Liz Truss

Only two candidates are left in the race to be next leader of the Conservative party. Our panellists tell us who they think will win.

He is the preference of most of his cabinet and MP colleagues as well as of opinion polls of the general public. That person is Sunak. He may also lack experience, but his performance at the Treasury during Johnson’s nightmare premiership suggests a man of sound judgment, caution and competence. Rishi Sunak has two months to convince the Conservative membership that they should mirror the support given to him by fellow MPs. The former chancellor may have won the most votes from colleagues in his leadership bid, but his opponent, Liz Truss is – at the time of writing – that bit more popular with the Tory base. It has long stipulated that the government of the country should be led by the person who commands majority support of the House of Commons. They live predominantly in the south of England. That the nation’s leadership should hang on this tiny unrepresentative group is a perversion of parliamentary democracy. The decision of Truss versus Rishi Sunak now goes to a bizarre “selectorate” of the Tory party members. But a month is plenty of time for the former chancellor to turn things around. At present, Liz Truss is the favourite to win the second round; Conservative party members are not, in the main, well-disposed towards high taxes, even in aid of the impeccably Tory goal of not funding day-to-day spending by borrowing. But for now, he remains the candidate who seems more likely to reassure those voters that the Conservatives remain a sensible, acceptable option – and more than anything else, Tory activists want a winner. Yet while there is an immediate need to cut the cost of living by redistributing wealth and upgrading social infrastructure, there is no urgent necessity to cut the deficit. It is maybe why the economic debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss seems so utterly removed from the reality of British capitalism today. This is especially true of the Conservative party, whose members – overwhelmingly rich, old, white and male – will select the country’s next prime minister.

Former Goldman Sachs analyst and pandemic chancellor is up against one-time accountant turned foreign secretary.

Wants to continue the Johnsonian levelling-up agenda, but based around low tax and low regulation zones. Committed to maintaining government’s legally binding goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 and has assured the Tories’ green wing he would protect the environment. On the environment Getting lost while trying to leave her press conference setting out her leadership stall. On the environment Supports Rwanda removal scheme, though No 10 sources have briefed that he opposed it as chancellor.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will put their cases forward to the Conservative Party's 180000 members who will vote to decide who becomes the new leader on ...

The day also marked the final appearance of outgoing Boris Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, where he was given a standing ovation by Conservative MPs as he left the House of Commons as Prime Minister for the last time. The leadership change comes after Mr Johnson resigned as leader of the Conservative Party in early July following a string of scandals that embroiled him and his government. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will battle it out against former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to replace Boris Johnson and become the Conservative party leader and next prime minister of the United Kingdom.

London: British foreign secretary Liz Truss has sensationally staged a late comeback in the contest to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, winning the ...

Sunak voted “Leave” during Brexit but is backed by Tory centrists and moderates, many of whom voted for “Remain”, because they believe he has the ability to reach the public. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sunak and former health secretary Sajid Javid quit Johnson’s cabinet on July 5. He became a household name during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the furlough scheme and the “Eat out to Help Out” campaign aimed at stimulating the hospitality industry. I won’t let you down.” There were two spoiled ballots.

Liz Truss is less popular than Rishi Sunak among the public, but polls suggest she'll win the ballot of Conservative Party members and become PM in ...

Ms Truss, though, has a negative net rating of 14 points: just 30 per cent say she would make a good prime minister, and 44 per cent reckon she would be bad. Ms Truss was the second choice of MPs, gaining 113 votes to Mr Sunak’s 137. Whichever candidate wins, they will start amid considerable scepticism from some of their parliamentary colleagues. But he might be encouraged by having narrowed that gap from a previous figure of 24 points. Mr Sunak has already released a video in which he tells party members he is the only candidate capable of beating Mr Starmer in the election that must take place by January 2025, “and that’s what we’re going to talk to our members about now”. YouGov polling of a relatively small number of the party’s members suggests Ms Truss is on course to beat Mr Sunak, with the backing of 54 per cent of party members to his 35 per cent.

Analysis: in the most unpredictable leadership race in years, MPs' vote was closer than final two would have liked.

But she did have the advantage of Tuesday night’s result, which knocked out Badenoch. Truss’s team were fishing for votes in an easier pool, with her having positioned herself as the flagbearer of the right of the party. Many of those she already knows; Truss has always prioritised outreach to her parliamentary colleagues, holding surgeries in the tea rooms and hosting “fizz with Liz” (a term that has become legendary in SW1 but which her allies say she has never used). Since the race began, Truss has declined all broadcast interviews, apart from the debates, focusing on honing her message to MPs. She convinced a new generation of “red wall” MPs that she could be the standard bearer for Brexit, showing her commitment to the cause with evidence of trade deals signed and the Northern Ireland protocol bill.

British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is considered the frontrunner after having been named a final two candidates for PM.

In a visit to Estonia last November, Truss posed in military gear on top of a tank, which some think was an effort to resemble an iconic photo of former Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher and “Iron Lady”, who also once posed atop a military tank. Inflation hit a 40-year high hours before the candidacy results were announced and is expected to be the central issue in the next vote. While the race for PM looks to be in Truss’s favour, things are still fairly unpredictable. Last year, at age 46, Truss became the UK’s second female foreign secretary and has held a wide variety of posts in Parliament, dealing with high-profile domestic and international issues. She even went so far as to express support for individuals from the UK who might want to fight in Ukraine, although this was met with much criticism. Truss is also believed to have the unofficial backing of Johnson.

The UK foreign secretary is now the hot favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister.

"It was another example of the focus on messaging over substance." "I honestly think it's already over," one supportive MP said Wednesday. "She's no good at the hustings — we saw that last week — but it doesn't matter a jot. More colleagues rushed to Truss this week, he added, as it became clear she had a real shot at the top job. Both his Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg rowed in behind her campaign and were unafraid to get personal with her rivals. A YouGov poll of Tory members this week suggested that in a run-off between Truss and Sunak, it would be the foreign secretary who comes out on top. “We think that debate crystallized in people’s minds that she was someone who could really take it to Rishi," an aide said. She was then widely judged to have performed disastrously in the first of two televised leadership debates, and has continued to poll poorly among the general public over which candidate would make the best prime minister. “It's all about who has the most friends," one supportive MP explained. Truss has pledged to cancel his planned 6p rise in corporation tax, and abolish a £12 billion increase in national insurance contributions. Similarly, Truss appears to have picked up crucial votes at the 11th hour from her right-wing rival Kemi Badenoch, who was eliminated Tuesday night. Truss had been slow to launch, stuck abroad in Indonesia on ministerial duty when the Johnson regime imploded earlier this month. She now finds herself the hot favorite to win the race for No. 10 Downing Street.