It is never quite that simple, because it’s a secret ballot and the votes that change are not just those released by a candidate who has fallen out, but this does suggest Truss has momentum. And it also suggests that “Stop Mordaunt” may be a more powerful voting incentive than “Stop Truss”.

The “Stop Mordaunt” vote might also be a “Stop Sunak” vote, if MPs are assuming that Truss would beat Sunak, but Sunak would beat Mordaunt. No one can be sure that this assessment is true, but Truss is a more experienced campaigner than Mordaunt, with stronger convictions. She seems to have impressed Tory members more than Mordaunt in the past week. (See 2pm.)

Truss is now only six votes behind Mordaunt. But Badenoch’s supporters are mostly rightwingers, and rightwingers identify with Truss but not Mordaunt. (Both started off as Cameron centrists, but Truss has done a better job of reinventing herself.)

And even if the Badenoch votes break in favour of Truss rather than Mordaunt by just 60%/40% (as they may have done today), that would still be enough to allow Truss to overtake Mordaunt.

Updated

Badenoch out of Tory leadership contest, as Truss gets closer to Mordaunt, with Sunak still leading

Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, reads out the result. He starts: “Nearly there.” The last ballot is tomorrow

Rishi Sunak - 118 (up 3)

Penny Mordaunt - 92 (up 10)

Liz Truss - 86 (up 15)

Kemi Badenoch - 59 (up 1)

The 1922 Committee is about to announce the results of the fourth ballot for the Tory leadership.

Updated

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss pulled out of a planned TV debate, leading to it being cancelled, after senior Tories took the view that the ITV debate on Sunday night was a PR disaster for the party.

Quite how right they were is shown by this Labour party video, which is little more than a round-up of edited highlights from the debate.

Given what is happening in the Conservative party, producing Labour party campaign adverts must be one of the easier jobs in politics at the moment. Michael Gove has just scripted another advert-in-waiting for the party only this lunchtime. (See 2.47pm.)

Government failing to deliver 'certain essential functions' for voters, says Gove

Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, has said the government is failing to deliver “certain essential functions” like swiftly providing driving licences and passports. Speaking at a Policy Exchange event, he said the state should “do fewer things” but be “strong and effective”. He said:

I believe that there are certain essential functions that the state needs to do better, and which we fail to deliver at the moment.

There are some core functions, giving you your passport, giving your driving licence, which is simply at the moment not functioning ...

We are no longer providing people, either with the efficient delivery of services or the effective focus on what the state should do.

I think that’s because we have become a government and an administration that is knocked off course by powerful stories that are told by people with a mission - and our own sense of mission has not been strong enough to resist that.

At the same event Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, blamed the civil service for government failings. He said:

We’re always told that we have a Rolls-Royce [civil service] and the problem is that ministers don’t make their will clear.

Well, ministers made their will clear about coming back into the office several months ago and yet it is still not happening. So I believe there is something very fundamentally wrong in the way the civil service and the state is working.

But Camilla Cavendish, who was head of David Cameron’s policy unit when he was PM, criticised Frost for blaming civil servants. She said:

There are people on this panel who have been in government for the past few years and under you guys this stuff has fallen apart - so why haven’t you done anything about it?

Michael Gove
Michael Gove Photograph: Policy Exchange

Government criticised for increasing school funding in England by 1.9% per pupil

The government has announced that schools in England will get a 1.9% increase in per-pupil funding next year, prompting fury from teaching unions who described it as “a big real-terms cut for education spending” and warned of a return “to the bad days of austerity.”

With inflation predicted to soar into double digits by the autumn, Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the government’s latest funding award would end up “damaging” children’s education, rather than improving it.

There was also criticism of a 2.1% increase in funding for free school meals which will amount to an additional £10 a head. Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson said:

With food and energy prices spiralling, schools too are suffering from the cost-of-living crisis.

Increasing free school meals funding by just £10 per head a year will not stop schools from choosing between cutting quality or putting up prices for other struggling families.

Boris Johnson’s parting gift to schools is a slap in the face. As our teachers deal with sweltering classrooms and squeezed salaries, this Conservative government has handed mainstream schools a real terms pay cut worth almost £2.5bn.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that school funding per pupil in 2024 will be at about the same level in real terms as in 2010. He said:

The government has short-changed education for many years and, unfortunately, that has left the sector in a very difficult financial situation.

Antisemitism was used as ‘factional weapon’ in Labour party, Forde report finds

Labour, under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, was riven with bitter factional infighting, with both supporters and opponents of Corbyn using the issue of antisemitism within the party “as a factional weapon”, a long-awaited report has said. My colleague Peter Walker has the story here.

