Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have just finished their most cynical hustings of the Tory leadership contest so far. The pair were addressing a party audience in Darlington, and had tailored their stump speeches and answers to a ‘Red Wall’ audience. The picture that these answers painted of what both think of Red Wall Tories was fascinating: both of them wanted to talk as much about the importance of recognising biological sex as they did about the cost of living, with Truss telling the audience that as a ‘straight-talking Yorkshire woman, I know that a woman is a woman’. Sunak took aim at ‘this lefty woke culture, that seems to want to cancel our histories, our values and our women’, later joking to a member of the audience who had asked for a ‘man to man explanation’ of what levelling up was that ‘it’s a good thing you didn’t say person to person’.
Truss attacked solar farms, Sunak attacked drugs. Truss even launched what she later accepted was a cynical attack on the media, saying she agreed when some of the audience shouted that the media was to blame for Boris Johnson’s downfall. She also complained that hustings host Tom Newton-Dunn was asking left-wing questions about the cost of living (this visibly nonplussed the former Sun political editor and TalkTV presenter). As the event came to an end and she was shaking Newton-Dunn’s hand, she could be heard saying ‘sorry I was mean about the media’, with the host replying that it was ‘cheap’.
The picture that these answers painted of what both think of Red Wall Tories was fascinating
What may be more costly for Truss is her pledge during that discussion about Johnson’s downfall to vote to end the Privileges Committee inquiry into whether the outgoing Prime Minister misled Parliament over partygate. Once again, this might have been a cynical move to appeal to the large constituency in the Tory membership who feel Johnson was stitched up by his own colleagues (including Sunak, who was heckled when he defended his decision to resign) and is about to be again by a committee of MPs who’ve got various personal biases against him.
Truss has Nadine Dorries, one of the chief proponents of the stitch-up claim, on her side, too. Truss did vote for that inquiry in the first place, after the whips concluded there would be a sizeable rebellion on the Tory benches if they gave any other instruction. If she really means she would stop the inquiry, this would entail holding a vote that currently doesn’t exist in the early days of her premiership. Would changing policy and blocking the inquiry really be the best use of political capital in the first few weeks after becoming Prime Minister? Would it not have long-term consequences for Tory candidates in marginal seats where Lib Dem and Labour opponents could accuse them of voting to cover up lies and sleaze? Maybe the media will again be guilty of misrepresenting this vow when the consequences of it become clearer.
She did, though, say she thought the NHS needed more money (while effectively pledging yet another reorganisation of the health service before the latest, enacted only in legislation this year, had any chance to bed in – something that will be costly both financially and to the ability of the service to get on with the job). Sunak was clear he didn’t think it should get any more cash, not even to deal with the squeeze caused by inflation and meeting the pay rises for staff from the existing budget. Truss then declined to say whether she would appoint Sunak as Health Secretary (he would be one of the first in its 74 year history to argue that the service didn’t need more money), but insisted she would appoint someone who was ‘really good’ (which doesn’t bode well for Steve Barclay).
Aside from the big populist lines from both candidates, there were some interesting new dividing lines, and significant reinforcement of the existing ones too. Truss once again gave the strong suggestion she would not be looking to the welfare system for a package of support for people struggling with the cost of living, repeating her criticism of ‘handouts’ and saying that taking money away from people through the tax system to give it back to them through benefits was the sort of thing Gordon Brown would have done. She didn’t take up Newton-Dunn’s invitation to explicitly state that Sunak was a Tory Gordon Brown, but the implication was clear.
The last Tory leadership contest went through many hustings with the final two candidates, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt. This was largely going through the motions so that they could give members across the country a chance to see both of them before Johnson was crowned leader. But both candidates tonight were energised – Sunak in particular – in a striking way. They are approaching these hustings as though things have only just got going. It makes better viewing for the members, perhaps. But it is also causing a continual escalation in rhetoric and an exaggeration of positions to the point of caricature in order to get attention. These debates feel a bit like an online argument that’s just a few tweets away from someone mentioning Hitler. By the time the contest is over, the party won’t just need to recover from its big ideological split, or indeed from the exit of Johnson. It will also need to regain its composure.
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