Rivals to succeed Boris Johnson as UK PM appear in first televised debate

Rivals to succeed Boris Johnson as UK PM appear in first televised debate
July 16, 2022, 8:09 am

Left-right: Kemi Badenoch; Penny Mordaunt; Rishi Sunak; Liz Truss; and Tom Tugendhat are all hoping to land the top job at No 10. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

The five candidates vying to succeed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared Friday in the first televised debate, and the competition for the premiership began shortly after Johnson announced his resignation last Thursday.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and International Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt led their rivals in the second round of voting on Thursday, leaving Secretary of State Liz Truss in third place.

By next Thursday (July 21), the final two contenders for the premiership will be clear. By then, then Parliament's summer recess will begin.

After that, the two contenders begin a six-week round in which they present their project to members of the Conservative Party, and on September 5 the new Prime Minister will be announced.

The candidates refused to indulge in controversy or personal quarrels, stressing their common affiliation to the conservatives.

💬 Everybody should be free to live their lives as they want and be treated with respect.#LizForLeader #C4LeaderDebate pic.twitter.com/dnishyk9zF
— Liz for Leader (@trussliz) July 15, 2022

All candidates hope to impress voters in a series of television debates in the coming days, the first of which will be broadcast Friday night (July 22) on Channel 4.

Rishi Sunak has won the first two ballots of MPs but faces opposition from allies of Boris Johnson, who accuse him of treachery for helping to trigger the PM's downfall when he announced his resignation from the cabinet, the BBC reported.

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Sunak openly ridiculed Truss’s tax plans. Condemning what he called a wider “unfunded spree of borrowing and more debt” among his competitors, he condemned the Truss’s proposal to put off repayments of public debt built up due to Covid.

“There is no such thing as Covid debt,” a visibly irritated Sunak told the foreign secretary. “Debt is debt. And the answer to too much borrowing can’t be yet more borrowing. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

Mordaunt and Badenoch clash with visible enmity about the former’s views on trans rights. Mordaunt, meanwhile, asked about negative briefings about her from some of the other camps, refused to say she trusted the other candidates.

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It was revealed that Mordaunt has repeatedly advocated the use of homeopathy on the NHS. Homeopathy is a treatment based on the use of highly diluted substances that practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself, according to The Guardian,

A long section on trust saw none of the five willing say whether the prime minister they hope to replace, Boris Johnson, was honest. “Sometimes,” said Badenoch, while Mordaunt talked about “really severe issues”, and Truss spoke of “mistakes”. Tugendhat won applause by saying, simply: “No.”

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