The Tory leadership race is getting increasingly crowded: a dozen candidates are now bidding for the top job. Rishi Sunak remains the front runner, but can he hold off challenges from fellow favourites Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt? Around half of Tory MPs have nailed their colours to the mast; you can read the exhaustive list of who’s backing who here. Meanwhile, here’s a rundown of the main developments:
- Liz Truss launched her leadership bid last night, promising to ‘start cutting taxes from day one’ in an article for the Daily Telegraph today.
- Michael Gove endorsed Kemi Badenoch. Her odds of winning went from 80/1 on Thursday to 10/1 this morning.
- The 1922 executive elections are to be held this afternoon. There have been suggestions that the committee could raise the threshold for entry to the race to weed out no-hopers (read more from Katy Balls below).
- The centrist candidate Jeremy Hunt announced that Esther McVey would be his deputy prime minister. Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat secured the support of Johnsonite and Brexiteer Anne-Marie Trevelyan as his deputy.
- Membership favourite Ben Wallace announced on Saturday that he would not be running.
- Johnson loyalist Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Andrew Neil Show that whoever wins should call a general election to establish their own mandate.
- A Tory attack memo laying out all of Rishi Sunak’s perceived failures was leaked. Read the full document here.
- Read our full list of who is running and who’s backing who here.
8:20 Can Sajid Javid’s leadership bid stand out from the crowd?
Isabel Hardman writes…What did Sajid Javid pitch himself as this afternoon? Well, the candidate of tax cuts, along with all the others apart from Rishi Sunak. But given everyone is engaged in an arms race on how big and how soon their tax cuts will be, there is largely Conservative consensus now that these are going to happen. So what does the former Health Secretary think will make him stand out from the (very big) crowd? Read more here.
8:00 Tory leadership race tightens as MP threshold raised
Katy Balls writes…The 1922 Committee has this evening agreed to change the Tory leadership rules so as to raise the threshold of the number of MP nominations required to enter the race. Each candidate will need 20 supporters, including a proposer and seconder, in order to enter. They will then need to secure 30 votes in the first round to progress. Read more here.
7:40pm Leadership timeline announced
Coffee House writes…The chairman of the 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady has just announced the timeline for the Tory leadership election. Nominations will open and close tomorrow, with the first ballot of the contest due to be held on Wednesday. The second round will be held on Thursday. To be nominated, candidates must have at least 20 endorsements, and must gain 30 to proceed past the first round. The new leader of the Conservative party, and the new PM, will be announced on 5 September.
6:10pm The fight to win over the right of the party is heating up
Katy Balls writes… Priti Patel spoke with members of the European Research Group today where she pitched herself as right candidate to pursue a pro-Brexit agenda. While no formal announcement has followed, it is adding to nerves among some of the other campaigns that the vote among the right party risks being overly divided – and thereby MPs could struggle to rally around a candidate to put in the final two. It could get even more crowded if Jacob Rees Mogg chooses to throw his hat in the ring. The candidates picking up the highest number of votes right now are Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat. It points to the issue for those candidates courting the right of the party with this many vying for support.
6:00pm Will Shapps pull out?
Steerpike writes… Grant Shapps is performing the worst out of all the leadership candidates, aside from Rehman Chishti’s no-hope candidacy. With just seven MPs, it would be hardly a surprise therefore if the Transport Secretary opted to pull out and back a candidate with a better chance of winning. So Mr S was intrigued to hear that Shapps has been in discussions with Tom Tugendhat’s campaign about endorsing him, ahead of the latter’s formal launch tomorrow. When asked by Mr S, Tugendhat’s team declined to comment while Shapps’ team did not respond. One to keep an eye on…
5:40pm 1922 Committee election results are in
Katy Balls writes…The results of the 1922 executive elections are in. Graham Brady remains as the chair, with Nus Ghani & Will Wragg re-elected as vice chairman.
