What to Expect From the Sunak-Truss Tory Leadership Debate

Conservative Party leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss will go head-to-head in a live televised debate on BBC1 on Monday evening. But what separates the two rivals vying to become the next British prime minister?

The two finalists in the Tory leadership race will face off in Stoke-on-Trent in the West Midlands on Monday night in what is expected to be a no-holds-barred showdown live on BBC1.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and current Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are competing for the votes of up to 200,000 Conservative Party members in the six-week ballot which will decide who succeeds Boris Johnson as prime minister.

On Sunday, Sunak's campaign claimed Truss had "rolled out the red carpet and turned a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions" when she was a junior education minister, during which time nine of the UK's 31 Confucius Centres — which teach Chinese language and culture — were set up.

Sunak also implied that the centers were fronts for Beijing's intelligence services, and vowed to close them down if elected. A source in the Truss campaign called the claims "moronic", as she was in charge of childcare policy while at the Department for Education and not further education.

Also over the weekend, Truss dubbed Sunak a “Goldman Sachs banker who went to a school for the uber-elite” after he accused her of falsely claiming her own secondary, Roundhay School in Leeds, had "let down" its pupils.

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Nadine Dorries, a leading Truss supporter, also tried to make the tussle about class, comparing Truss' £4.50 high-street earrings with Sunak's £3,500 suit and £450 shoes.

Tweet by British DCMS secretary Nadine Dorries criticising former chancellor Rishi Sunak's expensive tastes

© Nadien Dorries/Twitter

Meanwhile, more than 10,000 party members have demanded that Johnson's name be included on the ballot as well.

The petition, organized by the grassroots Tory website Conservative Post, has the support of several party grandees, including billionaire donor Lord Peter Cruddas and Johnson loyalist MP Michael Fabricant.

A poll of the Daily Mail's socially-conservative online readership last week found the outgoing PM was more popular than all those in the running to replace him put together. Johnson scored 53 percent, compared to 19 percent for Truss, 15 percent for now-eliminated Penny Mordaunt and just 13 percent for Sunak.

“MPs have clearly misread the mood of the party membership on this and so many other matters,” Fabricant said. “If I thought Boris were keen — despite the treachery of his ministers — to carry on, I would support Peter Cruddas’s campaign in the blink of an eye.”

Downing Street insisted that despite BoJo's final words at last week's PM's questions in Parliament — quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger's "hasta la vista, baby" line from Terminator 2 — that was indeed his "farewell address".

"You heard the prime minister say his farewell address to parliament, he gave advice for his successor," Johnson's spokesman said. "Beyond that, obviously I can't comment on what the prime minister may choose to do once he ceases to be prime minister, that wouldn't be one for me."

However, the PM might still have the final say, with his reported resentment against Sunak for leading the wave of ministerial resignations that prompted his resignation three weeks ago potentially persuading his supporters among the party rank-and-file to elect Truss.