Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss battled it out in the first of a series of live TV debates on Monday, during which the two top Tories clashed on topics including taxes, Brexit, China, and fashion.
During the hour-long BBC debate, former chancellor Sunak claimed there is “nothing Conservative” about his rival’s approach and said she would give the party “absolutely no chance” of winning the next election. Foreign Secretary Truss criticised Sunak for increasing taxes to the “highest rate in 70 years” and suggested he would lead the country into a recession.
After a weekend that saw allies of the two remaining Tory leadership candidates trade increasingly personal attacks , the pair went face-to-face in front of a studio audience of Conservative voters in Stoke-on-Trent – a key political battleground for the Conservatives having flipped from Labour in 2019. Following the debate, allies of Truss accused Sunak of “aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour," while Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told the BBC the Conservative Party has "lost the plot."
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Once all is said and done, it will be up to Tory party members to decide who will be the next leader of the Party and Prime Minister, so how did the two hopefuls fare in the eyes of the voters?
A snap poll by Opinium, based on a sample of 1,032 voters, found Rishi Sunak very slightly came out on top, with 39% of voters believing he had performed best compared to 38% for Liz Truss. The studio audience also appeared to applaud more often for Mr Sunak.
With postal ballots set to arrive on Tory members’ doorsteps by August 5, Sunak was under pressure to use the BBC debate to make an early breakthrough to ensure he wins over enough voters to be announced as next party leader and Prime Minister on 5 September.
The pair are set to go head to head again tonight (July 26), in another debate to be broadcast live on TalkTV.
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