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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Martin Belam and Tom Ambrose

Tory leadership debate: rivals discuss tax, energy, NHS, the green economy and trust in first televised head-to-head – as it happened

Penny Mordaunt Liz Truss ​​Rishi Sunak Tory Kemi Badenoch Wendy Morton United Kingdom Conservative Party Boris Johnson David Frost
Left-right: Kemi Badenoch; Penny Mordaunt; Rishi Sunak; Liz Truss; and Tom Tugendhat
Left-right: Kemi Badenoch; Penny Mordaunt; Rishi Sunak; Liz Truss; and Tom Tugendhat are all hoping to land the top job at No 10. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Summary of the day

  • The five remaining Conservative candidates to be the next UK prime minister took part in a TV debate on Channel 4 on Friday night. Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Tom Tugendhat featured in a programme hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
  • In an often difficult night for all the candidates, Sunak openly ridiculed Truss’s tax plans. Condemning what he called a wider “unfunded spree of borrowing and more debt” among his competitors, he condemned the Truss’s proposal to put off repayments of public debt built up due to Covid. “There is no such thing as Covid debt,” a visibly irritated Sunak told the foreign secretary. “Debt is debt. And the answer to too much borrowing can’t be yet more borrowing. It’s as simple as that.”
  • Mordaunt and Badenoch clash with visible enmity about the former’s views on trans rights. Mordaunt, meanwhile, asked about negative briefings about her from some of the other camps, refused to say she trusted the other candidates.
  • A long section on trust saw none of the five willing say whether the prime minister they hope to replace, Boris Johnson, was honest. “Sometimes,” said Badenoch, while Mordaunt talked about “really severe issues”, and Truss spoke of “mistakes”. Tugendhat won applause by saying, simply: “No.”
  • Despite pressure from some Tory grandees including former Brexit minister David Frost to unite behind a single candidate representing the right of the party, Badenoch’s team said “She has no intention of stepping down and is in it to win.”
  • Badenoch and Truss have declined to answer questions put to them by the LGBT+ Conservatives group by their deadline of 1pm today. The group gave each of the leadership contenders a three-question questionnaire. Tugendhat, Sunak and Mordaunt managed to answer on time, although the group has since reached out to Badenoch and Truss to encourage them to submit their answers.
  • Boris Johnson is planning to stage parliamentary interventions on Ukraine, Brexit and levelling up, with allies of the outgoing prime minister hinting that those are the areas of his legacy he believes to be most under threat from his potential successor.
  • Channel 4 has said an investigation into allegations made by the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, that a reality TV show she appeared on used paid actors has found no evidence of fakery. The broadcaster asked the producers of the 2010 reality show Tower Block of Commons, in which Dorries was one of a number of MPs who went to live in deprived communities, to investigate the claims she made to the culture select committee in May.
  • The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, visited a section of the Berlin Wall earlier today while on a trip to the German capital to meet politicians and business leaders. Starmer was pictured by the landmark, erected in 1961 by the communist authorities to separate East and West Berlin.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for tonight. Thank you to my colleague Tom Ambrose for his live blogging earlier today. Tom will be back with you tomorrow, and I will be here on Sunday. Do join us. In the meantime, I suspect you might also enjoy John Crace’s sketch on today’s debates and hustings.

On the climate crisis issue, of the five candidates tonight, Kemi Badenoch remained the only candidate who would not commit to the UK’s current net zero pledge. She said:

The pledge was made in 2018 for 2050, none of us are going to be here as politicians in 2050, it’s very easy to set a target you are not going to be responsible and accountable for when the time comes. The important thing is to make sure that we do this in a sustainable way. Many of the things we are doing could economically damage our country.

My colleague Helena Horton wrote earlier today that, after initial alarm from green Conservatives about how little the environment was featuring in the leadership contest discussion, Sunak, Mordaunt, Truss and Tugendhat had all committed to 2050.

Michael Gove is doubling down on his support of Kemi Badenoch after tonight’s debate. He says “she has the right stuff”.

This is what Sam Coates, the deputy political editor as Sky News, had to say in his live analysis earlier when the debate had concluded. He suggested it was a strong performance from Rishi Sunak, and a tough night for Liz Truss:

Tonight was dominated by two things, the issue of trust and the economy. And what was really striking was the ability of Rishi Sunak to drag that debate about the economy onto his own terms.

He grilled both Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss about their tax plans. Whether the nation could afford them. Whether or not they might increase inflation.

He was the one framing the argument and putting the others under pressure, even though arguably his plan, which is not so much help now as those two, is a harder sell on the country.

He went on to say about the current foreign secretary:

Tonight also mattered for Liz Truss. Bits of her pitch were clearly quite tough. She is essentially standing by her decision not to resign from Boris Johnson’s government, and pledging her loyalty to him even now, but it didn’t look like it went down particularly well with the audience.

I do sometimes subscribe to the view that if your candidate has done or said something daft, it is best to lean into it on social media on the basis that “any publicity is good publicity” and “people will be talking about us rather than someone else.”

So while confessing I may be about to fall into that trap, there appears to be a lot of confusion on social media about just quite what Penny Mordaunt meant by this statement – “The top 180 innovations that we have had. How many are used in the NHS. None” – or why her social media team would then make it into a graphic.

A deleted tweet from Penny Mordaunt

As you can probably imagine, the quote tweets of it have been a sight to behold, not least a procession of NHS staff pointing some pretty basic “innovations” they use like the wheel and electricity, or the good old fall-back to a Monty Python reference: “Aside from the internet, penicillin, recombinant antibodies, MRI scanners, CAT scans, lateral flow tests … what inventions has the NHS ever used?”

Update: the relevant tweet was later deleted, so a screenshot has been added.

Updated

Harry Lambert offers this analysis of tonight over at the New Statesman:

Liz Truss has the backing of 64 MPs but no wavering MP can be encouraged to join her camp after tonight’s showing. That was no surprise – I suggested Truss would perform poorly tonight, as anyone else who has watched the foreign secretary try to navigate questions on air before would probably have done, and I think the Tory right would be wise to drop her and swing behind Kemi Badenoch (who is fourth among MPs, with the backing of 49). Badenoch was the calmer and more assured performer this evening. But I do not expect the Tory right to align, and that will keep Mordaunt on the path to a run-off with Sunak.

Read more here: New Statesman – Who won the first Tory leadership TV debate?

A couple of tomorrow’s front pages are out, and you can see exactly where some people have hitched their wagons. For the Mail, it is news of a “Liz tax boost for families” as they tout a plan from the Truss camp for “a radical overhaul of the tax system.”

“She wants to ensure parents are not penalised for time out of work to look after family members,” the paper says, adding that “couples with young children or caring responsibilities.”

It also refers to her as Miss Truss on the front page.

The Telegraph, meanwhile, leads with Penny Mordaunt saying that she is “up to the job”.

You can also get “free” sun lotion with the Daily Mail tomorrow, though it comes at a cost of £3.95 P&P and not linking the extreme heat the country is facing with the climate crisis.

John Crace has delivered his sketch of both tonight’s debate and the earlier online hustings:

Hard to believe but it’s only just over a week since the latest Tory psychodrama began. It feels longer. So much longer. Time bends and stalls when you’re in the parallel universe of a Liz Truss speech. She leaves audiences begging for a lethal injection. The other leadership contenders are little better, registering mostly as absences on the space-time continuum. Negative energy.

But we are where we are and we have moved on to the first of the televised debates, a weird gameshow where the only audience that counts are the 360 or so Tory MPs who may or may not be watching. The rest of us are merely voyeurs, having no say in which two clowns will still be standing by next Wednesday evening. This is apparently how the UK likes to choose its prime minister these days. Very on brand for a country that has become a laughing stock.

First, though, there was a warm-up Zoom hustings on the Conservative Home website. Think a weekly meeting of junior sales reps. Only infinitely more boring. It’s almost as if no one really wants the job. Which would actually suit the rest of us.

The only highlights were the flatlining Truss forgetting to unmute herself – she’s at her most articulate when you can’t hear her – and Ready4Rish! suggesting that his biggest fault is his perfectionism. I’d say a far greater fault was being in charge of an economy that is predicted to have the second lowest growth in the G20. If he was a real perfectionist he’d have made sure we were bottom. The other three – Penny Mordaunt, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch – said nothing memorable at all. Which meant they easily came out on top.

Read more here: John Crace – The Tory leadership debate: desperate as a sales pitch, worse as entertainment

Rishi Sunak has gone for not just posting a video clip of his closing statement …

… but also a behind-the-scenes montage as well.

Kemi Badenoch has posted slides of her closing speech. It is possible to interpret that as an indication of the difference between the campaign money they have behind them.

Interestingly, Liz Truss and her team have opted to go with a video clip of the segment where she talked about transgender rights, rather than her closing statement. Truss said:

When I started in the Women and Equalities job, there was a plan to move forward on self-ID. I believe in women’s rights. I also believe that transgender people should be treated with respect.

