Rishi Sunak calls for focus on inflation before tax cuts after attacking leadership rivals’ ‘fairytale’ plans – UK politics live | Politics

Here is a roundup of all the day’s top news stories from Westminster:

• Tory leadership contender Rishi Sunak has again insisted that inflation must be brought under control before the government can consider cutting taxes. Speaking during a visit to Teesside, where he secured the backing of the region’s mayor, Ben Houchen, he dismissed accusations that he had been a “socialist chancellor”.

• Conservative leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has been forced to defend her time in government as her rivals step up attacks on her ministerial record. The bookmakers’ favourite to win the race to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has accused other campaigns of running “black-ops” briefings against her to damage her chances of reaching the last two of the contest.

• Cabinet Office minister Kit Malthouse has warned that transport services face “significant disruption” owing to the heatwave as he urged people to avoid travelling on Monday and Tuesday. He said steps have been taken to ensure hospitals and ambulances that may come under pressure were prepared.

• Tom Tugendhat, the one Tory candidate without ministerial experience, said on Saturday he was committed to delivering on Brexit, despite having been a strong Remain supporter in the 2016 referendum. He said there were still important issues relating to the working of the Northern Ireland Protocol which needed to be resolved with the EU.

• Boris Johnson is threatening to set an “early test” for his successor by ensuring they have to face two early byelections as the new Tory leader, the Observer has been told. The prime minister is planning to elevate at least two current MPs to the House of Lords well before the next election, triggering two contests that will test public support for whoever replaces him in Downing Street.

• Sir Tony Blair has issued a rallying call to western nations to come together to develop a coherent strategy to counter the rise of China as “the world’s second superpower”. Delivering the annual Ditchley lecture the former prime minister called for a policy towards Beijing of “strength plus engagement” as he warned the era of western political and economic dominance was coming to an end.

That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along. You can keep across all the latest news from the Tory leadership race and Westminster here.

Goodbye for now.

Michael Savage

Boris Johnson is threatening to set an “early test” for his successor by ensuring they have to face two early byelections as the new Tory leader, the Observer has been told.

The prime minister is planning to elevate at least two current MPs to the House of Lords well before the next election, triggering two contests that will test public support for whoever replaces him in Downing Street.

It is understood that he wants to hand peerages to Nigel Adams, a Cabinet Office minister and one of his closest allies, and culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who has emerged as one of his most loyal cabinet colleagues. Both have large majorities, but the combination of a recent Tory poll slump and its disastrous recent byelection record could make the contests a close call.

There are currently two lists of peerages planned – one is a regular list, while the second is Johnson’s resignation honours list. “You can’t announce a peerage and say they won’t kick in for two years [after the next general election],” said a source familiar with Johnson’s plans. “Elevating MPs will mean those seats will be freed up to be contested. It will be a very early test for the new leader.”

Adams, who championed Johnson long before he became Tory leader, has already announced he is stepping down at the next election. As minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, he was at the heart of attempts to rescue Johnson’s premiership as it was falling apart earlier this month.

Tory leadership contender Rishi Sunak has again insisted that inflation must be brought under control before the government can consider cutting taxes.

In the first TV leadership debate on Friday, the former chancellor attacked calls by his rivals for immediate tax cuts paid for by increased borrowing as a “fairytale”.

Speaking during a visit to Teesside, where he secured the backing of the region’s mayor, Ben Houchen, he dismissed accusations that he had been a “socialist chancellor”, PA reported.

He said:

I think the number one economic priority we face as a country is inflation. I want to get a grip of inflation because inflation is what makes everybody poorer.

If we don’t get a grip of it now it will last longer and that is not a good thing. Once we’ve done that, I will deliver tax cuts.

Sunak also said he believed he would be the best leader to take on Labour at the next general election.

He said:

I am going to continue making the positive case for my candidacy and I believe I am the best possible person to help our party defeat Keir Starmer and defeat the Labour party in a general election.

Conservative leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has been forced to defend her time in government as her rivals step up attacks on her ministerial record.

The bookmakers’ favourite to win the race to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has accused other campaigns of running “black ops” briefings against her to damage her chances of reaching the last two of the contest.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the trade minister insisted her achievements in government prove she can “get stuff done” and demonstrate she is ready for the top job.

Sally Weale

Meanwhile, away from leadership debate, the former education recovery commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, has accused the government of burying its head in the sand over the loss of learning among children in England due to Covid, warning the problem will not just “go away”.

He expressed regret about lost opportunities after the government rejected his ambitious £15bn plan for recovery, including an extended school day for all, and warned that the flagship national tutoring programme (NTP) was in danger of becoming little more than “a few kids in the corner doing a bit of tutoring”.

