A second poll in less than 24 hours showed the gap between the foreign minister and Mr Sunak widening. The new survey of Conservative Party members by ConservativeHome released on Wednesday found that Mrs Truss is most likely to become the next Prime Minister – with 58% of those polled backing her. Mr Sunak was found to have the support of 26% – while 12% were undecided. Sajid Javid backs Liz Truss as PM – Politics Latest Meanwhile, former health secretary and failed Tory leadership candidate Sajid Javid also endorsed her campaign in a second huge blow of the day for Mr Sunak. Writing in the Times, Mr Javid said Mr Sunak’s refusal to cut taxes meant the UK was at risk of becoming a “middle-income economy”.
More on the Tory leadership race
Whereas, he said, Ms Truss had the “willingness to challenge the status quo”. Mr Javid is the second former leadership candidate to back the foreign secretary this week, after Penny Mordaunt announced her support on Monday. A YouGov poll of Tory members released on Tuesday also showed Ms Truss extending her lead over Mr Sunak to 34 points in the Tory leadership race. The survey, carried out for The Times, found that 60% of party members now say they will vote for the foreign secretary to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister. This compared with just 26% for former chancellor Mr Sunak. A spokesman for Ms Truss’s campaign said polls showed “Liz’s vision for the UK is resonating with members”. Truss ‘takes nothing for granted’ As the leadership race continues to heat up, candidates Mr Sunak and Ms Truss will be back in front of the cameras this evening on Sky News. Mr Sunak will fight to gain ground during a key week in the competition for the keys to Number 10. The Battle for Number 10 will take place at 8 p.m. tonight at Sky Studios in west London, The Battle for Number 10, and will see the candidates take part in repeated questions from the live studio audience made up of Conservative Party members who remain largely undecided about who they will vote for. For. This will be followed by an in-depth interview with Kay Burley. Yesterday, both leadership contenders took part in the final showdowns held in Cardiff. Ms Truss told the audience she was “taking nothing for granted” and that “there is still a long way to go in this leadership election”. In the first upheaval for her campaign, Ms Truss was forced on Tuesday to overturn a plan to link public sector pay to the regional cost of living. On Monday night, the front-runner in the leadership race said she would save £8.8 billion by introducing regional pay boards instead of national ones to set civil servants’ pay, reflecting where they live. But experts warned that to reach the figure, the plan would have to branch out further from government departments, with teachers, nurses and police also receiving lower wages than workers in the south. This led to outrage from Conservative MPs and by midday today – less than 24 hours later – Ms Truss’ team had issued a statement saying the policy would not be taken forward. “Loyal, honest and hardworking” Mr Sunack welcomed the move, saying it would mean “nearly half a million workers in Wales would take a pay cut”. “I don’t think cutting the wages of hundreds of thousands of workers here – and indeed across the UK – is a Tory policy that we should be adopting and I’m glad he’s changed his mind,” he told the audience in Cardiff. Elsewhere during the protests, Mr Sunak hinted he would consider scrapping inheritance tax if he became prime minister. He told the crowd that “it wasn’t what he had planned to do,” but it was something he could see. “I have set out a plan to keep income tax down over time because I want to reward hard work. But very much, as you heard from my previous remarks, I am someone who believes in supporting ambition,” the former chancellor he said. “I think it’s a conservative value that many of us in this room hold dear, and inheritance tax is one way of doing that. “So over time, is that something we should look at? Of course we should, because people who work hard should be rewarded for that.” In a boost to Mr Sunak’s campaign, former chancellor Nigel Lawson warned that the economic policy proposed by Ms Truss risked a repeat of the spiraling inflation of the 1970s. Lawson, who has previously supported Mr Sunak, told The Telegraph: “We have seen the impact of rising prices crippling the economy and putting millions out of work. “Savings eroded and investment collapsed. I am deeply concerned that we risk repeating the mistakes of that decade.” Meanwhile, both candidates were also asked at the hustings to describe themselves in three words. Mr Sunak said “loyal, honest and hard working” while Ms Truss said “determined, loyal and fun”. ‘The Battle for Number 10’ will be broadcast live for 90 minutes and free-to-air on Sky News channel 501, Freeview 233, Sky Showcase channel 106 and Sky News digital channels.