So what I did is I changed the outcome of that work, so that we were able to make the process simpler and kinder, but not move ahead with self-ID.

Which I think is the right position, because I think people understand that women’s faces domestic violence shelters need to be protected for women, but at the same time, everybody is should be free to live their lives as they want and be treated with respect. So that is the balance I sought to achieve.

Truss did get cut off for exceeding her 45 seconds in her final speech, which may have made it a less appealing clip to use.

Over on social media, it has not gone unnoticed that Liz Truss was very much cosplaying as Margaret Thatcher tonight, even down to a specific outfit Thatcher wore in a 1979 election broadcast.

The wizard from the Harry Potter world, Dumbledore, has also been trending on Twitter, because people have spotted that Tom Tugendhat’s line “It’s easy to stand up to your enemies - it’s sometimes harder to stand up to your friends” sounds like a line from the Philosopher’s Stone where the grand old wizard says “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”

Elsewhere, old man yells at cloud.

Full report: Tory leadership race explodes into acrimony during TV debate

Here is Peter Walker’s report on tonight:

The Conservative leadership race has exploded into acrimony and recrimination after the first televised debate saw open arguments over tax and identity politics with also none of the five candidates willing to say Boris Johnson is honest.

Coming hours after Liz Truss sought to reinvigorate her faltering campaign with a sudden announcement of new tax cuts costing more than £20bn a year, Rishi Sunak the ex-chancellor, openly ridiculed his former colleague’s plans during the Channel 4 broadcast on Friday evening.

Condemning what he called a wider “unfunded spree of borrowing and more debt” among his competitors, Sunak condemned the Truss’s proposal to put off repayments of public debt built up due to Covid.

“There is no such thing as Covid debt,” a visibly irritated Sunak told the foreign secretary. “Debt is debt. And the answer to too much borrowing can’t be yet more borrowing. It’s as simple as that.”

When Truss argued that better monetary policy would mitigate inflation even with tax cuts, Sunak snapped: “Liz, we have to be honest. Borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan, it’s a fairytale.”

In an often difficult night for all the candidates – also comprising Penny Mordaunt, the trade minister and bookmakers’ favourite; the former levelling up minister Kemi Badenoch; and the backbencher Tom Tugendhat – not a single member of the audience of floating voters raised their hands when asked if they trusted politicians.

A long section on trust saw none of the five willing say whether Johnson was honest. “Sometimes,” said Badenoch, while Mordaunt talked about “really severe issues”, and Truss spoke of “mistakes”. Tugendhat won applause by saying, simply: “No.”

A separate show of hands after a debate on energy bills saw just three people say they felt politicians were doing enough to help people. When asked at the end of the debate if it had made them more likely to vote Conservative, only 10 of the audience raised their hands.

Read more from Peter Walker here: Tory leadership race explodes into acrimony during TV debate

It was essentially an internal debate for the Conservative party but on national television tonight, and the SNP’s MP for Dunfermline & West Fife, Douglas Chapman, has made quite clear what he thought about it all.

The candidates have begun to post clips of their highlights or closing messages on Twitter, so for those of you who didn’t see, or would like to re-live those moments, here are Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat.

I’ve put together my five key takeaways from tonight’s debate:

Tom Tugendhat was the only one able to answer freely

Given the opportunity to answer “Yes” or “No” to the question “is Boris Johnson honest?”, Tom Tugendhat was the only person able to do it. He got warm applause for simply saying: “No”.

Truss has a delivery mantra problem

Truss tried to focus again and again about delivery in every department, saying that her trade deals with Australia and Japan had been considered impossible, and that she had stood up to Vladimir Putin. But it all felt heavily scripted from her.

Sunak’s Treasury experience is a potential asset – but not with party members

Frequently during the debate he demonstrated a better command of the numbers and Treasury brief, but you still ended up with the feeling that a man instinctively fiscally conservative is being pushed into a corner and portrayed as a leftist for not wanting to cut taxes.

Trans rights questions are not going away for Mordaunt

The trade minister claimed to be baffled that anybody found her position unclear. It may not be high up the agenda when you poll voters on what they care about, but expect to see this get asked of the women standing to be PM again and again.

There was little love in the room for any of the candidates

It wasn’t a feral BBC Question Time audience, but at times, particularly when issues around trust and Partygate were being touched upon, the disdain for the audience with politicians was palpable. Whoever wins out of this contest in the end, they have an uphill climb.

There’s more here: Five key takeaways from the first Conservative leadership debate

Henry Zeffman at the Times has pinpointed the exchange in the middle where Truss and Sunak were at odds about future tax and borrowing plans. He writes:

After a tieless and relaxed Rishi Sunak explained why he believes tackling inflation is more important than tax cuts and warned against more government borrowing, Liz Truss saw her moment.

She reeled off a list of countries that are borrowing more than the UK, adding: “I believe they’re taking the right approach and we should take a similar approach.”

Sunak has had three years of practice at explaining the abstractions of fiscal and monetary policy in digestible, human terms — and it showed. But it is important to remember how eager Conservative MPs and the Conservative base are for tax cuts. Sunak’s position has the advantage of being clear and firm, but it remains a position that many of his colleagues loathe. Truss stands robustly on the other side of that divide.

Here is a set of assessments from my colleague Peter Walker, who ultimately called the night a victory for Keir Starmer.

Snap verdict

Even though this was a one-party TV debate, the spin room will still be all about people who backed a particular candidate saying their particular candidate did best, but I’ll bring you some reaction to the debate shortly.

My quick tuppence is that Rishi Sunak didn’t do anything to torpedo his position as current front-runner among MPs, even if he may not have put in a performance that would wow the public. Tugendhat was clearly the most likeable candidate to the audience in the studio, but isn’t really credibly likely to get into the last two, which leaves Badenoch, Truss and Mordaunt.

I don’t think any of the three of them had a particular stellar evening. I didn’t feel that Mordaunt shone, Truss maybe had her best moments when she was toe-to-toe with Sunak over tax and borrowing (even if you think he is more fiscally credible), and Badenoch was quite good at bringing things back to a personal level, but her platform of “speaking the truth” is still quite light on actual policies.

Here’s some interesting snap polling from Opinium, showing good news for Tugendhat – as far as the public is concerned at any rate.

Opinium also has some polling on how people of different political persuasions felt the contest went, which is broadly similar.

Updated

Closing statement: Liz Truss

The foreign secretary went last, and said this in her 45 seconds:

We face grave challenges as a country, the worst economic crisis for a generation, an appalling war perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine, after decades of very slow growth.

Now is not the time for a continuity of our current economic policy. We need to be bold. We need to do things differently. We need to cut taxes. We need to unleash growth. And we need to unleash the potential of all of the people across our great country.

I’m somebody who can go into Downing Street on day one, and get the job done. I’ve got a record of delivery in every department I’ve been in, whether it’s striking trade deals in Australia and Japan.

[Truss ran out of time at this point]

Closing statement: Rishi Sunak

The ex-Chancellor, who helped oust Boris Johnson with his dramatic resignation last week, said this as his closing statement:

We’ve had a robust debate tonight, but we agree on much. We all want to cut taxes, so people keep more of their own money. We all want to improve public services. We all want secure borders.

But the choice at this election is who can be trusted to grip this moment. And get things done. I love our country. And be in no doubt, we’re going to build a better future for our children and grandchildren.

But nothing worth having ever comes easy.

So the question is simple.

Do we confront the challenges facing our country honestly and responsibly, or not? For me, there is only one answer.

Closing statement: Penny Mordaunt

Here is what Penny Mordaunt said in her 45 seconds:

I’m very aware that while my party chooses a new leader, you are watching us pick your next prime minister. And that is why this contest must be about you, your lives, and your ambitions ,and your immediate worries.

And as a Conservative, I hope you like at least one of us.

But it should matter to you. So thank you for watching. At some point, all of you will have a vote. And you will see that not all politicians are the same. I’m not the traditional offer. I’m not the legacy candidate. I’m focused on the future. And I want our nation to be all it can be, and to shine with the newfound freedoms our great democracy has determined it would.

Closing statement: Tom Tugendhat

Tom Tugendhat went second:

Thank you very much for watching this evening, because this evening isn’t actually about us. It’s not just about the Conservative Party. It’s about you, your country and your prime minister.

So please get in touch with your MP, and tell them what you think. Tell them who you want them to support in the third Conservative leadership round, because the country is going through a crisis at home and challenges abroad.

What we’re seeing around the world is, we’re seeing division and disunity, and we can pull people together. What we can do is we can turn this around. Now we know that people are asking the right question, people tonight have been asking the right question.

We need a clean start. We all know that. But some of us some of us have the answer. Now I have a track record of leadership. I have led army operations and I have led in Parliament and times and now I would like to lead the United Kingdom.

Closing statement: Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch gave the first 45 second closing statement:

It’s time to tell the truth. The truth is, unless we change, we will fail. I love this country. I chose it when I was 16. It is the best place in the world. Nowhere else on the planet would give me the opportunity, standing in front of the nation, asking for the honour of being the leader of the government.

