The Conservative Party leadership contenders are wading into each other as the remaining rivals try to gain ground on former chancellor Rishi Sunak.
| The race to become Britain’s next prime minister in September is boiling down to a bitter contest between smooth-talking former chancellor Rishi Sunak and a pair of female contenders attacking him from different parts of the political spectrum.
Mr Sunak attracted another 14 MPs to his camp from the previous ballot last Thursday, when attorney-general Suella Braverman was eliminated with just 27 votes. Ms Badenoch garnered another nine, and Ms Truss another seven. Both Mr Tugendhat’s and Ms Mordaunt’s tallies dropped by one vote. Mr Sunak was judged in snap opinion polls to have won both debates, but only after engaging in a sharp war of words over his record as chancellor, akin to Australia’s treasurer, with his erstwhile cabinet colleague Ms Truss.
Ms Mordaunt seemed on course for victory before the weekend. But Ms Truss, despite a weaker performance in the TV debates, appears to be making up ground.Ms Truss is calling for immediate tax cuts, and for some of Mr Sunak’s tax-raising measures to be halted, which would be funded by more government borrowing.
Ms Badenoch, by contrast, has dialled down talk of tax cuts and started to swing behind Mr Sunak’s espousal of fiscal discipline - he calls it balancing the books, she says that every tax cut comes with trade-offs.
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