Penny Mordaunt backs Liz Truss to be the next PM

LIZ Truss won the backing of Tory leadership rival Penny Mordaunt tonight in a major win for the Foreign Secretary.

But she took a pounding from Rishi Sunak who branded her a “remainer” in their increasingly bitter scrap for the keys to No10.

Reuters

Penny Mordaunt will tonight come out for Liz Truss[/caption]

The defeated Tory candidate introduced the current frontrunner at a Conservative hustings tonight in Exeter.

Penny said Liz was the “hope candidate” who could take the fight to Labour in two years time in the latest big Tory name to say she should be PM.

The trade minister and ex-defence secretary was voted out of the contest a week and a half ago after failing to secure enough votes to get through to the final two.

Introducing the frontrunner – who has a 91 per cent chance of making it to No10 according to Betfair – said the choice was hard because she liked both of them.

But she asked the hundreds of true blue members: “Who has got reach? Who can relate to people? Who understands that people need help with the cost of living now? And who is going to rightly clobber our opponents?

She added: “I’ve seen enough to know who the person I’m going to put my faith in is – and that is Liz Truss.”

Tory members cheered the announcement, with Ms Mordaunt praising Truss’s “graft, her authenticity, her determination, her ambition for this country, her consistency and sense of duty – she knows what she believes in, and her resolve to stand up against tyranny and fight for freedom.

“That’s what our country stands for and that’s why I know with her we can win.

“In short folks, to give us all hope. She for me is the hope candidate.”

Later on, Ms Truss lavished praise on Penny, saying she was “a brilliant person, a fantastic politician”.

And hinting there would be a Cabinet job for her if she wins, she added: “I think everybody around this room knows that we need all the best players on the pitch.

“What I’m all about is making sure we unite the party, that we move forward with a really clear conservative vision. And I’m absolutely delighted to have her on board.”

Rishi Sunak and Ms Truss are now going head-to-head for the final battle, fighting for every member vote.

Ahead of the Exeter showdown, struggling ex-Chancellor Mr Sunak took the swing at Ms Truss’s latest policy announcement that she would allow more European fruit pickers to come to the UK to deal with major labour shortages.

Mr Sunak’s spokesman said: “The true Remainer colours are starting to show.”

Rishi also insisted he had a “radical but realistic” plan to slash income tax in seven years time, but experts said it would pale in comparison to taxes he hiked while Chancellor.

The IFS said Sunak’s plan to cut 4p off income tax by the end of the decade would still leave the tax take at its highest level since the 1950s.

They said his plans to cut taxes were still “considerably smaller than the net tax rise announced by Mr Sunak as Chancellor, which was comfortably more than twice as large.”

But Ms Truss – who has promised much bigger tax cuts, and sooner – would be “more likely to breach” manifesto spending commitments and could prompt the Bank of England to increase interest rates even further, they warned.

Last night the were mixed polling results for the Tories.

One for Redfield and Wilton Strategies showed Ms Truss could beat Sir Keir Starmer – the first time since March that a Conservative candidate was ahead.

She scored 37 per cent of the vote, compared to Sir Keir’s 36 per cent.

But separate polling showed Labour were storming ahead of the Conservatives with a 14-point lead with the voters.

Ipsos Mori’s poll had Sir Keir’s party on 44 per cent – up three – and the Tories stuck on 30 per cent.

However, pollsters said the lead was “soft” as Tories who backed the party in 2019 are now much more likely to say they wouldn’t vote at all – or were undecided.