Good morning, and if I can just get to the end of this sentence without being interrupted by Rishi Sunak, I’ll have had a less irritating time than Liz Truss at the Conservative leadership debate last night when HANG ON, THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT oh well.
It was that sort of evening. In truth, as the front-runner going in, Truss probably won’t have minded. The debate was pretty exhausting, but also interesting, if you’re judging it by whether it highlighted some of the differences between the candidates. But as the dust settled, there was little evidence that it had shifted the dial very much.
Today’s newsletter will take you through the most important things Sunak and Truss said, and why they didn’t, actually, matter. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Archie Battersbee | The parents of a 12-year-old boy who suffered a “catastrophic” brain injury have been refused permission to appeal against a decision to end his life support treatment. The court of appeal said there were no grounds to challenge a high court ruling that continuing treatment was “futile”.
UK news | A former BBC employee raised concerns about “unacceptable bullying” by Tim Westwood when he was a Radio 1 DJ but felt they were warned against taking further action, the Guardian has learned. In April Westwood faced accusations by seven women of sexual misconduct and predatory behaviour, which he denied.
Labour | A row broke out in the shadow cabinet over Labour’s policy on renationalisation after Keir Starmer said he would not be “ideological” about the question. Starmer had pledged when he became leader to support common ownership of utilities like rail, mail and water.
Ukraine | The Eurovision song contest will be hosted in the UK next year after Ukraine’s public broadcaster dropped its objections to the switch. The UK will host on behalf of this year’s winners but produce a programme that – in the words of the BBC – has “glorious Ukraine at its heart”.
Northern Ireland | David Trimble, the former first minister of Northern Ireland and former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), has died aged 77. Lord Trimble won the Nobel peace prize along with SDLP leader John Hume for his part in negotiations for the Good Friday agreement.
In depth: ‘Rishi, that is not true’
Sunak’s smartest-and-most-annoyed-guy-in-the-room energy was probably not the way to ingratiate himself with a group of voters who already prefer his opponent: crudely, nobody likes being told they’re wrong by a nerd.
Perhaps his interruptathon (watch highlights here) was intended to nudge Truss into a gaffe, but if so, it surely failed: a snap poll by Opinium on who performed best had the two about level among all voters, and Truss ahead by 47-30 among those who vote Tory.
Even if you rightly take opinion polls with a pinch of salt, it seems pretty unlikely that Sunak will have won a big majority in the opposite direction among party members, which is the kind of earthquake he needs – quickly – to win.
If, for some unknowable reason, you had better things to do last night, here are some of the key passages (lightly edited and condensed), and what they revealed:
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The economy and the cost of living crisis
Rishi Sunak The question is, should we pay [the coronavirus support] bill ourselves, or do we put it on the country’s credit card? … I don’t think that’s right. I don’t think it’s responsible. And it’s certainly not Conservative.
Liz Truss Under my plans we would start paying down the debt in three years time. So I’m not putting it on the never never, I would start paying it down -
Sunak That’s simply not right. You promised almost £40bn of unfunded tax cuts … it’s our children and grandchildren … who are going to have to pick up the tab.
Truss That is not true. Rishi, that is not true.
• The economy and the cost-of-living crisis were the longest section of the debate, but it all sounded familiar: Sunak promising responsible stewardship and a Tory emphasis on “sound money”, Truss insisting that tax increases would lead Britain into recession and accusing her opponent of “negative, declinist” policies.
Maybe the most difficult moment for Truss was Sunak’s focus on the Brexiteer economist Patrick Minford, whom Truss cited as a supporter and who subsequently said her policies would push interest rates up to 7%. Sunak tried to cast Truss as irresponsible and un-Conservative, while she insisted her timeline for debt repayment was sensible. To most observers, the above exchange will have been more telling as an index of their hostilities than as a description of two grand economic visions.
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Brexit
Sunak (on the impact of borrowing on interest rates) US mortgage rates are almost 50% higher than mortgage rates in this country because they’re borrowing so much.