And yet our country can still be so much better. Better for those working hard to make ends meet, like I did on minimum wage, flipping burgers at McDonald’s all those years ago. Better for all our children.

I will fight as hard for yours as I do for my three kids, protecting their future by looking after our environment, improving schools, and creating a strong economy and we will do all this with better government. The machine is not working. As an engineer. I know how to strip things down and get them to work. And with me as your prime minister, we will have the change for the better, and that’s the honest truth.

The candidates are doing 45 second closing pitches. I’ll have them all in turn.

The Observer’s Michael Savage …

Final section: the green economy

The final question is about how these candidates would build a green economy. “It’s really important that we hit those interim [net zero] targets,” says Penny Mordaunt. “But …”

That sums up much of the climate debate there has been during this contest, where scrapping green levies looks like being a vote-winner with Tory grassroots, even as the country has its first national red hot weather alert.

Rishi Sunak says he cares about the environment because of his kids, but that we have to go at the right speed otherwise all people hear is higher bills.

Updated

Tom Tugendhat has just made a big emotional pitch saying the NHS had saved the lives of his army colleagues and “it may have been the air force who picked them up” but it was the NHS who kept them living.

Then he bizarrely said “And you’ve also given me two children”. To the NHS worker who asked the question. “Not you personally” he hastily added, but it was the first completely unprompted gaffe of the evening.

There’s a – not entirely implausible – suggestion here that actually some of the candidates tonight are playing a totally different game.

Fourth section: NHS

“It’s heroic and we owe you an enormous debt of gratitude” – Rishi Sunak responds to a question from someone who works in the NHS and generates a round of applause for them. “I know the challenges you are facing” he says.

Kemi Badenoch says the backlog is terrifying, and starts talking about her own struggle to get seen for a chipped tooth. “It is an emergency situation” she says. Badenoch says the NHS has more money, but more pressures. “There must be things we can do differently” she says. Badenoch is in favour of cancelling the National Insurance tax rise that was due to provide extra NHS funds.

Updated

Rishi Sunak earns the first round of applause that didn’t go to Tom Tugendhat, with the ex-Chancellor saying that all the other candidates are proposing is “borrow, borrow, borrow, borrow” and that this will prolong inflation and the economic discomfort of the nation.

Updated

More seriously, Sunak made a big play of the help that is being given already over energy prices. Badenoch was saying this was all taxpayers’ money still.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy asks the audience for a show of hands - “are the government doing enough on energy bills?” – just two or three people put their hands up.

Kemi Badenoch has just said “magic money tree”. If this was the Eurovision song contest live blog, I would tell you to have a swig.

Tom Tugendhat says the energy crisis and Putin using it as a weapon against us is not new, and he says he’s been calling it out for years. He says he will cut fuel duty, and how the government delivers welfare better. He says we have to deliver nuclear, but “it’s not about jam tomorrow, it’s about heat today.”

I’ve spent a long time covering TV political debates, and Tugendhat is essentially playing the minority party role here, free to just speak, call out the hypocrisy in everybody else, all the while safe in the knowledge there’s virtually zero chance he will end up as PM.

Third section: energy

The next question is on energy bills. Kemi Badenoch says it is a subject that worries her a lot, growing up in Nigeria with rolling black-outs. “We do need to tackle climate change but the crisis we are dealing with now comes first,” she says, pledging to ditch green energy levies.

Liz Truss agrees saying “we are hammering consumers, we are hammering business” with the green levy. She then says we should be using gas as a transition fuel and produce more nuclear energy to get away from the dependence on Russian energy.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy starts trying to get Truss into the weeds of exact numbers. Truss says if she is PM, we’ll start investing in the energy “we should have invested in ages ago”. She is currently in the government.

Updated

Tom Tugendhat has said that when, as Chancellor, Rishi Sunak was trying to persuade Tugendhat to vote for tax rises, the reason Sunak gave was “because the boss wanted it”. There is an audible gasp in the room.

And it leaves an open question about Sunak’s tactics …

Liz Truss has said you can’t tax your way to growth, and is proposing that she wants to see low-tax zones around the country

“I’m slightly surprised,” says Tom Tugendhat, “because I was the only person who didn’t vote for the National Insurance rise, and now I find everyone agrees with me.”

Kemi Badenoch says that one of the problems with modern politics is that people present simple answers, but, she says, “there are no solutions, there are only trade offs.”

Kemi Badenoch

Mordaunt disagrees. “There are some solutions” she says. She says she is not a candidate of “tax and spend” but of “growth”.

Updated

My colleague Peter Walker making the point that it is an incredible “Overton window” shift that Rishi Sunak is being portrayed as fiscally of the left.

Second section: tax

In the earlier ConservativeHome hustings this morning, the current UK foreign secretary Liz Truss blurted out two new tax cut policies from her if she was to be PM.

Asked how she would pay for it, she says “By spreading the debt we accumulated through Covid over a longer period. Covid is a once in a hundred year event, we need to pay it over a longer time.”

Updated

Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby thinks that Krishnan Guru-Murthy is going a great job.

Our sketch-writer John Crace has a less favourable opinion of Liz Truss.

Ruth Wells has emailed me to say we should be playing bingo every time that Liz Truss says the word “deliver”. I had contemplated a game where we had a drink every time someone mentioned Labour. So far, as a show of how much of an internal Tory party debate this is, I think we’d have only had one or two shots at most.

Penny Mordaunt mentioned women’s sport just now. If you’ve already had enough of all this, then you can flick over to BBC One and watch England vs Northern Ireland in Euro 2022 and keep following the debate on the live blog. Or stick with the debate on the TV, but open a new tab and follow the match with my colleague Rob Smyth on his live blog.

Penny Mordaunt

Either way, unlike Keir Starmer at PMQs the other week, we haven’t forgotten that Northern Ireland are in the tournament.

Updated

Badenoch, Mordaunt and Truss are now being pressed about “What is a woman”. Badenoch appears to be heckling “Tell the truth Liz”. All three of them seem to be saying that trans woman are vulnerable people who can live their lives as they want, and legally can be considered women, but aren’t biologically women.

Trans rights has been perceived as a wedge issue that Conservatives can make Labour uncomfortable on, but the apparent contradictions in positions that Mordaunt appears to have held have made it uncomfortable for her too.

Updated

Ton Tugendhat is saying that it isn’t a secret that you can’t make a set of rules and not follow them. That’s an awkward moment for Rishi Sunak.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy makes Sunak follow up on it, he has to apologise again and then says the only reason he was there to get a fine for breaking Covid rules was because he was there working every day on Covid.

A cutaway shows a woman in the audience shaking her head – she’s potentially a meme now.

Kemi Badenoch is asked is what Sunak said OK with her. She said it is.

Guru-Murthy asks the audience to show their hands if they trust politicians. Nobody raises their hand. Hashtag awks etc.

Updated

My colleague Peter Walker makes the point that these candidates have been pretty sheltered so far from public anger about Boris Johnson in this kind of forum. He tweets:

This is the candidates’ first exposure to voters, all floating ones, and it’s clear they’re getting a pretty bracing exposure as to how toxic Johnson’s legacy really is.

Tom Tugendhat says Boris Johnson was not honest as PM

Krishnan Guru-Murthy is asking the panel “Is Boris Johnson honest?” and wanting a yes/no answer. Badenoch goes first and says “sometimes”.

Mordaunt, Sunak and Truss prevaricate somewhat.

Tom Tugendhat gets warm applause for simply saying “No”.

The debate has gone to a commercial break.

Updated

The real danger that we’ve got at the moment is that at the next election Labour would use the Conservatives’ record in government against them, says Tom Tugendhat.

Updated

Liz Truss says she does trust all the colleagues on the panel, Sunak says he trusts all of them, “we’ve all worked together and we are all the same team.”

Rishi Sunak

Updated

Penny Mordaunt says we need to pull together as a country, a bond between politicians, business, charity sector, communities. “I have spoken truth to power,” she says, and says she turned down a higher job in the government.

“We are all responsible for our own campaigns and I take it as a big fat compliment” that people are running campaigns against her. She avoided the direct question “do you trust the other candidates?”

Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during the debate.
Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss during the debate. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Updated

Kemi Badenoch says “we haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory” as politicians. Told she is the least recognised of the candidates so would she call an election, she says she wouldn’t because otherwise she wouldn’t have a chance to prove herself.

Rishi Sunak says he always tried to give Johnson the benefit of doubt, and that it was clear he had a disagreement with the PM about economy. He says that is why you should trust him, “I’m willing to say difficult things.”

He cites furlough, the vaccine rollout and standing up to Putin as things he was proud of, before “enough was enough”.

[I’ve already got the spelling of Tugendhat wrong once, apologies, it’s going to be a long night]

Updated

Tom Tugendhat says trust has been an issue for a long time and that “it is easy to stand up your enemies, it is harder to stand up to your friends”. He says he has held up a mirror, asking his colleagues “are you serving the people of the UK, or are you serving your career?”

