Truss Closer To Tory Crown As Rivals Lose Momentum

Liz Truss's hopes of replacing Boris Johnson as prime minister have taken a big step forward as rival Penny Mordaunt's leadership bid stalled and a poll suggested the foreign secretary would comfortably beat MPs' favourite Rishi Sunak in the final ballot of Tory members.

- Andrew Woodcock, Ashley Cowburn, Anna Isaac

Both the Truss and Mordaunt camps were love-bombing defeated contender Kemi Badenoch, whose elimination in the fourth round of voting put her in the position of kingmaker. And all three remaining contenders were battling for the votes of Ms Badenoch's 59 supporters, who now have the power to decide who joins Mr Sunak in the final battle for the Tory leadership, which will be decided by party members on 5 September. The 42-year-old former equalities minister herself looks set for a significant role in government whoever becomes PM, with rival camps hailing her "fantastic campaign" and "fresh thinking".

Mr Sunak's tally of 118 votes left him tantalisingly close to the 120 threshold to guarantee a place on the final shortlist of two to be announced at 4pm today. But his prospects in the members' ballot looked far gloomier, with a YouGov poll of 725 Tory activists finding he would be comprehensively beaten by either Ms Truss or Ms Mordaunt.

However, in a sign that Ms Mordaunt's campaign may be losing momentum, her margin of victory over the former chancellor was significantly reduced to 14 points, compared to 39 a week ago, while Ms Truss's lead over Sunak extended from 14 to 19 points over the same period. Despite holding onto her second place with 92 MPs' votes in yesterday's ballot, the trade minister did not enjoy the expected boost - on which she had been relying to maintain momentum in her campaign - from the 31 backers of One Nation candidate Tom Tugendhat, who was knocked out on Monday.