End To Smears? No Chance! Race For No10 Gets Personal

Brutal exchanges in leadership debate as Mordaunt pleads for restraint

- Martyn Brown

THE gloves were off in the race for Number 10 last night as the leadership debate became personal – despite Penny Mordaunt cal- ling for restraint.

Rishi Sunak branded rival Liz Truss a “socialist” after she ambushed him over his handling of the cost-of-living crisis.

In an extraordinary showdown the former Chancellor also asked her which she regrets most – backing Remain or previously being a Liberal Democrat.

Earlier Ms Mordaunt had pleaded for an end to “toxic politics” and for all the candidates to show integrity.

Taking to the front foot from the beginning of the ITV debate, Ms Truss said pointedly: “Rishi, you have raised taxes to the highest level in 70 years. That is not going to drive economic growth.

“You raised National Insurance even though people like me opposed it in Cabinet at the time, because we could have afforded to fund the NHS through general taxation.

“The fact is that raising taxes at this moment will choke off economic growth, it will prevent us getting the revenue we need to pay off the debt.”

But Mr Sunak retorted that the country had been through a once-in-a-century pandemic and there was a “cost to these things”.

He said: “I’d love to stand here and say ‘look, I’ll cut this tax, that tax and another tax and it will all be OK’. But you know what? It won’t.”

“There’s a cost to these things and the cost of higher inflation, higher mortgage rates, eroded savings.