Updated

First section: trust

The first question is: ‘Why should the public trust any of you?’

Liz Truss goes first, she says she secured trade deals people said were impossible, with Australia, Japan, she says she’s taken on Putin, she’s taken on Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol bill. “I haven’t over-promised” she says, perhaps tapping at a weakness of outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson.

Liz Truss

Guru-Murthy presses her on what she had done on trust issues with Johnson. “Every statement I’ve ever made in government, I’m always someone who has acted with integrity and honesty”

Updated

Krishnan Guru-Murthy has thrown into the ring there that Penny Mordaunt used to be a magician’s assistant. Is that the motivation for Tom Tugendhat showing off a bit of juggling in his behind-the-scenes video earlier? Anything you can do …

“After all the scandals, shame and sleaze” – Krishnan Guru-Murthy not mincing his words in the introduction here.

Ben Glaze at the Mirror suggesting he doesn’t expect record viewing figures this evening. Don’t let that put you off.

I am going to be honest, and say that I am a little baffled that we are about to watch 90 minutes of five candidates for the leadership of the party that has been in power for 12 years argue with each other that only they personally can provide the clean start and refresh that the country desperately needs.

After they’ve been in power for 12 years.

Most of them actually in government personally as ministers for at least some of that time.

But here we all are.

Updated

First Tory leadership debate begins

The five remaining candidates to be the next prime minister of the UK are taking part in the first televised debate of the contest, scheduled to start at 7.30pm in the UK.

Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Tom Tugendhat will all be taking part in the debate which will be broadcast by Channel 4 and hosted by Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

The five will face questions from an audience that the channel has described as “floating voters”, who they have been recruiting over the last few days.

While the debate is a public television spectacle, the only people currently able to vote for the candidates are Conservative MPs, who will whittle the candidates down to two by the end of next week. They will then be put to a postal ballot of Conservative party members. The new prime minister is expected to be in place by 5 September.

A second debate will air on ITV from 7pm on Sunday 17 July, with a third debate scheduled for Tuesday 19 July. That is expected to feature fewer candidates after further rounds of voting have taken place in Westminster.

You will be able to follow all of the debates live on the Guardian website.

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There are 10 minutes to go before the Channel 4 Conservative leadership debate kicks off. Someone I suspect who won’t be watching tonight, because they will be very much in the pighouse, is “Mystic Marcus”.

He was on ITV earlier this week, and given the chance to pick an apple with a candidate’s name on it, “Mystic Marcus” picked Suella Braverman as the next PM.

Braverman has now offered her support to Liz Truss, having been eliminated from the race. The second nibble that “Mystic Marcus” gave on the day was for Penny Mordaunt’s apple. So who knows?

And if you doubt the credentials of “Mystic Marcus”, we featured him in 2018 after he rose to fame for apparently correctly predicting Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, and his owner Juliet told ITV this week “Marcus is the seventh pig of a seventh pig and apparently if you’re the seventh child of a seventh child, you can have very good mystic powers.”

“Mystic Marcus the Psychic Pig “successfully predicting a world cup match on TV in 2018. Bless him.
‘Mystic Marcus the psychic pig’ successfully predicting a world cup match on TV in 2018. Bless him. Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock

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“Today is important because it’s the first time we get to talk to the whole country” – that’s Tom Tugendhat in a behind-the-scenes video he has just put out on Twitter about his preparation for tonight’s debate.

It may be a chance to speak to the country, but at the moment the only people whose votes count are fellow Conservative MPs who can back him in the next round in Westminster

He also at one point in the video tells one of his children: “You look like a scraggly monster” – a line which you know he might be aching to deliver to one of his opponents at some point during tonight’s debate.

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Allegra Stratton, no stranger to No 10, has a piece on Bloomberg this evening where she lists the questions that Bloomberg journalists and staffers would ask tonight. They include:

  • “How can you unite a fractured Conservative party and rebuild trust with the public?” from Joe Mayes.
  • “How do you create political space for meaningful talks with the EU on trade while Tory MPs and grassroots members want even more distant ties?” from Stuart Biggs.
  • “For health, for teachers, for police — what is an acceptable public sector pay settlement?” from Philip Aldrick.
  • “Will the UK continue to export power and gas to Europe if supplies run short?” from Rachel Morrison.

Read more here: Bloomberg – What We Would Ask the Next PM?

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The Financial Times editorial board have come out with a piece in the last half hour saying that “the UK’s prime minister will be chosen based on fantasies”. They write:

The Conservative party’s contest to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister has an air of fantasy. Listening to the candidates, you would not know that spiralling energy costs are causing misery to households, and inflation is now broadening to most goods and services. Or that simmering disputes over pay and conditions promise a prolonged period of industrial unrest. You certainly would hear little about the UK’s longer term challenge of sluggish growth, made worse by poor planning regulations and the exit from the EU. Instead, the candidates are competing largely on a single issue of if and when they will cut taxes.

Read more here: Financial Times – The UK’s prime minister will be chosen based on fantasies [£]

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ITV have a story this evening, which they are labelling an exclusive, in which they say they have seen a document outlining a plan “to create 39 new Tory-supporting lords as a matter of urgency, to push through contentious legislation.”

It doesn’t originate from within government however, but from Sir Lynton Crosby’s lobbying group, which ITV describes as “the most influential political lobby group that advises the prime minister.”

Given that he is the outgoing prime minister, it may not be that big a deal, but there was one eye-catching line. The report says analysis shows “if there had been around 40 additional committed Tory supporters in the Lords, Boris Johnson would have avoided more than half of the defeats he suffered in the second chamber since becoming prime minister.”

With nearly 800 members in the House of Lords already, any expansion would push the UK even closer to being the largest legislature on Earth. Currently only China – population 1.4 billion – has more lawmakers than there are in London.

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Anushka Asthana, ITV News’ deputy political editor and also previously of this parish, has posted what she says is a screengrab from some annoyed members of the Conservative ERG group – Michael Fabricant and Lee Anderson – dismayed at having been told who to vote for.

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Penny Mordaunt supporter James Sunderland, who is MP for Bracknell, has been interviewed on Sky News about her leadership bid.

He said that a low recognisability factor with the public, according to polls, was not an issue, saying “notoriety isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

He also said that Mordaunt had more ministerial experience than Tony Blair, David Cameron or Boris Johnson had when stepping into the role of prime minister. This illustrates a difficult line that the candidates are trying to tread, arguing they have had plenty of experience while the Conservatives have been in power during the last 12 years, while also arguing that the country needs a reset and a fresh start.

Sunderland was asked whether the party would find her “woke”, and said “This is a politician who gets it, and actually she’s not ‘woke’, her views are to the right of the party. She’s going to deliver Brexit. She’s firm on law and order. And if you listen to her this week in the hustings, and again tonight, you’ll find that she’s pretty strong.”

He said: “I have heard from multiple sources within Westminster, this week from many Labour colleagues that I speak to, that she is the one contender that Labour most fears.”

And in comments that are unlikely to delight everyone in Scotland, he also said she would “bring the SNP to heel”.

Updated

Badenoch 'has no intention' of dropping out of race

Of the five candidates who will be appearing in the Channel 4 debate tonight, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are the two under the most pressure to step aside to streamline the contest before Conservative MPs vote again next week. Given that they are currently guaranteed a spot in tonight’s debate, and again on ITV on Sunday, it seems unlikely they would do so.

A spokesperson from Badenoch’s campaign, following David Frost’s suggestion in the Telegraph that she should duck out in favour of Liz Truss, said:

Kemi has brought interesting ideas and a new approach to this leadership contest. She is looking forward to the debates this weekend. She has no intention of stepping down and is in it to win.

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As we approach the first television debate of this Conservative leadership contest, Mark Lawson writes for us that Penny Mordaunt’s previous TV appearances might turn out to be an asset for her:

The selection of the next prime minister has reached the stage at which television may be decisive. Across three peak-time slots – on Channel 4 (Friday), ITV (Sunday) and Sky News (Monday) – the remaining candidates debate live.

Biographers of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump will see as the key dates in their political careers 2017-21 and 2019-22, the years in which they governed the US and UK. But it can be argued that the most important days on their legislative calendar were 29 November 2002, and 8 January 2004, when Johnson and Trump presented, respectively, their first editions of Have I Got News For You?, and The Apprentice.

To the joy of TV journalists compiling emergency profiles of Penny Mordaunt, she appeared in the second series of Tom Daley’s ITV celebrity diving competition, Splash!, in 2014.

At the moment, it seems that Mordaunt’s reality TV past has been good for her: one of the MPs supporting her, Bob Stewart, even used her returning to the high board after a belly flop as a metaphor for the resilience necessary to run Britain.

