Tory leadership race

Pressure still on foreign secretary in leadership race as she gains just seven new backers in latest round.

Some of the ousted MP’s supporters said they would meet after the vote for a commiseration drink and discuss with each other who to back instead. “That’s going to undermine his position, because as a former chancellor, for him to go on level pegging, that’s damning.” The MP said he had been offered jobs in future administrations if he dropped out of the race, but he wanted to see party democracy run its course. Sunak gained 14 supporters from the last ballot, to put him on a total of 115, trailed by Penny Mordaunt, who lost one, giving her a total of 82. “This is about day one competence, she is showing she has always had the best depth and breadth of experience,” he added. “The threat we face is existential.”

Liz Truss, foreign secretary, on Tuesday narrowed the gap with trade minister Penny Mordaunt as they battled to join former chancellor Rishi Sunak in the ...

The chair of the foreign affairs committee has been eliminated in the third round of voting, leaving four candidates vying to be prime minister.

I'm in it to win." "To win an election we need the country behind us. Thank you to all my colleagues for their support. This is only the beginning!" It's all to play for. "One thing is clear - if we cannot rebuild trust, our party is doomed.

Penny Mordaunt clung on to second place as the contest intensifies ahead of next poll on Tuesday.

“She is one of the most hard-working ministers and constituency MPs I know. she’s ahead and she’s heading in the right direction, so that’s good.” I’m in it to win.” A series of votes among Tory MPs this week will narrow the field down to a final two, who will then face a summer of campaigning for the support of party members in a final vote. In a sign of the concern about the way the leadership race is being conducted, Mr Sunak and Ms Truss confirmed they did not want to take part in a Sky News debate planned for Tuesday – prompting the broadcaster to cancel the show. In a video posted to Twitter, Mr Tugendhat said: “That is the end of the road for me in this race, but look, it has been an amazing run, I’m incredibly proud of the team, I’m incredibly grateful to all the supporters who have been with me at some - if not all - stages of the race we fought for a clean start because we know that that’s what the country is crying out for.”

The battle to become the U.K. Conservative Party's next leader — and the country's next prime minister — heated up over the weekend.

Sky News was due to hold another televised debate between the contenders but announced on Monday that it had been canceled after Sunak and Truss pulled out. Sunak (one of the bookies' favorites to win the leadership) defended his record, saying the Covid pandemic had been a massive economic challenge and debts needed to be repaid. It led to a wave of resignations with ministers and officials saying Johnson no longer commanded their confidence. On matters ranging from taxes to trans rights, those looking to replace Boris Johnson clashed at various points during the leadership debate. In a somewhat bizarre spectacle. The battle to become Britain's next prime minister heated up over the weekend, as the five candidates vying to become Conservative Party leader looked more like enemies than colleagues in a televised debate on Sunday.

Get our free Inside Politics email ... Tory MPs will vote again on Tuesday in the Conservative leadership bid, as the race for second place intensifies after Tom ...

If the government had been defeated it would have almost certainly triggered a general election. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. So you get a severe danger of tracks buckling, what we can’t have is trains running over those and a terrible derailing. Contenders for the Conservative leadership are engaged in frenzied horse-trading for a handful of MPs’ votes which will decide who will go into the final battle to succeed Boris Johnson and become prime minister. But a Tory rebellion appeared unlikely, given the party remains leaderless and in no fit state to go to the polls, reports Adam Forrest: Mr Zahawi, in a speech to the City, will say the country should be “confident” the government can get a handle on inflation as the cost-of-living pressure on households continues to bite. In a sign of concern about the way the leadership race is being conducted, Conservative Party leadership frontrunners Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss confirmed they did not want to take part in a Sky News debate planned for Tuesday – prompting the broadcaster to cancel the show. The outgoing prime minister is set to praise the resilience of schools and the NHS in the face of extreme heat in what is expected to be his final scheduled cabinet. Speaking ahead of cabinet, the prime minister is expected to say: “We were the first country in the world to administer approved vaccines. And the report found that the poorest areas of the country have been hit hardest as spending on early intervention services was halved by councils in England from £3.8bn to £1.9bn between 2010-11 and 2020-21. “There is a war going on in Europe. Why on earth would he not go and meet with the RAF” “We’ve got to be very cautious and conscious of that, which is why there’s reduced speeds on large parts of the network.”

Kemi Badenoch at greatest risk of dropping out as latest round of voting will reduce candidates to final three.

Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt are now the two strongest candidates in the contest to be the second person on the final ballot. It is not inevitable - she has defied expectations already - but she remains 13 votes behind Truss, and may struggle to get much of the Tugendhat vote. He is now on 115 votes and once a candidate gets 120 (just over a third of the total), it is mathematically impossible for two other candidates to get more votes. But later in the day she had an apparent change of heart and told Talk TV that her commitment to the 2050 date was not absolute. Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, is now all but certain to be one of the two candidates on the final ballot for Conservative party members. Badenoch, the former equalities minister, is the only candidate still in the race who has not served in cabinet. As Steven Swinford reports, the decision means Ellwood will not be able to vote in parliamentary leadership ballot until the whip is restored. Ellwood, who was one of the Tories most critical of Boris Johnson, did not have permission to be away. We live in an increasingly dangerous world where the threat level is higher than a decade ago, and we need a stronger deterrent to face down those threats and ensure Britain leads on the global stage. Who can doubt that we were right to be the first major economy to go for net zero? Boris Johnson has a majority of 111 in the vote last night. But the whip is likely to be restored by the next Tory leader well before any election takes place.