Tory hopefuls face questions from party members and are interviewed by Kay Burley as interest rates go up sharply. This blog is now closed.
Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak will take part in a live televised debate tonight at 8pm.
Sky News’ The Battle for Number 10 will see the two leadership hopefuls field questions from a studio audience comprising Conservative party members.
Truss and Sunak will then be interviewed by Kay Burley.
The 90-minute live broadcast can be watched on among others Sky News and viewed on Sky News’ YouTube channel and here.
Here is a summary of today’s events:
Also during the debate, Truss was asked whether integrity has been lost in the Westminster bubble?
Truss said: “I would make sure we had zero tolerance for bad behaviour and also offer support to MPs.”
She said she would look at the role of the ethics advisor.
“I slightly worry about outsourcing ethics to somebody else,” she added.
During the debate, there was a question on trust. Nadine Dorries says you cannot be trusted, Burley directed to Sunak.
“Boris Johnson deserves enormous credit for what he achieved at the time,” he replied. “It got to a point when it got too difficult for me to stay. It is simply impossible for a chancellor and PM not to be on the same page on economic policy.”
He added that the government was on the wrong side of an ethical problem and “enough was enough”.
Sunak referred to the Chris Pincher scandal.
“It wasn’t OK to defend it because it was wrong. We need to bring trust and integrity and decency back into politics.”
George Parker, political editor of the Financial Times, has picked up on Truss’ response to the windfall tax.
Watching Sky debate, trying to work out how @trussliz – at her first Budget – explains why she can’t afford more help for households facing spiralling energy bills after she cancels a £17bn tax rise on profitable big companies and refuses to impose a new windfall tax on Big Oil
Ian Birrell has criticised Sunak for playing the “populist” card during the debate.
Embarrassing to hear Rishi Sunak play the populist card and talk about 'leftie lawyers' frustrating the asylum process https://t.co/b1U5QtkSfc
The i’s Paul Waugh on Kay Burley’s question: “Will the real Liz Truss please stand up?” It will be revisited, and often, he says.
.@trussliz and @RishiSunak are now avoiding 'blue on blue' TV debates where they face off against each other, because they felt they were too damaging.
But this @KayBurley exchange will surely be replayed again and again and again.#redonred https://t.co/nx9wfxsslq
Full Fact has posted on Twitter regarding Liz Truss’ comments tonight about going to fight in Ukraine.
Liz Truss claimed that she’d “always been clear that the travel advice is that British people should not go to Ukraine.”
This isn’t true. In Feb, when asked whether she'd support Britons going to fight in Ukraine, she said she did and that people could make their own decisions.
After technology to measure who the studio audience would vote for between the two candidates “crashed”, Burley resorts to a show of hands. The vast majority would vote for Sunak.
Woah – Rishi Sunak wins a big majority of the Sky audience of Tory members. Wasn’t expecting that…
Some more from tonight’s debate, Burley asked Sunak why so many people have come out in support of Liz Truss and not him?
“Plenty of people who sat around the cabinet table are supporting me,” he said.
He said the Conservative party are “all one team, all one family and will come together after the leadership election.”
Burley asks if he is too rich to be prime minister?
“I think the British public judge people by their character and actions, not by their bank account,” he says.
Conservative leadership candidate @RishiSunak tells @KayBurley "the British people judge people by their character and by their actions, not by their bank account"#BattleForNo10 #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/By8ms4g3jz
