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On Monday, July 25, 2022, Conservative Party leadership candidates Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak headed to Stoke-on-Trent, comprised of three Red Wall constituencies, for a BBC debate:
Burning issues: earrings and China
The day began with controversies over handling China and how much each candidate had spent on their respective wardrobes.
Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport tweeted about the latter. The photo is from last week on the final day of Conservative MPs voting:
The normally charming Angela Richardson MP tweeted a rather sharp reply to Dorries, requesting that she be quiet.
On China, things were more complex, as Guido Fawkes reported:
Neither candidate has the edge here.
Guido wrote (red emphases his):
It’s unsurprising, given his tacit endorsement from the Chinese propaganda arm Global Times, that Rishi has decided to go in hard on the country’s security threat this morning. Declaring the Chinese Communist Party “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century”, Sunak attacks Liz for “[rolling] out the red carpet” and turning “a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions”. He calls for a new NATO alliance to be set up to counter it the threat, and pledges to close all 30 Confucius centres, which teach Mandarin in the UK and are thought to be used as fronts by the Chinese intelligence services.
In response Team Truss returned fire last night, using Iain Duncan Smith to call the policy “surprising” and asking where Sinophobe Sunak has been for the last two years. Her team points to the above Sunak’s endorsement by Global Times, and says he has been consistently soft on China.
Sunak’s Confucius closure policy is directly levelled against Truss’s supposed record at DfE, where during her two-year stint nine of the 31 centres were established:
Hmm.
Who is behind Rishi’s race to No. 10?
Before I get to the debate, I have been thinking more about Rishi than Liz. Who is pulling Rishi’s strings? I don’t think Liz has an unseen agenda, but Rishi could well do.
On Thursday, July 21, The Express gave us background on Rishi, some of which not all of us knew (emphases in purple mine):
Rishi Sunak recently made headlines after he became the first frontline politician to make the Times Richlist. He and his fashion designer wife Akshata Murty’s fortune stands at an eye-watering £730m. The recently resigned Chancellor owns four properties with his 42-year-old wife, including in Santa Monica, California, but now hopes to add another to his collection, in the shape of No 10.
Before landing a job with Goldman Sachs and making his millions, Mr Sunak studied at one of the most expensive private schools in the country before heading to the University of Oxford.
The 42-year-old was born in Southampton to GP mother Yashvir and pharmacist father Usha Sunak.
Mr Sunak — the eldest of three — first attended Oakmount Preparatory School in Southampton, Hants, before attending Stroud School, King Edward IV Preparatory, where the school fees grow alongside the student: the older they get, the higher the tuition.
It is thought Mr Sunak joined Stroud School in Year 4 after Oakmount closed suddenly in 1989.
In Lord Michael Ashcroft’s biography, Going For Broke: The Rise of Rishi Sunak, it is claimed that the former Chancellor was well-liked, being both head boy and captain of the Stroud cricket team …
After leaving in 1992, Mr Sunak joined the 600-year-old Winchester College as a boarder, where the yearly school fees today amount to £45,936 per year, and £33,990 for day pupils …
Winchester College, founded in 1382 by William of Wykeham, has numerous notable alumni — known as “Old Wykehamists” — including several archbishops and Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter.
Why does Rishi want to be PM when he could be leading a charmed life?
His wife has non-dom status. Do they intend to move to India? It would be a return to that nation for her, as her father founded Infosys.
There’s a story here.
In any event, so far, Rishi has more than 20,000 Conservative Party supporters, apparently.
He also agreed to allow Andrew ‘Brillo’ Neil, a notorious tough interviewer, to question him on Channel 4 this Friday evening:
In 2019, when Neil was still on the BBC, he was frustrated that Boris did not go on his television show to be grilled for the leadership contest that year.
Guido says that Liz Truss might follow Boris’s example:
Rishi Sunak has agreed to do a sit-down Andrew Neil interview this Friday on his Channel 4 show at 19.30. Liz Truss’s team are yet to say whether she’ll also agree. Given she’s the Boris continuity candidate, there’s a past precedent she may not…
Boris petition gets 10,000+ signatures
Speaking of Boris, the petition from Conservative Party members to add him to the ballot surpassed 10,000 signatures on Monday:
Guido said:
On Wednesday, Guido reported that 3,500 Conservative Party members had signed a petition calling for Boris to be allowed to compete in the leadership contest. Since then, that number has tripled, with 10,000 fully paid-up Tories now adding their names to the list, and presumably ruining the CCHQ inbox. As Rishi and Liz take to the campaign trail, this demographic may well prove difficult to ignore. It’s already over 20% of Boris’s stonking majority from the last leadership election…
BBC debate
The BBC chose to hold Monday night’s debate in Stoke-on-Trent — the Potteries.
