‘Most Striking Feature’ of the First Televised Tory Leadership Debate in the Eyes of Analysts

A snap poll revealed that chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat performed best during the Friday debate, while Foreign Secretary Liz Truss finished last in the event.

Friday night saw the first televised debate among the remaining five Tory leadership contenders, including former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, ex-Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch and chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat.

The audience’s negative reaction to a question about their trust in UK politicians became “the most striking feature” of the debate, says Mark Garnett, a politics professor at Lancaster University and author of the book "The British Prime Minister in an Age of Upheaval" and "From Anger to Apathy: The British Experience."

Garnett recalled that “not a single member of the audience raised a hand” when asked if they trusted British politicians during the debate that was broadcast by Channel 4.

The political scientist stressed that the Tory leadership candidates “are trying to impress voters who are fully committed to the Conservative Party, but the distrust which average Britons feel towards politicians is a further reminder that the next leader will have to work hard to rebuild trust.”

Dwelling on the performance of the candidates, Garnett said that frontrunner Rishi Sunak “had difficult questions to answer about his association with [outgoing Prime Minister Boris] Johnson, as well as recent economic decisions, but appeared confident and relaxed.”

Sunak “received the most votes [101] from MPs in the last round of the leadership contest, and nothing he said in the debate should endanger that position. The other two contenders likely to proceed to the final round of voting (decided by ordinary party members) are Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and the Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt,” the Lancaster University professor argued.

Sunak said during the debate that he told Johnson “enough is enough” before resigning earlier this month, and remained evasive when asked if BoJo was honest, in an apparent nod to his attitude towards the so­-called “Partygate” row related to No 10 parties held amid COVID lockdowns in 2020 and 2021. The ex-Chancellor also clashed with Truss over taxation, insisting that cutting taxes would push up inflation and worsen the problem. “Borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan, it’s a fairy tale,” the former chancellor told her.

Echoing Garnett was Alistair Jones, associate professor of politics at De Montfort University in the UK, who told Sputnik that Sunak and Mordaunt would be “the two likely candidates” to prevail in the race before the winner is finally announced on 5 September.

On the Friday debate, he said that “there were clear winners and there were clear losers”, describing Truss as the person who “performed the worst of the five candidates”.

“I think she has done huge damage to the possibility of her becoming party leader and prime minister in this particular performance. Tom Tugendhat and Rishi Sunak were arguably the best, Tugendhat probably the best,” Jones pointed out.

He praised Sunak, who the professor said “grew into the whole performance” and who “started off very weak, especially on the issue of trust, but grew into it through looking at the economy, looking at tax cuts."

Referring to the moment when each candidate “got to speak for 45 seconds in the final summing up” of the debate, Jones insisted that Sunak “probably was the strongest equal” with Tugendhat, although the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee was “very forceful but rather broad brush.”

Jones concluded that it remains unclear “how the MPs who are going to be voting on this see these things and their interpretations of the performance of the MPs may be significantly different to mine.”

The race to become Conservative Party leader was whittled down to five candidates after a second round of votes on Thursday, when Attorney General Suella Braverman was knocked out of the contest.

More rounds of votes are due to be held next week, with the lowest scoring candidate being knocked out, until the race is cut down to two finalists. The final two contenders will then face a runoff vote by about 180,000 Conservative Party members across the country before a winner is announced on September 5.