Sunak Terms Truss’ Plan to Save UK Economy ‘Fairy Tale’ and Other Key Takeaways From Tory Leadership Debate

Contenders for the Conservative Party chief post and the UK Prime Minister went head to head on Friday in a TV debate. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat went head-to-head on Friday over rising inflation and taxes.

????BREAKING – SNAP DEBATE POLL????

Tonight we asked over 1000 normal voters to watch the debate and we have just asked them who they thought performed best.

Results:
Tugendhat 36%
Sunak 25%
Mordaunt 12%
Badenoch 12%
Truss 6% pic.twitter.com/0q4IliqQNM

— Opinium (@OpiniumResearch) July 15, 2022

According to UK-based news outlets and a poll by Opinium Research, the viewers were impressed with Tom Tugendhat’s strong performance in Channel 4’s debate. When questioned about Boris Johnson and if Tugendhat thought he was honest, Tom’s straightforward answer impressed the viewers: “No.”

The same could not be said for Badenoch, Mordaunt and Boris’s former staffer Sunak and his foreign secretary Truss as they stalled the pace of the debate by not offering a direct answer.

At least 36% of the voters felt Tugendhat performed the best on Friday. However, he is expected to drop out as he trails Rishi Sunak by 69 MPs.

Sunak also impressed as he defended decisions he took during his time as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The polls showed that 25% of the voters were impressed with the points raised by Rishi Sunak.

However, it was Sunak and Truss – who only impressed 6% of voters – who went head to head over economy, inflation and taxes.

Rishi Sunak stood firmly with his promise that he will get a grip on inflation first. “I don’t think the responsible thing to do right now is launch into some unfunded spree of borrowing and more debt, that will just make inflation worse, it will make the problem longer,” Sunak said.
“Borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan, it’s a fairytale,” Sunak said.

Truss responded by saying that Sunak cannot tax his way to glory. “I think it is wrong to put taxes up,” she responded without offering a concrete answer. She criticized Rishi Sunak’s national insurance increase but without any degree of sharpness. “I support the extra money, I just don’t support the way we funded it. I support spreading the Covid debt over a longer period of time,” Truss said.

Speaking over Truss’ performance, Harry Lambert of the New Statesman said that if one looks at her tenure as the foreign secretary of the UK then one would remember her difficulties while answering questions on-air.

One would also remember her gaffes during her meeting with Russian foreign minister Lavrov where she mistook Russian territories for Ukrainian.

Mordaunt continued to be a victim of Conservative Party’s culture warriors over her support for transgender rights. “I’m a woman, I’m a biological woman, if I had a mastectomy I would still be a woman – I’m a biological woman in every cell in my body,” Mordaunt said when questioned over her stand – once again.

However, the viewers present at the studio were left unimpressed with the debate as well as the contenders. The moderator asked if the debate made them more likely to vote Conservative, only 10 people raised their hands.

(with inputs from the BBC, the New Statesman and the Guardian)

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