This is from William Wragg, a vice chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, with a picture from the room whre the Tory ballots are being counted.

Voting closes

Voting has now closed in the Tory leadership ballot. The Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith says an “Anyone but Liz” faction is wants to see Liz Truss knocked out of the contest.

Updated

YouGov poll suggests Badenoch would beat all rivals in final ballot - and Sunak would lose badly to all of them

YouGov has released new polling from Conservative party members that suggests Rishi Sunak would lose by a large margin to all three of his remaining rivals - Kemi Badenoch, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt - in the final ballot.

The poll suggests Badenoch would beat all the others, although her margin over Truss (46% to 43%) is so close that YouGov say they are effectively tied.

A week ago, when YouGov conducted a similar poll, the results suggested Mordaunt would beat all other candidates. Since then her support has been plummeting (albeit from a very high base) and the poll suggests Badenoch and Truss would both beat her - but not by much.

The YouGov results are broadly similar to the findings of a ConservativeHome survey of party members released at the weekend. That also had Badenoch beating all other candidates in one to one contests.

But the ConservativeHome survey had Badenoch getting a much higher level of support than YouGov did (it had her beating Truss by 61% to 31%, not 46% to 43%), and ConservativeHome also had Sunak beating Mordaunt (by 43% to 41%).

The YouGov sample, with 725 members, is weighted. The ConservativeHome panel is bigger, with around 840 members, but it is self-selecting, and may be more representative of highly engaged party members. They are also readers of ConservativeHome, which has given Badenoch a lot of positive coverage.

The YouGov poll and the ConservativeHome survey both suggest that opinion has shifted considerably over the last week, as members have learnt more about the candidates. The contest has several more weeks to run and so in theory we could see more big fluctuations. But many members vote as soon as they get a ballot paper, and so realistically it could be decided by early August.

Updated

These are from my colleage Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence editor, on Liz Truss’s promise to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP. (See 10.11am.)

Here is Boris Johnson with his leaving present from the cabinet: Churchill’s six-volume history of the second world war. (See 12pm.)

Given that Johnson has written a biography of Churchill, you might assume he would have had a set already.

Boris Johnson with Churchill’s six-volume history of the second world war
Boris Johnson with Churchill’s six-volume history of the second world war. Photograph: No 10 flickr account/No 10 Flickr account

Updated

Penny Mordaunt, the international trade minister and Tory leadership candidate, has today released a plan for levelling up. She says she will double the number of apprenticeships available in the north, deliver the Northern Powerhouse Rail project and ensure that 50% of new hydrogen capacity is built in the north.

She has also backed the Northern Research Group’s four-point plan for the north.

Jake Berry, chair of the Northern Research Group, was one of Tom Tugendhat’s most prominent backers, and he has retweeted Mordaunt’s tweet about the pledge, which is probably a sign that his vote is now heading her way.

Today the Times quotes one unnamed Tugendhat supporter saying most of his votes could go to Mordaunt. It reports:

Before the third ballot, one backer of Tugendhat said that they believed a majority of his supporters would now move to Mordaunt. Mordaunt, who was in the cabinet under Theresa May but has only held junior positions under [Boris] Johnson, is seen by some MPs to also embody the clean start offered by Tugendhat. One Tugendhat supporter said, however, that they believed the main reason many would move to Mordaunt was that they wanted to “keep Truss out of the final two”.

Penny Mordaunt.
Penny Mordaunt. Photograph: Tejas Sandhu/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

This is the full story from my colleague Helena Horton on Kemi Badenoch’s declaration last night that she would be willing to delay the 2050 net zero target - having told a Tory hustings earlier that she was committed to it. (See 10.01am.)

Ukrainian foreign minister pays tribute to Truss's 'mettle, inner steel and clarity of purpose'

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has won an endorsement in her campaign for the Conservative leadership from Dmytro Kuleba, her Ukrainian counterpart.

Liz Truss leaving No 10 after cabinet this morning.
Liz Truss leaving No 10 after cabinet this morning. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Boris Johnson posed for a team photograph with his cabinet today to mark what might be their last meeting together.

Boris Johnson with his cabinet
Boris Johnson with his cabinet Photograph: No 10's Flickr account

Voting opens in fourth round of leadership ballot

Voting has opened in the fourth round of the Tory leadership ballot.

Updated

Boris Johnson received first-edition copies of Winston Churchill’s books on the second world war as a gift from cabinet colleagues, PA Media reports. PA says:

The books by Churchill, a hero of Johnson’s, were presented to the prime minister by his entire cabinet, a Downing Street spokesman said.

