THEO VAN GOGH: HARD CORE BREXITEER LIZ TRUSS ON WINNING LINE- Even Boris Johnson feels sorry for struggling Rishi Sunak

The former chancellor’s chances of winning the race to No 10 seem to be fading

Rishi Sunak hopes his message on the economy will begin to narrow the race with Liz Truss

Steven Swinford  The Times 30-7-22 – On Thursday night, Boris Johnson  watched the first official hustings between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, he experienced a new emotion — pity.

He told friends he did not think that Sunak, the man he blames for his downfall, was going to make it. “He almost feels sorry for him,” a friend of Johnson said. “[Rishi] got in with a crowd of malcontents who used him as part of their vendetta against Boris. What future is there for him now?”

The outgoing prime minister continues to be a major player in the contest, although his name is not on the ballot. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has emerged as the overwhelming frontrunner after putting her support for Johnson at the heart of her campaign. Her allies have been given free rein to accuse Sunak of betrayal and masterminding the coup.

This loyalty, plus promises of £30 billion of tax cuts, is an approach Tory members seem to be buying. Allies said Truss was enjoying herself and was up for the fight. “I have a rod of steel running through me,” she said this week.

Among Sunak’s supporters there was a marked air of despondency. Although his inner circle is still convinced he can win — he is embarking on a blitz of southern Tory associations this weekend where aides believe he holds significant support — others are less sure and some are privately despairing.

One loyalist, an MP who was previously almost evangelical in backing Sunak, is already conceding defeat. “I’m waiting for the Truss-mobile to move in to No 10,” they said. “I find it strange because it’s so clear in my head that she would be a flipping disaster but they’re buying it. I’m fed up.”

Sunak, they suggested, was a victim of a “bit of latent racism” from members. “Someone told me, ‘I’m not ready for the brown one yet’ ,” they said.

Sunak tried to make a joke about the issue in the first official hustings in Leeds, saying it was so sunny that someone on the campaign trail told him he had a “great tan”.

The loyalist MP said there was another factor at play. “I think he’s almost too good to be true — people are a bit jealous of somebody so competent. They don’t want the slickness, the smoothness,” they said.

“I find it astonishing because [Liz] is so shit. Having got rid of Boris to replace him with her — I could weep.”

It comes after a remarkable change in Truss’s fortunes. Less than a fortnight ago she was on the brink of falling out of the contest, poised to miss a place in the front two behind Penny Mordaunt. Now she is the overwhelming frontrunner.

Her confidence has grown as the contest has gone on. On Monday night, as she waited in the green room before the BBC’s debate she decided to shake off the nerves by dancing. Previously derided as a robotic public speaker, Truss broke out some moves to Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk before going on stage. Her performance in the debate helped set the tone for the week.

In the battle over the economy, with two conflicting Thatcherite visions, Truss’s plan to “go for growth” is trumping Sunak’s appeal for fiscal restraint.

To an extent the former chancellor is trapped by having opposed tax cuts at a time of soaring inflation. On Wednesday he tried to change tack by proposing to scrap VAT on energy bills — a measure he had previously resisted.

Nadine Dorries attacked Sunak’s wealth and clothing

The move was quickly ridiculed by Team Truss as a “screeching U-turn” and mocked by Johnson, who joked in a speech that cutting VAT was “easier than we thought”. A £4 billion pledge to cut taxes descended into a debate about whether Sunak had flip-flopped.

He has also seen at first-hand the disparity between the parliamentary party, which lost confidence in Johnson, and grassroots Tories, many of whom still back the prime minister.

The strength of feeling was evident at the first official hustings in Leeds on Thursday night, when Johnson was applauded by the audience whenever his name came up and one member suggested Sunak had stabbed him in the back. “These are my people,” Truss said after the event.

Sunak’s core team are convinced he can win. The polls between him and Truss, they say, are beginning to narrow and they argue that the more voters see of him, the more support he will gain.

He is visiting Tory associations in Kent, Buckinghamshire and Sussex, where his team thinks he can maximise support. “This weekend is crucial,” one ally said. “He will be hitting a lot of the country where a lot of the membership is. This war will be won and lost in the south.”