Read more from Mark Lawson’s piece here: I’m a TV star … how Mordaunt’s celeb past could help in race to be PM

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Summary

It’s been yet another busy day in Westminster as the Tory leadership candidates took part in the Conservative Home blog’s Zoom-based hustings. The five hopefuls go again tonight live on Channel 4 at 7.30pm.

But, for now, here is a round-up of all the day’s top headlines:

  • MPs on the Commons privileges committee will carry out a site visit in Downing Street, and are demanding No 10 hand over evidence, including WhatsApps, photos and diary entries, as they investigate whether Boris Johnson misled parliament over Partygate.
  • Tory party leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt claimed her rivals were trying to stop her but declined to be drawn into criticising other candidates. Speaking to Sky News on Friday morning, she said she was aware that she posed a threat to her rivals former chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss if she made it to the final vote by party members.
  • Meanwhile, Truss has sought to breathe new life into her faltering campaign with a flurry of new tax cut promises worth billions of pounds, as the five remaining candidates took part in their first mass debate. Before a televised event on Channel 4 on Friday evening, Truss and the four other would-be successors to Boris Johnson joined a Zoom-based Q&A hosted by the Conservative Home website.
  • Sunak, Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat have committed to maintaining the government’s legally binding goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. The contenders for the Tory leadership have signed up to a series of pledges put forward by the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), including continuing with the post-Brexit nature-friendly farming subsidies and switching to renewable energy.
  • Mordaunt, a leading contender to become prime minister, has repeatedly advocated the use of homeopathy on the NHS, analysis of her parliamentary records and public comments shows. Homeopathy is a treatment based on the use of highly diluted substances that practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself.
  • The former Brexit minister David Frost this morning urged Kemi Badenoch to pull out of the leadership contest to bolster Truss’s position in the race. Lord Frost also stepped up his attacks on the second-placed candidate Mordaunt, saying she was “absent on parade” when he worked with her on post-Brexit negotiations last year.
  • Badenoch and Truss have declined to answer questions put to them by the LGBT+ Conservatives group by their deadline of 1pm today. The group gave each of the leadership contenders a three-question questionnaire. Tugendhat, Sunak and Mordaunt managed to answer on time, although the group has since reached out to Badenoch and Truss to encourage them to submit their answers.
  • Boris Johnson is planning to stage parliamentary interventions on Ukraine, Brexit and levelling up, with allies of the outgoing prime minister hinting that those are the areas of his legacy he believes to be most under threat from his potential successor.
  • Channel 4 has said an investigation into allegations made by the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, that a reality TV show she appeared on used paid actors has found no evidence of fakery. The broadcaster asked the producers of the 2010 reality show Tower Block of Commons, in which Dorries was one of a number of MPs who went to live in deprived communities, to investigate the claims she made to the culture select committee in May.
  • The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, visited a section of the Berlin Wall earlier today while on a trip to the German capital to meet politicians and business leaders. Starmer was pictured by the landmark, erected in 1961 by the communist authorities to separate East and West Berlin.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. For now, my colleague Martin Belam will continue to bring you all the latest news and views from Westminster. Goodbye for now.

Updated

What happens when the “most duplicitous, lying electorate that you’ve ever come across” holds an internal contest via secret ballots covered breathlessly by the media with the fate of the country at stake?

That description of the race to become prime minister by the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith goes some way to explaining why there has been a torrent of blue-on-blue attacks, “dark arts” and betrayal of long-held loyalties over the past week.

After MPs managed eventually to oust the prime minister, the relief of being able to select a new leader was only momentary before the infighting began again.

In other news, Channel 4 has said an external investigation into allegations made by the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, that a reality TV show she appeared on used paid actors has found no evidence of fakery.

The broadcaster asked the producers of the 2010 reality show Tower Block of Commons, in which Dorries was one of a number of MPs who went to live in deprived communities, to investigate the claims she made to the culture select committee in May.

The outcome of the investigation, undertaken by Love Productions and overseen by external lawyers, was reviewed by Channel 4, which also conducted its own “internal document searches and review”.

“The investigation encompassed contributors who were ordinary members of the public and with whom the secretary of state had significant interaction,” said Channel 4 in a statement on Friday.

Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat have committed to maintaining the government’s legally binding goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

The contenders for the Tory leadership have signed up to a raft of pledges put forward by the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), including continuing with the post-Brexit nature-friendly farming subsidies and switching to renewable energy.

The other leadership candidates, Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch, have not yet signed up to the pledges, though Truss has previously backed the 2050 target. Both have been contacted for comment.

Liz Truss has sought to breathe new life into her faltering Tory leadership campaign with a flurry of new tax cut promises worth billions of pounds, as the five remaining candidates took part in their first mass debate.

Ahead of a televised event on Channel 4 on Friday evening, Truss and the four other would-be successors to Boris Johnson joined a Zoom-based Q&A hosted by the Conservative Home website.

Penny Mordaunt, the bookmakers’ favourite, who is second in the number of Tory MP votes so far, used the debate to condemn what she called “mudslinging”, and to portray herself as the candidate best able to defeat Labour.

Penny Mordaunt repeatedly advocated use of homeopathy on NHS

Penny Mordaunt, a leading contender to win the Conservative party leadership contest and become prime minister, has repeatedly advocated the use of homeopathy on the NHS, analysis of her parliamentary records and public comments shows.

Homeopathy is a treatment based on the use of highly diluted substances that practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself. It has been called bogus by the most senior doctor in the NHS, and the health service does not fund it because of “the lack of any evidence for its effectiveness”. The NHS position is backed by a high court judgment.

“Homeopathy has no place in the NHS and is no replacement for rigorously tried and tested medical care,” Prof Stephen Powis, the NHS national medical director, has said previously. “We have been clear in our guidance to GPs that they should not be prescribing these bogus treatments, which are at best a placebo and a misuse of taxpayers’ money.”

A Guardian analysis reveals that Mordaunt, the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Boris Johnson, has repeatedly expressed support for homeopathy and called for family doctors to be given the right to prescribe it.

The failed Tory leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has written to her supporters urging them to get behind Liz Truss.

The Attorney General wrote:

Other MPs and activists will make up their own minds who to support. Nobody can order them who to support and nor should they. But for those who want to support Kemi, I would say just this.

Kemi is a great woman and a friend. She could do a fantastic job as PM one day but we need to look realistically at the numbers.

Liz and Kemi are not both going to make it into the final two. So, a decision needs to be made to back one of them. The one we should back, I’d argue, is the one who can get to the final round: Liz can, Kemi cannot.

Liz is undeniably the better-placed candidate to get to the voluntary party round and fight there for the things that all three of us believe.

Now then, Penny Mordaunt. The candidate who, as she launched her campaign said she would get onto pressing issues in like dealing with a ailing economy, right after she’d dealt with a more critical (to her leadership bid) question:

I’ve done Mordaunt’s answers in full because they are fairly short:

What are your main priorities for the LGBT+ community?

Critical to delivering for the LGBT+ community at home and abroad is looking at how we improve the lives of LGBT+ people, especially access to public services and tackling discrimination at work. We must look at policy based based on the real experience of LGBT+ people.

How will you tackle the rising problem of transphobia within the Conservative Party?

Tackling discrimination wherever it rears its head is vital. The UK must be a force for good in the world to ensure we help and set an example to others developing their policies in this space.

Why should our members get your vote?

I would be honored to gain the support of our valued LGBT+ members. When I led London Pride Parade in 2019, I was proud to be representing country, armed forces, and also LGBT+ Conservatives. I want to ensure that every time you go to such events, you can be proud of your party and your country.

The very modern Tom Tugendhat did a video! You’ll be surprised to hear that he mentions his time in the army.

What are your main priorities for the LGBT+ community?

The first thing is dignity, its quality and protection, because the reality is we have got a society that sometimes still sadly does discriminate. I was very pleased to be in the army when equality was brought into the army. [...] It made it better, it made it stronger and it made many people happier. I think it was a huge improvement.

How will you tackle the rising problem of transphobia within the Conservative Party?

Yes, but I’m hugely proud that Jamie Wallace is the first openly trans MP and of course he’s a conservative. So it’s fantastic that we have a very diverse party in many ways.

We really need to reinforce dignity and respect and we need to bridge the trust between communities and groups, because if that’s the way we make, finding our party better and also stronger and more likely to win elections as well.

Why should our members get your vote?

I think we need a rebuilding of trust. And that’s important for all of us as Conservatives, we’re all just Conservatives, after all.

But I think [for] the LGBT+ community in particular, what I’m offering I think is getting beyond the division of the past and trying to have a more unified message suddenly brings us together again, beyond wedge issues and actually focusing on what benefits for us all.

Updated

Here’s an edited version of Sunak’s responses to the LGBT+ group, again you can see the full responses on their website.

Rishi Sunak:

What are your main priorities for the LGBT+ community?

There is so much more we can do to take forward this country’s proud record of progress on LGBT+ rights. From ending new HIV transmissions by 2030, to addressing instances of hate crime, to fostering a more tolerant, accepting society. I want this to be the safest and greatest country in the world to be LGBT+.

