Tory leadership race: Rishi Sunak declares herself ‘underdog’ as Liz Truss blames France for tourism chaos in Dover | Political news

The battle to be the next leader of the Conservative Party – and prime minister of the UK – continued on Saturday.

Rishi Sunak gave a speech in Grantham, Margaret Thatcher’s hometown, setting out her stall for Tory party members, calling themselves “underdogs”.

Meanwhile, Liz Truss blamed France for the problems at the Channel that she saw heavy traffic in Kent.

The two candidates’ campaigns are on the rise as they try to land the top job.

Political center: Sunak and Truss are still unpopular with the public

They have until September 2nd to convince members to bring cards of the Conservative Party to vote for them.

The exact size of this constituency is yet to be determined, but the number is around 160,000 in 2019.

Launching his campaign to members, Mr. Sunak said: “All evidence is clear, I am the only one who can beat Labor. I am the only candidate who can defend the union and I is the only candidate that can keep Brexit safe.”

“Today, my campaign with party members begins. My campaign will represent the best values ​​of the Conservative Party. I will give everything to earn every vote, but sure – I’m the worst.

“The Forces want this to be crowned for another candidate. But I think the members want a choice and they’re prepared to listen and in the coming days they’ll see that I’m not just making a choice. change… I’m suggesting hopefully we can be better.”

And he has revealed his plan to “make the most of our COVID response and apply those lessons to tackle the massive backlogs in the NHS”.

Mr. Sunak went on to say that Ms Truss’ plan to cut taxes while inflation was high was “wrong” and unethical and would cause mortgages to go up.

When this was brought up to Ms Truss, she said: “I think it’s wrong to take money from people we don’t need to take.

“As people across the country are struggling with the cost of living crisis.”

Mr. Sunak also implied that Ms. Truss was dishonest about the economy.

She said: “I’m being very honest about the situation – we’re facing the biggest economic crisis we’ve seen in a generation and now is not the time to do business like that. usually.”

On the NHS, Ms Truss said she would appoint a “strong” health secretary – and that a strong economy was needed to deal with the backlog.

Ms Truss, the secretary of state, was asked about the situation in Kent, which has seen chaos as people try to cross the Channel.

She said it was because French authorities were “not sending enough people to the border”, and denied it was due to Brexit.

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Pierre-Henri Dumont, the Republican congressman for Calais, told Sky News that “almost 100%” of the kiosks at the Port of Dover allotted to French police were filled on Friday.

He said: “Because of Brexit, we need to check more passports, we need to stamp every passport, we need to check who’s going into the European Union – which we didn’t have to do before Brexit. .”

Sky News has also announced that it will host a live televised debate between Mr Sunak and Ms Truss on Thursday 4 August, hosted by Kay Burley.