Stoke-on-Trent has three constituencies, all of which are Red Wall. I wrote about their first-ever Conservative MPs earlier this year: Jo Gideon, Jonathan Gullis and Jack Brereton.
It was commendable of the BBC to get an audience of local residents who voted Conservative in 2019.
Sophie Raworth was the moderator. Off to one side were BBC experts Economics Editor Faisal Islam and Political Editor Chris Mason, who also asked questions of the candidates.
During the debate, one of the voters said that she was concerned about the ongoing issue of trust in the Government overriding the all-too-real need for strong policies.
The Express has the video. The woman spoke briefly and eloquently:
It just seems very very easy, and as we’ve heard a lot, to blame Boris over trust issues, as though everything is going to be fine now.
But it seems to me there is a more fundamental issue around a culture in Westminster.
It seems very much more focused on the short term, you know, the catnip of a media soundbite.
Rather, it should be focussing on, okay, ‘What are the difficult things that need a long-term solution’.
She actually said, ‘the short-term catnip of a media soundbite’.
She should copyright that. It sounds just like something Boris would say.
Liz had gravitas. I would rather have a reserved presentation from her than Rishi’s Tony Blair impersonation, which was unsettling to watch — and hear.
Rishi also should have worn a tie. Maybe he wanted to look in touch with the audience. Even so, these debates are interviews for the next Prime Minister. One should look the part.
Overall, Rishi interrupted Liz too much. Guido counted a total of 14 times.
Often, Rishi looked as if he were mansplaining:
He was irritated. We saw this during his parliamentary campaign.
Rishi’s facial expressions and voice inflection show that he does not like being contradicted:
That’s not the best look and it will not go over well if he tries that with Andrew Neil on Friday. Neil will zero in on it.
Sophie Raworth only interrupted Rishi’s interruptions of Liz once. That is likely because Liz is the ‘continuity candidate’, meaning she is loyal to Boris. By now, we should all know that the BBC, along with others, wanted desperately to get rid of Boris because of Brexit.
Ergo, Raworth was not there to do Truss any favours.
Rishi was adamant that his tax rises were the right thing. Liz said they were Project Fear:
Here’s the video:
Nadine Dorries’s tweet about attire came up:
Liz said that she would not give Rishi any fashion advice:
She did, however, advise him to be ‘bolder’ in carrying out Government policies. She did not specify any, but one that comes to mind is the amount we are still paying the EU for our exit. He should have nipped that in the bud in January 2020.
Rishi grilled Liz over her conversion to Brexit. She had been an active Remain campaigner before the 2016 referendum.
However, Guido points out that Rishi has not always been consistent. Corporation tax comes to mind:
Guido says:
Rishi’s going in hard on Liz over her change of mind on Brexit – it turns out it’s quite easy for them to hit back at him with even more recent examples of political conversions…
The debate ended with a quick-fire round of questions:
The candidates agreed on nearly everything. The only difference was when Sophie Raworth asked them to rate Boris on a scale of 1 to 10.
Liz Truss gave the former Party leader a 7.
Rishi hemmed and hawed a bit, then gave Boris a 10 for handling Brexit and the 2019 election well.
The Express has the exchange:
Mr Sunak said: “You know what, my views are clear: when he was great, he was great; but it got to a point where we needed to move forward.”
BBC host Sophie Raworth asked: “What does that mean? Five out of ten?”
Mr Sunak replied: “Well, actually, in delivering a solution to Brexit and winning an election, that’s a 10 out of 10.
“You have got to give the guy credit for that. No one else could have probably done that.”
The crowd then erupted into a loud round of applause.
So, Liz did well on the topic of Boris …
… but did Rishi do better?
The hint might be that Conservatives prefer Liz.
Afterwards, Opinium took a snap poll. Liz won the Conservative vote hands down:
Guido offered this analysis:
Overall Rishi bests Liz by 1% among all voters. Rishi needed a slam dunk victory, this is the opposite of what he’d have wanted polling to show…
YouGov also polled Conservative Party members who watched the debate. Guido has the detail.
YouGov’s summary results show that Liz is streets ahead of Rishi:
The UK’s newest channel, TalkTV, hosted a debate sponsored by The Sun on Tuesday night:
Too bad that GB News couldn’t have pipped them to the post. Then again, TalkTV and The Sun are Murdoch outlets.
More about that debate in a separate post.
Churchmouse Campanologist 