How will you tackle the rising problem of transphobia within the Conservative Party?

Prejudice against trans people is wrong. The Conservative Party is an open, welcoming family to everybody across society, no matter who they are and irrespective of their background. Where we have disagreements, we must continue to ensure they are handled with respect and understanding. Robust debate and disagreement on policy issues must never descend into personal attacks.

Why should our members get your vote?

I pledge to continue to be an ally. But, if I’m lucky enough to be your next Prime Minister, I also pledge to work day and night to make Britain the kindest, safest and most vibrant place in the world to be LGBT +. My pledge is to make sure that none of you ever feel the need to hide, but can instead live life with hope, joy, and above all, pride.

Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss have declined to answer questions put to them by the LGBT+ Conservatives group by their deadline of 1pm today.

The group each of the leadership contenders a three question questionnaire.

Only Tom Tugendhat, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt managed to answer on time, although the group have since reached out to Badenoch and Truss to encourage them to submit their answers, the group’s chair Elena Bunbary told me.

She said:

We have invited Kemi and Liz to still submit despite the deadline passing. We are hopeful that we will get to hear their thoughts and views on the questions posed, to allow our members the information they may want to cast their votes.

You can read the responses from the three candidates that did in full on their website.

The three questions each candidate was asked were:

I’ll outline a flavour of their responses in the next posts.

Boris Johnson is planning to stage parliamentary interventions on Ukraine, Brexit and levelling up, with allies of the outgoing prime minister hinting that those are the areas of his legacy he believes to be most under threat from his potential successor.

It comes as a briefing war between current and former No 10 aides exploded into new acrimony, with accusations traded about a working culture alleged to have been overtly macho and, at times, misogynistic.

Johnson is said to have told his aides he has no intention of quitting parliament immediately, though he has stopped short of committing to staying until the next election.

In a move that will fuel speculation Johnson has already mentally checked out of the job, the prime minister will hold a “thank you” party for loyal supporters and their families at Chequers this weekend.

Johnson is said to have doubts about whether his successor is as committed to providing funds to sustain the Ukrainians fighting against the Russian invasion – as well as to changing the Northern Ireland protocol and the levelling up promise that the party will invest heavily in northern seats.

Read the full story here:

Updated

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he does not want to see more rail strikes.

Speaking during a visit to Berlin on Friday, he said:

I completely understand why people are frustrated about the cost of living crisis that this government has presided over but I don’t want strikes to go ahead, I don’t want to see strikes, I don’t think anybody does.

They need to be resolved, that will only happen if the government lifts its finger and gets involved in resolving it, it hasn’t done that.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer visits the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin as part of a two day visit to the German capital.
Keir Starmer visits the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin as part of a two-day visit to the German capital. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Updated

On Wednesday night, dozens of journalists and political aides joined the Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt at a drinks event in the garden of Westminster Abbey.

Guests such as Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK enjoyed plenty of wine and were joined by costume actors dressed as traditional British icons such as Beefeaters, Paddington Bear and Edina from Absolutely Fabulous.

Mordaunt was the star of the party, which was held by a charity run by the multimillionaire PR agency boss Chris Lewis, an ally of Mordaunt over the last decade.

Even amid growing public interest in the potential future prime minister, little attention has been paid to 61-year-old Lewis – a man who lists his job title as the “Grand Enchilada” and writes business leadership books.

Online hustings: closing statements

We are into the closing statements now.

Truss uses hers to talk about how she will continue to stand up to Putin over Ukraine and deliver the benefits of Brexit. Interestingly, she says she can defeat Ed Davey as well as Keir Starmer at a general election.

Tugendhat says his clean start will deliver a “new party and new drive” and puts the focus on defending the UK.

Badenoch says the government needs to renew and she lacks the “baggage of the last few years”. She supports a smaller state and will win back the seats lost in recent byelections, she says.

Mordaunt says she is the only candidate who can defeat Labour in a general election, highlighting her recent positive poll performances.

My stream froze during Sunak’s closing statement, so I’m delighted to say you will be spared that. I’m not sure he can improve on saying his greatest weakness is he is just too much of a perfectionist anyway ...

Well, that brings an end to the ConservativeHome online hustings. The five wannabe PM’s will do it all again tonight at 7.30pm live on Channel 4 if you want another helping of blue-on-blue rhetoric and conjecture.

Stick with the politics live blog though, for we will continue to bring you all the latest news from Westminster throughout your Friday afternoon.

Updated

The candidates are now being asked, in true interview style, to identify their greatest weaknesses.

Badenoch says she feels she can sometimes let her sense of humour make it seem like she is “flippant” about issues.

Sunak says he has a reputation for “working hard and getting across the detail”. He is just too much of a perfectionist, he is basically trying to say here. Classic bad interview response.

Truss says she can be “too enthusiastic” about trying to do too much.

Mordaunt considers saying Burmese cats (she has four) and that Larry might not be too keen on seeing them in No 10. She ultimately settles on delegating.

Tugendhat says he “may possibly talk about the army too much”.

How would candidates tackle the housing crisis?

Now a question on how to solve the housing crisis. Tugendhat starts by attacking Labour saying it would concrete over the whole country, “leaving us with socialist homes owned by the state”.

He says his government would provide a 10-year plan for growth, focusing on a stronger, fairer and more resilient economy, with housing a big part of that. He echoes Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy and says he will give people the right to own their own homes.

Mordaunt says “there are lots of reasons why we are failing to get the volume of houses built that we need every year but they are different in different places”. She talks about building new towns and the need to focus on brownfield sites. She adds that she has been writing to Sunak for two years about housing issues.

Badenoch says as a housing minister, she sees it from a different perspective. The difficulty is supply but it isn’t easy to deliver those homes because it “scares” people who think hundreds of thousands of houses will be built next door to them without the necessary infrastructure. “We have lost a lot of small to medium sized builders,” she adds as a reason why the right properties are not being built.

Truss says it is “very, very worrying that people are becoming older and older before they can afford their own home”. She says the government has taken a one-size fits all policy to housing and that the need in different parts of the country varies. She adds: “I also think we need to look at housing together with industry, infrastructure as communities rather than housing estates plonked in the middle of nowhere.”

Finally, Sunak says that the government is spending more money to work out how best to “unlock” brownfield sites. He also raises modular housing as a potential solution to be looked at and says the Tories support home ownership and not just keeping people in rented accommodation.

Updated

How will candidates respond to Putin?

The candidates are now being asked why they are best placed to stand up to Putin and help Ukraine’s war effort.

Mordaunt says:

We have to be honest with the British people about how hard this is at it goes on ... Putin has to fail, he cannot gain any territory, he cannot be emboldened in his ambitions at all. There can be no compromise on that.

She adds that she has the expertise and that she is able to spot the opportunity in situations, referencing the fall of Afghanistan as a “missed opportunity” by the UK to maintain a presence.

Badenoch says:

I, more than anyone, understand how important it is the UK is a positive force in the world and is seen to be a positive force in the world.

It is critically important that countries around the world know we are there protect those who cannot protect themselves.

She adds that she is committed to Nato and that a Ukraine loss in its war with Russia would be “terrible for years to come”.

Tugendhat says he has “stood and fought” for Britain for many years and jokes about mentioning his time in the army. He adds:

I was in Ukraine earlier this year and have met with many Ukrainian officials and military officers over the past 12 months ... I know what we can do, what we must do. We must force Putin to realise he is going to lose, though it is not for us to define what victory means for the Ukrainians.

He goes on to heap praise on the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and says he would increase support to Ukraine and Nato, making sure it is a stronger position by supporting allies such as Latvia and Estonia, and spending more on defence.

Sunak starts by saying the UK is “an enormous force for good in the world” and that he takes defence spending “incredibly seriously”. He says he made an exception to ensure the MoD received funding certainty, unlike any other department, during the pandemic.

He says:

In terms of standing up to Putin, we have to put in place very serious sanctions.

Looking forward, defence spending is forecast to rise to 2.5%. I don’t take an approach that relies on arbitrary figures.

Truss says:

We have led the free world in standing up to Putin and supporting Ukraine in their hour of need. We used our intelligence to expose what [Putin’s] plans were.

Now, we need to do more. We need to send more weapons to Ukraine, we need to send more heavy weapons, we need to encourage our international allies to do more.

She goes on to say “we need to put more sanctions on Ukraine” - presumably she means Russia, in this case. Truss finishes by saying her view is we need to be spending 3% of GDP on defence by the end of the decade, warning that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, “he will not stop there”.

Updated

How will candidates address the cost of living crisis?

The next question addresses the cost of living crisis and asks candidates how they will help people, in relation to energy and fuel bills, as well as tax.

Badenoch says she recognises people are struggling and wants to look at reducing fuel duty. “I also think there are some things we should look at around Universal Credit uplift,” she says. On tax cuts, she says she is in support but won’t be drawn on specifics right now.