Truss I’m sorry, this is scaremongering. This is Project Fear.
Sunak Liz, I remember the referendum campaign, and there were only one of us who was on the side of Remain and Project Fear, and it was you, not me.
Truss Maybe I’ve learned from that.
• There was barely any discussion of Brexit – other than some frankly brain-melting fights for ownership of played-out referendum fodder like Project Fear. Both answered a flat “no” when asked if leaving the EU had played a part in the current travel chaos at Dover and Folkestone, a view which most analysts suggest does not stand up to serious scrutiny.
The tenor of the discussion suggested that both campaigns are working on the assumption that Brexit is more a purity test for Conservative members than a subject for sincere debate. But within that ecosystem, a penitent Remainer like Truss is more rejoiced over than a Leaver like Sunak with a less combative stance towards the EU.
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Foreign policy
Sunak Liz has been on a journey as well. There was a time when Liz was talking about having a golden era of relationships with China … What we do need to do is acknowledge that China is a threat to national security, it’s a threat to our economic security.
Truss Rishi, I challenged you on this in the debate last week. As recently as a month ago, you were pushing for closer trade relationships with China. This is not something you’ve advocated in government. I’m delighted that you’ve come around to my way of thinking.
• The chest-beating over Project Fear was matched by both candidates’ rhetoric over China, with vague promises to “crack down on TikTok” featuring prominently. Neither seriously engaged with fears that decoupling with the world’s second largest economy will be unsustainable for the UK, and it seems likely the winner will edge away from their commitments after the leadership election is over.
There was little disagreement on Ukraine, with both standing by the government’s record and ruling out active military engagement.
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The climate crisis
Asked “What three things should people change in their lives to help tackle climate change?”
Sunak Reducing energy usage through things like better energy efficiency is an obvious thing we can do … The second one is recycling, and that is the thing that in our house we are obsessive about. I know it’s a pain, you need lots of bins … And I think the third thing I would say, you really got to focus on innovation.
Truss I was a teenage eco-warrior … I’m naturally a thrifty person, I like saving money … so it’s about using less, wasting less, particularly food waste, which I think is a massive problem in this country, but also the innovation that we need … but what I don’t want to see is ordinary households penalised by our net zero target, so I would lift the green energy levy and cut money from people’s fuel bills while looking for better ways to deliver on net zero.
• Easily the most disappointing feature of the debate was the superficiality of the discussion of the climate crisis, a failing that should be laid as firmly at the BBC’s door as the candidates: a question about personal choices is unlikely to provoke a substantial conversation about the massive governmental action needed.
Sunak and Truss were both happy to focus on “lots of bins” (for a whole range of breads?) and “saving money”. That approach was facilitated by the lack of a single follow-up question, like whether Truss’s promise to find “better ways to deliver on net zero” is credible if she can’t identify them. One minute 56 seconds of the hour-long debate were devoted to the climate crisis, against five minutes 45 seconds on matters arising from Sunak’s suit and Truss’s earrings. Which brings us to:
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The tone of the debate
After a question about a row yesterday over Truss supporter Nadine Dorries saying on Twitter that Sunak’s suit cost £3,500:
Sunak I’ve got enormous respect and admiration for Liz … it’s very simple. I think in the Conservative party, we judge people by their character and their actions ... I’m standing here because of the hard work, the sacrifice, and love of my parents and the opportunities they provided for me.
Truss Well, I have to confess that since this campaign started, I’ve deleted Twitter from my phone … look, I don’t have any issue with how expensive anybody else’s clothes are. And actually, I think Rishi is a very finely dressed person.
• To state the obvious, calling Sunak “finely dressed” is not the friendly compliment Truss was making it out to be. While the entire debate was acrimonious, it also had a patina of civility – or, at any rate, when the candidates were given the chance to say they hated each other, they didn’t take it. Both said they would be happy to work together in government, but their disagreements over the economy have been repeated so often, and in such apocalyptic terms, that you can barely see them voting for each other’s programme from the backbenches, much less sitting at the same cabinet table.