As for the new executive:
Aaron Bell
Miriam Cates
Jo Gideon
Richard Graham
Chris Green
Robert Halfon
Sally-Ann Hart
Andrew Jones
Tom Randall
David Simmonds
John Stevenson
Martin Vickers
The results are striking as much for who is not there than who is. While some supporters of Tom Tugendhat – currently on 19 MPs – made it on, Steve Baker who is championing Suella Braverman – currently on 11 MPs – for leader did not make the cut. That suggests that the committee could support raising the threshold of MP nominations to narrow the field, with limits of course. This would hurt some of the lesser known candidates such as Braverman. Either way, it won’t be long until we found out the new rules for the contest – the new executive is meeting now with an announcement expected by 7 this evening.
5.00 p.m. Is Suella Braverman splitting the right-wing Tory vote?
James Forsyth writes…The Braverman camp are bullish that she can maintain her standing as the candidate of the ERG, and resist attempts to get her to fold into any other campaign. But there is frustration on the right of the party that they have so many candidates right now. One Cabinet Minister from that wing of the party complains that almost theological differences are preventing an effort to unite the right behind one candidate.
3.50 p.m. How will the candidates fund their pledges?
Kate Andrews writes… Big economic policy announcements are coming in thick and fast this afternoon. Sajid Javid has broken down the tens of billions of tax cuts he promised over the weekend, which will include a 1p cut to income tax next year, slashing fuel duty by 10p per litre, scrapping the new National Insurance levy from next year (the one he jointly signed off with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak last year) and scrapping the six percentage point rise to corporation tax.
Meanwhile Nadhim Zahawi has promised quite substantial income tax cuts, reducing the basic rate by 1p next year, and then by another 1p the year after that (somewhere around a £10bn – £12bn tax cut). He would also throw out the corporation tax hike and abolish (temporary) green levies on energy bills to help with the cost-of-living crunch.
Major tax cuts, little detail on costing. Javid has also pledged major supply-side reform on housing: a key area that could boost UK productivity and growth, to get more revenue into the Treasury. But what he realistically thinks that will raise in the short-term, and whether it covers tax cuts, remains to be seen.
3.45 p.m. Rishi Sunak approaches 40 endorsements
Coffee House writes…With more than half of Tory MPs having now declared who they are backing in their quest to be leader, the contest among the twelve candidates is hotting up. At the latest count, Rishi Sunak is still ahead with 38 endorsements, with Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat coming in with 22 and 18 respectively. Read the full list of who’s backing who here.
2.20 p.m. Who will win Lord Frost’s vote?
James Heale writes… At the Churchill War Rooms, Nadhim Zahawi and Suella Braverman have both just finished their speeches to mark the relaunch of Conservative Way Forward. Zahawi vowed to slash taxes, pledging to reverse Sunak’s corporation tax rises if he wins and ensure that tax as a percentage of GDP will fall year on year. Braverman’s pitch focused on the failings of the state. She declared that we need a ‘resilient’ society and warned that the Tories risk being a ‘postmodern party at sea’. But the most important aspect of this afternoon was the speech of Lord Frost, whose endorsement is one of the most prized, along with that of Ben Wallace. He told attendees that: ‘It is so reassuring to see that the level of taxation is so large a part of the leadership debate… I won’t be able to endorse any candidate who isn’t arguing for that in an ambitious and radical form.’ Both candidates who spoke today want lower taxes but it seems to be a more central part of Zahawi’s campaign than that of Braverman. Will he win Frost’s approval?
1.40 p.m. Tories seek to win the Thatcherite vote
Steerpike writes… Here at the Churchill war rooms, a battle is underway. Suella Braverman and Nadhim Zahawi are set to speak at the relaunch of the Thatcherite Conservative Way Forward movement. Expectations are high, given the presence of several prominent backbenchers like Steve Baker, Dehenna Davison and the undeclared Mark Francois. But eager hacks have found the airless, windowless World War Two bunker isn’t exactly the most congenial location to file on a sweltering summer’s day. As one seasoned Westminster-watcher remarked to Mr S: ‘The question is who’s the sweatiest man in the room?’ Looks like the contest is about to heat up…
1.25 p.m. Are Tory candidates guilty of ‘fantasy economics’?