Tugendhat says the dependence on Russian energy is causing price rises here in the UK. He adds that we need to work closer with our neighbours. “Before we get to Christmas we need a new leader who can restore trust and build back our relationship with homes around the country,” he says.

This contest isn’t the right place to set out specific tax cuts, Mordaunt says. However, she has set up “timely and limited” support measures to help with cost of living, such as raising thresholds for lower and middle income earners in line with inflation. She says “there is more we need to do”, such as looking at looking at how bills are structured.

Truss says “we immediately need to start putting money back into people’s pockets”. She would reverse the national insurance rise and have a “temporary moratorium” on green energy levies. Strong regulatory reform is required and Britain needs to diverge from the EU on environment and planning regulation to encourage investment to “solve our problems in the longer term”.

Sunak says the government “needs to get a grip” of inflation. He reiterates that he will deliver tax cuts but only further down the line, just like Margaret Thatcher did, he says. “On energy, this is the biggest problem everyone is facing ... we need to improve the supply we have,” he adds, but the best way of helping people is moving people off welfare and into well paid jobs.

Updated

How will candidates win back the public's trust?

The first question from the public is about how the Tory party plans to win back the trust of the public.

Sunak kicks off the responses by saying it “starts with honesty” and says he won’t promise anything he won’t be able to deliver, referencing the tax cuts promised by his fellow leadership hopefuls. He says he can appeal to Tory voters all around the country.

The leadership contest should be positive and without mud-slinging, says Mordaunt. She adds: “I agree with have to start delivering for people ... many of our public services are in a desperate state, particularly because of the pandemic. We have a huge catch-up job to do ... we cannot continue with what we’ve been doing because that clearly isn’t work.”

Badenoch says the most important thing to do to win trust is keeping promises. She highlights the number of U-turns this government has made and says “no one stands as a dishonest politician but we have to show we are straight with people”. She also says the party needs to move on from calling each other leavers and remainers, adding that it is “the language of inclusivity that matters”.

Tugendhat says trust is about demonstrating the government will deliver on its commitments. He says he has campaigned for years across the UK and “that unity is about how we talk to each other”, adding that “the Conservative message of unity ... will be one that we carry across the country.”

Liz Truss eventually gives her answer after an awkward moment of being stuck on mute. She says “a forward looking economic agenda” is the vital link between all parts of the country, adding that she has delivered on commitments in every job she has done in government. “I won’t make false claims, I will be honest with people, I will level about the very difficult situations we find ourselves in,” she concluded.

Updated

Bringing up the rear is Rishi Sunak, who is now delivering his opening statement. He says the threat of a weak Labour party, “propped up by the Lib Dems and the SNP is real”.

He says:

I believe I am the best-placed person to help our party beat Keir Starmer and secure that victory.

He says he also has a plan “to build a better future”, adding that tax cuts will come but only after “we have got our house in order”.

Sunak says he wants families in the UK to see “tangible changes in their community” and businesses to see the “benefits” of Brexit and for “all of us to feel as if we have turned a corner ... towards growth and hope”.

He concludes:

We can create a Britain where the most important part about your success is how hard you work and where family is one of the easiest joys, not one of the hardest sacrifices.

Updated

Penny Mordaunt begins her opening statement by saying Whitehall needs to be modernised to “move at the speed business and science needs us to”.

She says:

We need to be focused on the things that really will help us level up ... we need to deliver excellence in public services and use both the mandate and majority the public have given us.

In this contest I have outlined the principles on which I will make decisions about tax ... my focus will be on ensuring all of our citizens can live in safety and security.

She says the party needs a return to traditional Conservative politics.

Now we are hearing from Kemi Badenoch, another of the outside candidates to win this leadership race. She starts off by saying she doesn’t promise things without being able to deliver them.

Speaking in front of an oversized Kemi for Prime Minister logo, she says:

I only decided to enter this race seven days ago ... Imagine what we could achieve with you, the activists, and this great party behind me. I have a message that is cutting through.

She keeps her speech shorter than the rest but says she has what it takes to beat Keir Starmer in a general election.

Updated

Tom Tugendhat up next. He says the Tories need a “clean start” after a collapse of trust in the government.

He says:

I believe in Britain, I fought for Britain and I’m incredibly proud of our great country so I’m looking forward to making the case ... for many years to come.

Restoring trust is the recurring theme of his statement. He says this is the key to defeating Labour and the SNP, adding that the Conservatives are “the natural party of government”.

He adds:

I am ready to serve, I am ready to lead. You know my record of service, not just in the army but in Westminster.

He says he will “restore pride in Britain and in our party” and that looks forward to serving as PM.

Candidates make their pitches as online hustings begins

Liz Truss is giving her opening statement first. She says she went into politics because she wants the UK to be “an aspiration nation that unleashes opportunity across this country”.

She says:

We can’t just go on with our current [economic] policy. I advocate a major new economic plan ... we need to open up opportunities right across Britain.

The leadership hopeful adds that she wants to “make sure we are truly levelling up our country”. She says she can take on the role of PM “from day one” and that she has a “track record of delivering”, claiming during her time as foreign secretary she has stood up to Vladimir Putin and “resolved” the Northern Ireland protocol issue.

Updated

Just a reminder that the ConservativeHome hustings is about to get underway. All five of the remaining hopefuls will be taking part in the debate, hosted by the leading Tory blog.

I will keep you updated with all the key questions, answers and everything else in between over the next hour or so. Stay tuned.

When it comes to the future of the planet, the Tory leadership contest has got off to a dismal start.

Rows erupted over the government’s flagship climate policy – the target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – almost as soon as Boris Johnson sagged back into No 10 after his resignation speech.

Several leadership candidates have now cast doubt on the net zero target, vowed to change it in some way, or taken stances against some of the green policies needed to reach it. Yet the target is vital not just for the UK, but for the world at a crucial time.

Boris Johnson is working at Chequers on Friday where he plans to stay over the weekend, but Downing Street was unable to say whether he will be joining heatwave discussions.

A No 10 spokesman said:

Cobra met yesterday and officials from across government will continue to meet regularly both today and throughout the weekend.

Asked if the PM is involved, the spokesman said:

As always the Prime Minister is kept up to date with all the latest information.

Pressed if he will be joining talks from Chequers, the spokesman added:

He’s kept thoroughly updated on the latest situation.

Boris Johnson could be paid more than £1m for his memoir, according to publishing insiders. But anyone expecting a kiss-and-tell may be disappointed, as industry professionals have said he is unlikely to open up about his personal relationships.

A publisher, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Guardian that while it was “way too early for anything concrete to happen or be submitted”, they would “be amazed if he doesn’t sign up somewhere for memoirs at some point in the autumn”.

Martin Redfern, executive director and literary agent at Northbank Talent, told trade magazine the Bookseller that he thought the book would command “north of £1m”.

MPs on the Commons privileges committee will carry out a site visit in Downing Street, and are demanding No 10 hand over evidence, including WhatsApps, photos and diary entries, as they investigate whether Boris Johnson misled parliament over Partygate.

The committee, chaired by Harriet Harman, the longstanding Labour MP, but with a majority of Conservative members, has written to Johnson with a list of evidence they would like to examine.

It includes diary entries for eight named dates when events were held; briefing packs for the prime minister’s appearances in parliament between December 2021 and May 2022; and photos for the named dates, including by Johnson’s photographer, Andy Parsons.

Harman and her colleagues have also written to the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, asking him to draw the attention of Cabinet Office staff to their call for evidence, and promising to “carry out a site visit”.

Penny Mordaunt also rejected the idea that attacks on her for being too “woke” on issues such as trans rights could be the issue that ends her bid to replace Boris Johnson.

She told Sky News this morning:

Look at how we’re doing in the polls in the country, in London, in Scotland, with young people, with women, with Red Wall, with Blue Wall.

It’s not having an impact on my campaign, and it’s not having an impact on my parliamentary campaign. And I think the reason for that is that people recognise it for what it is.

I understand why people are trying to stop me getting into the final two, but I am going to stay focused on the things that matter to the public and the people we’re here to serve.

Mordaunt declined to criticise the record of the Johnson administration, but said that “people want us to deliver”, adding:

I think it is important we don’t trash our record, because actually we have done an awful lot of good things.

Tory party leadership front-runner Penny Mordaunt has claimed her rivals are trying to stop her but declined to be drawn into criticising other candidates.

Speaking to Sky News on Friday morning, she said she was aware that she posed a threat to rivals former chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss if she made it to the final vote by party members.

Mordaunt said it was “understandable” her rivals were trying to stop her but claimed she was best place to defeat Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

She said:

I care about my colleagues. I have great colleagues and we have to, at the end of this contest, come together as a party.

You can see from my campaign, I’m not engaging in any of that.

She also said she was not scared of becoming prime minister, following briefings against her lack of experience as a frontbench government minister.

Mordaunt said she had been “beavering away” at her junior ministerial job in recent years, adding:

I have just been getting on with my job, but I have thought long and hard about what this country needs. I feel really compelled to do this. It would be a huge honour to be prime minister.

