“Conservative MPs will vote again on Tuesday as they continue the process of choosing the two candidates for leader who will be put to a vote of members. One of the four remaining contenders – Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, and Kemi Badenoch – will be eliminated when the result is announced later. Mr Sunak looks almost certain to make the final two, with the other three candidates vying for second place. Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat was knocked out after Monday’s vote of MPs. Separately, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold his last scheduled cabinet meeting on Tuesday ahead of Westminster’s summer recess.” – BBC
>Today:
>Yesterday:
“The final Conservative leadership debate was cancelled yesterday after candidates became concerned about the damage the increasingly bitter clashes were doing to the party. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss both pulled out of the Sky News debate, which was scheduled for tonight, prompting the broadcaster to scrap it. The two have been attacking each other’s views on the economy. Sunak had condemned Truss’s plan for more borrowing as socialist and she had accused him of pushing Britain into recession. Penny Mordaunt has been attacked on her record in government and shifting stance on trans issues.” – The Times
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: Why are the candidates in this election playing the broadcasters’ Hunger Games – knifing, shooting, bludgeoning and strangling each other on live TV? To Starmer’s gain.
“Boris Johnson survived a confidence vote in his Government on Monday, giving him seven more weeks in Downing Street before his successor takes charge. MPs voted by 349 to 238 in favour of the motion, which was tabled by the Government as a response to a Labour attempt last week to hold another vote on Mr Johnson. Speaking at the start of the debate, the outgoing PM struck a bullish note as he insisted he had got “the big calls right” during his two-and-a-half years in office while urging the Tories to unite around his successor.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: Andrew Gimson’s Commons sketch: Starmer decides to stick with what he knows, and attacks Johnson
“Supporters of Liz Truss have said her key rival, Penny Mordaunt, has “topped out” of backers, as the foreign secretary gained ground in the fight for second place in the Conservative leadership contest. Mordaunt lost a vote in the latest ballot of Tory MPs – a key sign her campaign had stalled after a weekend of bruising attacks – but remained behind frontrunner Rishi Sunak. But the pressure is still on Truss, who gained just seven MP backers, less than the fourth-placed Kemi Badenoch, who received nine new supporters.” – The Guardian
“By tomorrow morning Mr Sunak could be so far ahead that he is able to surreptitiously ‘lend’ votes to the candidate he would most like to face in the final run-off. The disreputable tactic is hard to prove. But Tory MPs believe it was deployed to give both Theresa May and Boris Johnson an easy run. In each case their campaigns were masterminded by former chief whip Sir Gavin Williamson, who is now on Team Sunak. On the evidence of recent days, Mr Sunak would probably rather face Miss Mordaunt, whose campaign appears to have stalled.” – Daily Mail
“It’s important to realise that mandatory housing targets for councils don’t work. It is an idea that has been tested to destruction over many years, and it’s time to face the fact that they’ve been a failure everywhere. So we will abolish housebuilding targets and replace them with incentives. We will extend permitted development rights to allow “build up not out” in urban areas, following local council-produced style codes to match high local standards on style, height and materials. We will help councils with novel ways of new affordable house-building, such as modular homes and councils setting up their own house-building companies.” – Penny Mordaunt, Daily Telegraph
“One day, when I suggested he take it easy after a late event, he said he was getting up at 5am to join a farmer milking cows. “You don’t really have to do that,” I assured him. “I know,” he said. “But I really want to know what it’s like. I’ve got to understand for myself.” People need to know that Sunak is like this…Rivals accuse him of raising taxes but sat in a cabinet that always wanted higher spending. Some say his family is too wealthy but that would only be a problem if he were pretentious, remote or behaved as if entitled. Sunak is the very opposite of all those things.” – William Hague, The Times
“How would Truss fund her pledges to cut taxes? She has outlined plans to pay Britain’s Covid debts over the long term, much as the nation did after the war. She is clear that there will be no return to the austerity of David Cameron’s government, an era of which she is now explicitly critical. Although the Cameron government achieved “great things” — she cites tougher maths GCSEs, which her daughter just sat and is “not grateful for” — some cuts were unsustainable. “I felt that one of the mistakes that we made in the Cameron years was making cuts to public spending that weren’t necessarily sustainable, for example on social care,” she said.” – The Times
“Concerns about erasing the words ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ from a new law on maternity leave were rejected by Penny Mordaunt, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries claimed yesterday. She said the Tory leadership contender ‘dismissed’ criticism for using the term ‘person’ instead. Mrs Dorries’ intervention will raise further concerns about the international trade minister’s ‘woke’ views after she was accused of not standing up for women. She said Miss Mordaunt ‘refused to even discuss’ with fellow ministers Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch – who are now up against her in the leadership contest – the changes she was proposing. She wrote on Twitter: ‘I have a WhatsApp exchange from when I tried to reach out, where Penny again dismisses the issue of erasing the words “mother and woman” and replacing [them] with person – instead urging me to focus not on that, but on the positives.” – Daily Mail
“The two Cabinet front runners, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, came under pressure for which – as is often the case with front-runners – they were not quite ready. But by yesterday morning, both had proved they could answer back. Indeed, their way of doing so – by attacking one another – was illuminating. This brought out real differences of view about economic policy, frankly expressed. And when Mr Sunak took the risk of being quite personal – setting a trick question for Ms Truss about her having been a Remainer and a Liberal Democrat – he scored by reminding voters of things they won’t like about her; but she scored higher by coming back with a robust reply about what she had learnt from her political journey…The only contestants that are suspect are those who refuse to engage with the issues the battle throws up. Please tell us what you actually think, Penny Mordaunt.” – Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph
“Western Europe faces more sweltering temperatures on Tuesday as a ferocious heatwave heads north. In France and the UK extreme heat warnings were issued while northern Spain recorded temperatures of 43C (109F) on Monday. Wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. The UK is expected to see its hottest day ever and experts say parts of France face a “heat apocalypse”. Several parts of France saw their hottest-ever days with the western city of Nantes recording 42C, the national weather office said. Wildfires in recent days have forced more than 30,000 people to flee, with emergency shelters set up for evacuees.” – BBC
“The government is due to unveil this year’s pay deal for 2.5 million public sector workers. The awards cover one in four public servants, including teachers, nurses, doctors, police officers, and members of the armed forces. Unions are pressing for pay to reflect the cost of living, as inflation rises at the fastest rate for 40 years. But ministers have signalled awards will not match price rises, warning this would push inflation even higher. It raises the prospect of a wave of strikes later this year, with several unions already threatening industrial action if salaries fall behind.” – BBC
“Conservative Party members are unwilling to prioritise the Government’s 2050 net zero targets “because 90pc of them will be dead”, a Conservative MP has claimed. Chris Skidmore, a former junior minister and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Environment, cited a “rather depressing” poll of Conservative members which found that just 4pc wanted leadership candidates to put the country’s net zero strategy in their top three priorities.” – Daily Telegraph
“Nadhim Zahawi, the new chancellor, will on Tuesday commit to bringing down inflation and rule out borrowing for tax cuts, in a sign that he will continue with the fiscal policies of his predecessor Rishi Sunak. In his first speech since being appointed, Zahawi will also endorse Sunak’s plan for a radical overhaul of post-Brexit financial regulation to ensure Britain remains “one of the most dynamic financial centres in the world”…the new chancellor will insist in his Mansion House speech in the City of London that tackling inflation remains a core priority for the government.” – Financial Times