Kate Andrews writes… Are the Tory candidates in danger of over-promising on tax cuts? Hard to imagine, given the tax burden sits at a 72-year high and is in desperate need of a reduction; but in a bid to contrast themselves from current the fiscally prudent frontrunner Rishi Sunak, leadership hopefuls have spent the past 72 hours making some extremely lofty promises. So much so, that Keir Starmer didn’t hesitate to brand the Tory leadership race this morning as one defined by ‘fantasy economics’.
Sajid Javid is thought to have pledged roughly £40 billion worth of tax cuts. Jeremy Hunt started his weekend insisting that cutting corporation tax to a record-low 15 per cent could actually see revenue rise – an argument that has evidence to back it up. But he ended it by insisting he’d ‘cut all taxes’, quite the pledge, without any serious policy to back it up. Meanwhile Nadhim Zahawi gave the impression he was planning a 20 per cent cut across Whitehall department budgets to pay for his tax cuts. This was then clarified as a pledge to cut 20 per cent of civil service staff. A controversial plan in many circles, no doubt, but still not enough to cover his tax-slashing agenda.
The irony is that Sunak has not revealed his tax agenda yet, which is arguably overdue for scrutiny. But waiting it out may prove politically savvy: having seen just how far other candidates have gone without costing their proposals, he is in a position to double down on ‘fiscal responsibility’ again, and still lay out a plan of his own to bring the tax burden down.
12.00 a.m. Half of MPs have now come out
James Heale writes… Some 166 Tory MPs have now made endorsements for the 12 candidates who are in the running: a combined total of 178 of the 358 Conservatives in the House of Commons. Rishi Sunak has the lead but the places below him keep switching: sometimes Truss is in front of Zahawi, then Tugendhat gets two more, followed by another for Hunt. The contest is in many ways ‘leadership election by Twitter’; historically MPs would at least pretend to go to hustings with an open mind. But campaign teams want to project momentum and publicly claim as many endorsements as possible – something that is all the more vital in such a crowded field.
9.30 a.m. Trusted to deliver?
Katy Balls writes… Another day, another campaign launch video. This time it’s Liz Truss’s turn. After announcing overnight that she will be running for the leadership, the Foreign Secretary has laid out her pitch in a slick video (though perhaps not quite as slick as Rishi Sunak’s).
In a patriotic message where she begins by talking of her love for the U.K, Truss attempts to set her apart from the other candidates by saying it is her experience combined with her values that means she would be best placed to deliver tax cuts and lead the country. She has also gone for the slogan ‘Trusted to deliver’, focussing more on delivery than setting herself out as different from Boris Johnson, something other candidates such as Rishi Sunak and Tom Tugendhat have also done. One of the problems facing Truss, however, is courting the right of the party. Many of these MPs want someone who backed Leave in the referendum.
9.00 a.m. Ready for Rehman?
Steerpike writes… Gladstone. Churchill. Thatcher. Every age has its own political colossus. But it seems that Rehman Chishti is destined to prove that no prophet is accepted in his own time. For despite declaring his candidacy ten hours ago, the Gillingham MP is still yet to gain a single backer from his 357 Tory colleagues. Until three days ago, Chishti had spent his entire career on the backbenches, until the fall of Boris Johnson’s government meant he was at last called to serve in the Foreign Office as a junior minister. But it seems that higher office will be denied him (for now), given the, er, reaction to his announcement last night that he is wants to be PM. Still, he does make history in a different way: as the first former Labour parliamentary candidate to run for Tory leader. Surely that’s something, eh?
8.45 a.m. Leadership election rule change?
Katy Balls writes… The Tory leadership contest is a very crowded place – but it could be significantly slimmed down by this evening. Today is the 1922 executive election, the committee that represents Tory backbenchers. Once the new executive is in place this afternoon, they will meet to immediately decide the rules for the coming contest, raising the threshold at which candidates can enter the race. Read Katy’s full analysis here.
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