Rishi Sunak winner of second Tory leadership debate, snap poll finds

Nearly one in four people believe Conservative leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak won the second TV debate on Sunday night, a snap poll has found.

Some 24 per cent of the 1,001 people who took part in the Opinium poll thought the former chancellor performed best at the ITV debate, followed by Tom Tugendhat at 19 per cent.

Trade minister Penny Mordaunt came third with 17 per cent, followed by foreign secretary Liz Truss with 15 per cent.

Former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch performed the worst, according to the poll of viewers, with 12 per cent of votes.

However, a ConservativeHome survey of the Tory grassroots published on Sunday night suggested Ms Badenoch’s popularity with members may be rising, while Ms Morduant’s star may be starting to wane.

The former equalities minister, who has positioned herself as the anti-woke candidate, would win a head-to-head contest against all four of the other contenders, according to the website’s latest online survey.

Ms Badenoch would beat Ms Mordaunt 59 per cent to 31 per cent in a head-to-head if they made it into the final two. Ms Mordaunt would also lose out to both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, according to the survey.

Paul Goodman, the ConservativeHome editor, said Ms Truss’ camp “can argue on the evidence of this survey that she could beat the top two runners in a membership ballot”.

However, he added that Ms Badenoch’s team “can say that on the evidence of this survey she can trounce all comers – including Sunak. So right-of-Tory-centre MPs should switch to her if they’re not backing her already”.

During the debate, the five candidates clashed over tax, Brexit, transgender rights and their respective upbringings.

Ms Truss launched a series of attacks on Mr Sunak – suggesting he had no plan for growth and was responsible for putting Britain on the path to recession.

“Rishi, you have raised taxes to highest levels in 70 years. That is not going to drive economic growth,” she said. “If he has a plan for growth, why haven’t we seen it over the past two years?”

Mr Sunak fired back: “I’d love to stand here and say, ‘I’ll cut this tax, I’ll cut that tax, and it’ll all be okay’. But you know what? It won’t … This something for nothing economics isn’t conservative – it’s socialism.”

Among the promises he made, Mr Sunak said he would bring honesty to the role of prime minister.

He told the debate: “I want to be honest with the country about the economic challenge that we face, and what’s going to be required to deal with that.

“And that’s not politically convenient for me, to not just say the easy things, but I think it demonstrates to people that I will be honest with them about what lies ahead and I’ll be responsible in dealing with it, even if it’s not politically easy.”

None of the Tory leadership hopefuls said they would give Boris Johnson a job in cabinet if they became prime minister, and all five ruled out calling a snap general election if they win the contest and enter No 10.

The latest debate comes as MPs prepare for the third round of voting on Monday, which will see the remaining candidates whittled down from five to four when results come in around 8pm.