Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was prepared for former chancellor Rishi Sunak to take her on this week in televised debates on the race to be Britain’s next prime minister, but not with such ferocity.
“For the televised debates, we prepared for three scenarios: that he went on the attack, that he was Mr. Patronus, or a combination of the two,” said one Truss ally. “We were amazed at how aggressive he was.”
But at the end of a week of bitter political battle between the two candidates to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader, Sunak, not Truss, was on the defensive.
The former chancellor’s attacks on the foreign secretary and his policy interventions – whether on China or tax – were turned on Sunak, leaving him reeling.
“Almost everything he’s tried has come out worse,” said David Gauke, a former Tory cabinet minister. The bookies now have Sunak usually at 5-1 to win the race, with Truss the red-hot favorite at 1-8.
Time is running out for Sunak: more than 150,000 ballots began arriving on the doorsteps of Tory members on Monday, meaning voting to elect the party’s next leader begins next week.
Sunak hopes a run of 12 fights with party members, which began in Leeds on Thursday, will provide him with a way back. But Truss performed well in his home town and Sunak was accused by one member of “stabbing” Johnson in the back by resigning as chancellor this month.
Sunak’s strategy to present himself as the serious leader for tough times seems to have failed so far. Instead, Truss presented the former chancellor as a succession candidate, unable to break free from the orthodoxies of the Treasury and lead Britain into recession.
Sunak has been trying to close the gap with Truss all this week, particularly on Monday during a BBC1 primetime debate when he frequently interrupted the Foreign Secretary to attack her “inflationary” plans for immediate tax cuts.
An opinion poll after the debate showed that viewers thought the event was essentially a draw, but many viewers complained about the interruptions. Truss’ team accused Sunak of “aggressive manipulation.”
Then, after spending much of his campaign criticizing Truss for proposing rapid tax cuts, Mr Sunak on Tuesday announced his own £4bn “temporary” cut in value added tax on household energy bills.
Sunak insisted the move would help curb inflation, but as chancellor he previously rejected the VAT cut, saying it was poorly aimed at helping wealthy households as well as the poor.
The Truss team described Sunak’s VAT proposal as a “creaking U-turn”. Johnson, who wanted to cut VAT but was blocked by Sunak, joked that it was now looking “easier than we thought”.
Sunak’s attempts to cast himself as a China hawk also self-destructed after it emerged on Thursday that he had made plans as chancellor for a major UK-China economic and financial conference. The meeting was later cancelled.
Sunak discovered the problems of running for the Conservative leadership as a former chancellor: the person in government whose job it is to make the tough calls on what is considered the economic national interest. Hoping to match his record, Sunak instead seems trapped by it.
Johnson’s allies, who accused Sunak of treason by quitting the government and prompting the prime minister’s premature exit, were rejoicing in his difficulties as they tried to thwart his leadership bid.
One Johnson ally said Sunak had “messed up the whole positioning” of his leadership campaign by running as a leaver, backed by some of the party’s biggest remaining members, and claiming to be a tax cut, which he really is led a major expansion of the state as chancellor. “He’s basically on the wrong side of the party membership on every major issue,” the Johnson ally added.
While Truss told Tory members of his tough stance with Brussels on Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade arrangements, Johnson’s supporters highlighted how Sunak favored a softer line to avoid provoking a trade war with the EU.
Sunak’s decision to raise national insurance contributions to pay for the extra spending on the NHS and social care – opposed by Truss at the time – is now cited by Johnson’s supporters as evidence that he was a “socialist” chancellor.
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Meanwhile, Truss is turning into a Tory leadership contest. After appearing as a wooden automaton in the first Channel 4 televised debate, her human side came out in subsequent ones, recoiling in horror when host Kate McCann collapsed at a TalkTV event on Tuesday.
The Foreign Secretary, who campaigned to remain in the 2016 EU referendum, learned a lot from the Leave campaign. She accuses Sunak of running Project Fear, saying her unfunded tax cuts could worsen Britain’s economic situation.
Sunak’s team had hoped that polls so far would show that ordinary voters preferred him to Truss. Although YouGov produced a poll this week showing Sunak more popular among swing voters, the evidence is far from conclusive.
Conservative MPs supporting Sunak are in despair. One said: “The campaign just didn’t work well. The campaign began as an underwater operation, doing as little media as possible and avoiding scrutiny. Then they panicked and had to put it everywhere.
Supporters of the former chancellor insisted he could still turn things around. They said there were still weeks to go in the contest – the result of the Tory MP vote will be announced on September 5.
Conservative MPs who backed Sunak for the party leadership are urging Tory members to back the former chancellor on the basis that he is more likely than Truss to win the next election. “It’s convincing,” said one lawmaker.
But other MPs who support Sunak have warned that his chances of being the next Tory leader are limited as the clock is ticking fast.
One former minister said: “It would take a big windfall for Liz not to win it now.” Another former minister said Sunak was “not late. The concrete is starting to harden”.
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