“At the conclusion of cabinet, the prime minister was presented with gifts to thank him for his service to the country, including first editions of Winston Churchill’s books on the second world war,” the spokesman told reporters.

Updated

Penny Mordaunt’s supporters do believe that No 10 has removed the whip from Tobias Ellwood to stop him voting for her in the leadership ballot (contrary to what Nadine Dorries claims - see 11.21am), Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt reports.

Updated

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary and Boris Johnson loyalist, has dismissed as “ridiculous” claims that Tobias Ellwood has had the Tory whip removed to stop him voting against the Johnson candidate in the leadership contest. (See 10.08am and 10.45am.)

Labour says Forde report on claims of racism, sexism and bullying in party could be published today

It was a New Labour special adviser that coined the phrase about “a good day to bury bad news”. Today would sort of qualify – the hottest day ever, public sector pay awards being published, the Tory leadership contest at a key stage – and Labour has confirmed that today it might publish a report that is likely to be horribly embarrassing to the party.

A Labour spokesperson said:

Labour’s general secretary, David Evans, has now received the Forde report and he will be taking it to today’s national executive committee meeting with a clear recommendation that the NEC agree the publication of the report as soon as possible today.

The report, from Martin Forde QC, was commissioned after the leak of an internal Labour report in 2020 purportedly showed evidence of party staff being guilty of bullying, racism and sexism. The leak, which seemed to be a hostile act aimed at Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents (who came out worst from the revelations), led to the party being sued for defamation and breach of privacy.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has a guide to the background of the Forde report here.

Updated

Ellwood defends missing confidence vote, saying he is abroad promoting Johnson's Ukraine policy

Tobias Ellwood has said that travel disruption meant he could not return from Moldova yesterday in time for the Commons confidence vote. (See 10.08am.) He said he was “very sorry” to have the whip withdrawn, but that he would continue with his tour, where he will be having meetings about reopening Odesa port. He said:

Following my meeting yesterday with the president of Moldova I was unable to secure return travel due to unprecedented disruption both here and in the UK.

I am very sorry to lose the whip but will now continue my meetings in Ukraine promoting the prime minister’s efforts here and specifically seeking to secure the reopening of Odesa port - so vital grain exports can recommence.

Although MPs can have the whip removed for failing to obey a three-line whip, it is unusual for this sanction to be deployed against an MP who only misses a vote, and does not vote against the party, and has a reasonable excuse for being away. It is even more unusual for this to happen in relation to a vote which the party was at no risk of losing. Boris Johnson has a majority of 111 in the vote last night.

But Ellwood has been one of Johnson’s most vocal backbench critics and Johnson is vengeful. He once said his favourite movie scene was the end of the Godfather with its “multiple retribution killings”. His decision to sack Michael Gove as levelling up secretary two weeks ago seemed to be motivated purely by score settling.

The loss of the whip would be serious for Ellwood if it meant he could not stand as a Conservative candidate at the next election. But the whip is likely to be restored by the next Tory leader well before any election takes place.

However, the move will stop Ellwood voting in the leadership contest today and tomorrow, and this could help Liz Truss get onto the final ballot against Rishi Sunak. Johnson blames Sunak for undermining him, and although he has not backed Truss in public, his allies are actively working to get her elected.

Tobias Ellwood.
Tobias Ellwood. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock

Johnson tells cabinet that heatwave vindicates government's net zero strategy

Boris Johnson is chairing what may be the final meeting of his cabinet and - as has become his usual practice in recent weeks - he invited in a TV camera to record his opening remarks.

Johnson claimed the heatwave vindicated the government’s decision to push for net zero carbon emissions by 2050. He told his ministers:

Who can doubt that we were right to be the first major economy to go for net zero? It may be sometimes unfashionable to say this but it is the right thing to do.

In fact, the legislation making 2050 a legally binding target was passed into law in the final days of Theresa May’s government, but Johnson has retained the commitment to net zero. As my colleague Fiona Harvey argues in today’s First Edition briefing, Johnson is more committed to net zero than any of the candidates who might succeed him. “Nobody else in the higher echelons of the Conservative party gives a stuff,” Fiona says. “He was the only champion green Tories had.”

Addressing cabinet, Johnson also suggested the experience coming out of lockdown showed why the heatwave should not be allowed to stop people working. He said:

On another scorching, sweltering day I think it’s very, very important that we think back to that moment that we opened up [after the lockdown] and try and balance risk with the need to keep our country, our society and our economy moving.