Speaking a year after Covid restrictions were finally lifted on what the government called “freedom day”, Collins voiced concern about a tax-cutting arms race in the Conservative leadership contest, which he warned would result in cuts to education spending.

Collins resigned from his job as education catch-up tsar in June last year in protest at the prime minister’s decision to scale back recovery plans, warning the new offer did not come close to meeting the needs of children whose education was thrown into chaos by the pandemic. The government has so far pledged around £5bn in catch-up funding for schools and colleges.

In an interview with the Guardian, Collins said he remained convinced the country was underinvesting in education overall, and warned that the evidence emerging in recent months about the impact of lost learning suggested that the NTP, set up with great fanfare to help left-behind children catch up, was not delivering.

Key takeaways from the leadership debate

Martin Belam

The five candidates still standing for the leadership of the Conservative party were in action in a TV debate broadcast on Channel 4 on Friday night. Here are the five key takeaways:

Tom Tugendhat was the only one able to answer freely

Given the opportunity to answer “yes” or “no” to the question “is Boris Johnson honest?”, Tom Tugendhat was the only person able to do it. He got warm applause for simply saying: “No.”

Kemi Badenoch came closest, saying “Sometimes”. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss all refused to be drawn into the one word answer, and prevaricated.

Τugendhat essentially played the role of the minority party candidate in a multiparty debate, free to just speak his mind, call out the hypocrisy in everybody else, all the while safe in the knowledge there’s virtually zero chance he will end up elected.

Truss has a delivery mantra problem

Truss tried to focus again and again about delivery in every department, saying that her trade deals with Australia and Japan had been considered impossible, and that she had stood up to Vladimir Putin. But it all felt heavily scripted from her.

Badenoch and Tugendhat felt more off the cuff, and Sunak was a more fluid performer here than he has been on the radio over the last 48 hours. Truss felt rigid and dogmatic.

Sunak’s Treasury experience is a potential asset – but not with party members

In a crucial exchange that was mostly Sunak v Truss, the foreign secretary told the former chancellor that Covid was a once-in-a-century occurrence, and that the government should look accordingly at paying it back over a longer term. Sunak was clear, saying: “The best way for people to have money in their pocket is to get a grip of inflation.”

Again and again during the debate he demonstrated a better command of the numbers and Treasury brief, but you still ended up with the feeling that a man instinctively fiscally conservative is being pushed into a corner and portrayed as a leftist for not wanting to cut taxes

You can read more here:

What happened in the debate?

Peter Walker

In an often difficult night for all the candidates – former chancellor Rishi Sunak; foreign secretary Liz Truss; Penny Mordaunt, the trade minister and bookmakers’ favourite; the former levelling up minister Kemi Badenoch; and the backbencher Tom Tugendhat – not a single member of the audience of floating voters raised their hands when asked if they trusted politicians.

In a long section on trust, the candidates were asked whether Johnson was honest. “Sometimes,” said Badenoch, while Mordaunt talked about “really severe issues”, and Truss spoke of “mistakes”. Tugendhat won applause by saying, simply: “No.”

In a separate show of hands after a debate on energy bills just three people said they felt politicians were doing enough to help people. When asked at the end of the debate if it had made them more likely to vote Conservative, only 10 of the audience raised their hands.

Mordaunt and Badenoch clashed with visible enmity about the former’s views on trans rights. When Truss declined to back up her version of events about policies in the government’s equalities office, Badenoch said: “Come on Liz, tell the truth.”

Mordaunt, meanwhile, asked about negative briefings about her from some of the other camps, refused to say she trusted the other candidates.

Good morning.

Last night, the five remaining candidates to become the next Conservative leader, and therefore prime minister, went head-to-head in a live TV debate.

The debate saw open arguments over tax and identity politics – and none of the five candidates was willing to say that Boris Johnson is honest.

Coming hours after Liz Truss sought to reinvigorate her faltering campaign with a sudden announcement of new tax cuts costing more than £20bn a year, Rishi Sunak the ex-chancellor, openly ridiculed his former colleague’s plans during the Channel 4 broadcast.

You can read my colleague Peter Walker’s full report of the debate here.

Meanwhile, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has dismissed the acrimonious Conservative leadership race as a “travelling circus”, in which the candidates have demolished their party’s economic credibility by promising billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts.

He tells the Guardian’s political editor the party “has got no sense any more of what it stands for”.

“That’s why you have all these candidates scratching each other’s eyes out, taking lumps out of each other,” he said.

We’ll bring you all the latest UK political developments throughout the day, as they happen.