Towards the end of the hour, Truss said “it’s been fantastic working with you, we’ve always got on well”, and offered Sunak a job: at about the same time, a spokesman for Truss said he had proven he “is not fit for office” and accused him of “aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour”. That doesn’t seem like the most glowing endorsement for a future colleague – but it did roughly capture the level of the hostilities on show.
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Read more on the Tory leadership race
Zoe Williams | A debate devoid of dignity
Rafael Behr | Playground bragging from a party without a purpose
Patrick Wintour | Sunak aims to outmanoeuvre Truss over China
Polly Toynbee | Candidates aren’t facing up to dire state of the NHS
Nesrine Malik | What this absurd class cosplay tells us about Britain
What else we’ve been reading
In 2013, Rachel Grashow and Ken Walton decided that their family would look a little different - their egg donor would be a part of their children’s lives. Ellie Houghtaling tells the remarkable story of Grashow and Walton’s family within the broader landscape of egg and sperm donation in the US. Nimo
Jessica Glenza explores how reproductive rights have been rolled back in whole regions of the United States, one month after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Nimo
Devi Sridhar argues that the World Health Organisation was right to call monkeypox an emergency. She writes: “The necessary response to monkeypox is intense vaccination efforts within the MSM [men who have sex with men] community and ensuring adequate supply and access to all who need it.” Archie
Jenny Colgan spent years trying to learn Gaelic. But, as most of us who have tried to learn a new language would understand, the complicated pronunciation proved too much for her, and Colgan threw in the towel. Nimo
Ryan Busse, a former US gun industry executive, has written a bleak history for the Atlantic of how young men, and then extremists, were cultivated as a target market. One ad he references reads: “You are a Man’s Man, the last of a dying breed.” (You can also listen to an excellent interview with Busse in May on Today in Focus.) Archie
Sport
Football | England manager Sarina Wiegman said that “the confidence in the team has grown ... we’re really strong and we can handle setbacks” ahead of tonight’s Euro 2022 semi-final against Sweden. She added: “hopefully we will inspire a nation.”
Cricket | An independent review has recommended that Cricket Scotland is placed in special measures by Sportscotland after 448 examples of institutional racism were revealed. The report was described as “the most devastating verdict to be delivered on any sporting institution in the United Kingdom”.
Athletics | Keely Hodgkinson took silver in the 800m for Great Britain on the final day of the World Athletics Championships. Hodgkinson lost out on gold to the United States’ Athing Mu by just 0.08s.
The front pages
Many of the papers lead on the Tory debate. The Times says “Bitter Tory rivals get personal” while the i has” “Gloves are off: Tory contest turning nasty”. The Telegraph pins its colours to Liz Truss’s cause with the headline “PM Sunak would be a new Gordon Brown, claims Truss”, while the Mail is on similar ground with “Truss vow to curb militant unions” and the Express has “The great divide... tax cuts now or later”. The Guardian reports “Tory leadership rivals trade blows over tax and inflation” and the Metro takes one of Sunak’s line as its lead headline: “You’ll lose us the next election”. The Financial Times leads on “Fears of European gas crisis mount as Russia cuts Nord Stream 1 flows”. The Sun leads on a report claiming Cristiano Ronaldo will ask to leave Manchester United this week – “Ron his way” – and the Mirror has an exclusive: “Kids sold deadly knives”.
Today in Focus
Do the Democrats have a Biden problem?
The approval ratings of the US president are at a record low. Washington DC bureau chief David Smith considers whether Joe Biden will stand for re-election in 2024
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The Cauca province in Colombia is a deadly place for land rights activists, but Indigenous groups and environmental defenders are not letting the violence intimidate or silence them. The Indigenous Guard are teaching children aged five to 15 non-violent ways to defend their lands. The group was established two decades ago and has 30,000 members who are committed to non-violent resistance. Adriana Pazu, a leader at the guard’s school in Toribío, said: “We have to show them that we, the Indigenous Nasa people, are full of courage and the more united we are, the more we can keep going.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