I hope, cabinet, that you are all agreed that as far as possible we should keep schools open and keep our transport system going as far as we possibly can.

Boris Johnson addressing cabinet this morning.
Boris Johnson addressing the cabinet this morning. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

Truss says she would raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has used an interview with the Times to declare that she would raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030. She said:

We live in an increasingly dangerous world where the threat level is higher than a decade ago, and we need a stronger deterrent to face down those threats and ensure Britain leads on the global stage. Ultimately that requires more resources. My number one priority is keeping this country safe and people can trust me to do that.

Britain and the free world face a defining moment. We need a prime minister capable of leading internationally, who can also drive the economic growth we need here at home. I am the candidate best placed to do that.

In a briefing about the announcement, the Truss campaign said defence spending needed to go up because of the increased threat from China and Russia. This message may appeal to some of the 31 supporters of Tom Tugendhat whose votes are up for grabs today. Tugendhat, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has consistently argued that the UK has not taken the threat from China and Russia seriously enough.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has whip withdrawn after failing to back government in confidence vote

Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the Commons defence committee, has had the Tory whip removed because he did not vote for the government in the confidence debate last night, the Times’ Henry Zeffman reports. Ellwood, who was one of the Tories most critical of Boris Johnson, did not have permission to be away.

As Steven Swinford reports, the decision means Ellwood will not be able to vote in parliamentary leadership ballot until the whip is restored. He is a Penny Mordaunt supporter, and in a very tight race, a single vote could potentially make a difference.

Badenoch says she would delay 2050 net zero target date in some circumstances

Kemi Badenoch can also claim to be the change candidate in another, less positive, sense. Yesterday she told a Tory climate fringe that she backed the government’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. She was the last candidate to make that commitment.

But later in the day she had an apparent change of heart and told Talk TV that her commitment to the 2050 date was not absolute. Asked if she would ever consider changing the 2050 deadline, she replied:

Yes, there are circumstances where I would delay it, but I think that the target itself is a bit of a red herring.

The full interview is here.

Badenoch claims she is only 'change candidate' left in Tory leadership contest

In a post on Twitter after last night’s results were declared Kemi Badenoch claimed that Tom Tugendhat’s departure from the race meant she was the only “change candidate” left in the race.

Penny Mordaunt would probably contest that. Badenoch, the former equalities minister, is the only candidate still in the race who has not served in cabinet. But as equalities minister she pursued an “anti-woke” agenda popular with No 10.

Mordaunt, the international trade minister, never resigned from Boris Johnson’s government (unlike Badenoch). But she has never identified as an enthusiastic supporter of Johnsonism.

MPs to vote again with Sunak close to securing place on final ballot

Good morning. A week after nominations closed, and after three ballots, some of the fog around who will be our next prime minister has lifted and at least three propositions now seem reasonably well founded.

  • Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, is now all but certain to be one of the two candidates on the final ballot for Conservative party members. He is now on 115 votes and once a candidate gets 120 (just over a third of the total), it is mathematically impossible for two other candidates to get more votes. Sunak is also particularly well placed to pick up many of the 31 Tom Tugendhat votes now up for grab; Sunak, like Tugendhat, presents as a mainstream pragmatist, not an ideological rightwinger.
  • Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt are now the two strongest candidates in the contest to be the second person on the final ballot. One recent survey suggested both would beat Sunak in the final poll, but Truss more comfortably than Mordaunt. Almost certainly, Sunak’s chances would be better against Mordaunt; her lack of experience means the risk of her campaign imploding under scrutiny remains high (over the last week her popularity has already fallen significantly), and Truss, unlike Mordaunt, would be guaranteed the support of the Tory right en masse.
  • Kemi Badenoch looks likely to be eliminated this afternoon. It is not inevitable - she has defied expectations already - but she remains 13 votes behind Truss, and may struggle to get much of the Tugendhat vote. If she does fall out, her votes will be for grabs tomorrow - and would decide whether Sunak faces Truss or Mordaunt, which could in turn determine who gets elected as the next PM.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Boris Johnson chairs what might be the last meeting of his cabinet.

10.30am: Officials from the CBI and the TUC are among the experts giving evidence to the Commons business committee on post-pandemic economic growth.

12pm: Voting starts in the fourth ballot for the Conservative party leadership. The ballot closes at 2pm.

12.30pm: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, and Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, take part in a discussion on the future of Conservatism at the Policy Exchange thinktank.

3pm: Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee, announces the results of the latest leadership ballot.

Afternoon: Pay awards for around 2.5 million public sector workers, including NHS staff and teachers, are due to be announced.

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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