On a sun-drenched common, supporters of Tory leadership candidate Penny Mordaunt, Andrew Wood and Jaspal Chhokar periodically pause as yet another truck from the HS2 rail project rumbles through a constituency that is home to one of Britain’s largest local Conservative parties.

While the scheme weighed heavily in the Tories’ byelection loss in neighbouring Chesham and Amersham – raising questions about the party’s so-called blue wall in southern England – the din is also a reminder here in Beaconsfield of the cocktail of factors that fuelled Boris Johnson’s downfall.

Although the future of the green belt in one of the most UK’s affluent regions has yet to feature in the race, it’s the sort of issue that could yet prove decisive if and when a final two candidates vie for the votes of members in the party’s heartlands.

Johnson ordered to hand over Partygate documents to privileges committee

Boris Johnson has been ordered to hand over a cache of documents to MPs investigating whether he lied to Parliament with his partygate denials.

The Commons Privileges Committee has written to the Prime Minister and cabinet secretary Simon Case demanding details relevant to its inquiry, the Press Association reported.

These include Johnson’s diaries for eight days during the lockdown period when parties occurred, email invites, resignation emails and WhatsApp messages and No 10 entry logs.

Harriet Harman, the senior MP chairing the investigation, wrote to the pair giving them the deadline of 15 August to hand over the documents.

Updated

Away from the Tory psychodrama, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer visited a section of the Berlin wall earlier today while on a trip to the German capital to meet politicians and business leaders.

Sir Keir was pictured by the landmark, erected in 1961 by the communist authorities to separate East and West Berlin, the Press Association reported.

Sir Keir walked along the East Side Gallery, a section of the wall covered in artwork.

The visit came ahead of a meeting between the Labour leader and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The pair are expected to discuss Brexit and mutual economic prosperity between the UK and Germany.

He has been joined by the shadow foreign secretary David Lammy on the trip.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer walks past a section of the Berlin Wall known as the East Side Gallery in Berlin on the second day of his two day visit to the German capital.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer walks past a section of the Berlin Wall known as the East Side Gallery in Berlin on the second day of his two day visit to the German capital. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The first televised hustings of the leadership race takes place at 7.30pm tonight live on Channel 4 - but there will be other opportunities to see the candidates for No 10 being grilled on policy and character.

It is a somewhat unusual quirk of the British electoral system that millions can watch the debates by our prospective prime ministers but only a relatively minuscule cohort of roughly 200,000 Conservative party members will actually have a say - and even then, only once there are just two candidates left on the ballot.

However, my colleague Jamie Grierson has put together a short guide as to where and when the hustings can be watched.

First debate – Friday 15 July, 7pm Channel 4

Britain’s Next PM: The Conservative Leadership Debate will air from 7pm to 9.30pm and will be presented by the Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy. It can be watched live on Channel 4 or on demand on All 4.

Second debate – Sunday 17 July, 7pm, ITV

The second debate will air on ITV from 7pm on Sunday 17 July. It can be watched live or on catch-up on ITV Hub.

Third debate – Tuesday 19 July, Sky News

The third debate, on Sky News, will be hosted by Kay Burley, with questions from a live virtual audience. By this stage more candidates will have been eliminated through further rounds of voting in Westminster.

And don’t forget, in addition to the televised debates, we will be bringing you all the latest right here from the ConservativeHome hustings at 1pm.

The Conservative MP Richard Holden, a backer of Rishi Sunak, has this morning told Sky News that it was “total nonsense” to suggest the former chancellor was a “socialist”.

Boris Johnson’s remaining loyalists in the Conservative Party have increased their attacks on Sunak in recent days, accusing him of presiding over tax hikes, the Press Association reported. Holden also rejected the suggestion that Sunak’s wealth made him unrelatable.

He told Sky News that the furlough scheme, introduced at the start of the pandemic, proved that Sunak had a “track record” of helping ordinary voters, adding:

Whether it’s Rishi Sunak, who’s wealthier than many of my constituents or Keir Starmer, who is far wealthier than many of my constituents could ever dream to be either, what people I think are really interested in is who’s best for them and who’s going run the country.

Holden also rejected that there were any questions about Sunak’s integrity, amid accusations he had stabbed Johnson in the back.

He said:

He’s been very upfront throughout this entire situation. He’s backed the prime minister all the ways through the last couple of years, through some really difficult decisions over Covid.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak walks in London, Britain, July 15, 2022.
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak walks in London, Britain, July 15, 2022. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

Tory MP Jake Berry has said it will be a “key weekend” for Tom Tugendhat as live debates begin in the Conservative Party leadership contest.

He said it has been an “extraordinary performance” for Tugendhat to get this far. However, his candidate failed to gain much additional support in the second round of voting on Thursday, leading some bookmakers to push his odds of winning the contest out as long as 150/1.

Berry told Sky News:

He has had so much support from across the party, and wider, in terms of being able to get into this phase and to set out his case. It is all up in the air.

He added that it is up to the other candidates to prove they have fresh ideas for the party.

Tom Tugendhat speaking at the launch of his campaign to be Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, at 4 Millbank, London.
Tom Tugendhat speaking at the launch of his campaign to be Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, at 4 Millbank, London. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Former minister urges Kemi Badenoch to pull out and support Truss bid

Meanwhile, the former Brexit minister David Frost has this morning urged Kemi Badenoch to pull out of the Tory leadership contest to bolster Liz Truss’s position in the race.

Lord Frost also stepped up his attacks on the second-placed candidate Penny Mordaunt, saying she was “absent on parade” when he worked with her on post-Brexit negotiations last year.

Truss was picking up support from the Tory right after the attorney general, Suella Braverman, was eliminated from an increasingly bitter leadership race in which the former chancellor Rishi Sunak came out top and Mordaunt second in the latest round of MPs’ votes.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Frost said:

Kemi and Suella Braverman set out convincing programmes, with differing emphases, for change.

But Liz’s depth of experience, her energy and ideas – as well as the simple fact she has the most votes of the three – put her in the lead.

It is now time for pragmatism. I urge Kemi to stand down in return for a serious job in a Truss administration.

For more on this developing story, see my colleague Jamie Grierson’s piece below.

The intervention came as the Tory MP Justin Tomlinson denied Badenoch should be judged for a lack of experience.

He told Times Radio:

The most important part of experience is pure ability, and I didn’t know Kemi personally before I supported her campaign, but I’ve seen her first-hand - select committees, despatch box, inter-ministerial meetings - and she really stood head and shoulders above many of our very talented colleagues.

She has had two years’ more experience than both David Cameron and Tony Blair, who both went and did very well in elections. And, ultimately, this all comes down to elections. We’re facing an unprecedented fifth term, and to do that we need a fresh start, where we’ve fully renewed.

Nobody offers a better chance, particularly for my Red Wall and Blue Wall colleagues, to make sure they are re-elected.

Updated

Good morning, I’m Tom Ambrose and welcome to the UK politics live blog on what is already a very warm Friday here in London. With the Tory leadership race narrowed down to five candidates, I will be bringing you all the latest news and opinions from across Westminster as we head into the weekend.

There is a hustings hosted by the ConservativeHome website due to take place at 1pm - we will aim to bring you updates from that - followed by another taking place live on Channel 4 at 7.30pm.

However, the main focus so far the day, as the remaining candidate’s supporters hit the airwaves and television studios, is the accusation of a smear campaign against the surprise front-runner Penny Mordaunt.

Transport minister Wendy Morton denied that the team behind Liz Truss’s leadership bid is involved in a so-called “black ops” campaign against her rival. Morton, appearing on Times Radio, said she is “absolutely not” involved in any kind of untoward campaign. She said:

What I am involved in is a campaign to get Liz Truss elected as the next leader of the Conservative Party because I happen to think, I know, that she’s the right candidate.

I worked with her at the Foreign Office and I saw first-hand how hard-working she is, how dedicated she is, and how she just gets on with the job and she delivers.

She said the Truss camp is not concerned about the lead Mordaunt has maintained against the Foreign Secretary, adding:

You know, we have still got rounds of voting to go, there are still candidates, there are colleagues out there who have not declared for a candidate, there are colleagues who have voted for candidates who have now dropped out of the race. So it’s all to play for.

It came as Tory MP Dame Maria Miller, pressed on whether Mordaunt could fall victim to dirty tactics as she seeks to replace Boris Johnson, said her candidate wanted a positive campaign.

She told Sky News:

Penny’s support among Members of Parliament has grown, and that is the same throughout the country. This leadership contest is run along a set of lines and I think people will want it to be a positive campaign. We’re colleagues, together, we’re not opposing each other in a fundamental political sense. It is just about getting a new leader.

Former British Government Minister Penny Mordaunt at the Cinnamon Club as she launches her campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party in London, Britain, 13 July 2022.
Former British Government Minister Penny Mordaunt at the Cinnamon Club as she launches her campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party in London, Britain, 13 July 2022. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
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