Hectoring bully v a total incompetent

Sunak & Truss clash in TV debate | Johnson ‘planning to stay in No10’

- PIPPA CRERAR and ALETHA ADU

RISHI Sunak and Liz Truss traded heavy blows in a TV head-to-head last night as the Tory leadership race descended into open warfare.

The ex-Chancellor hectored his old Cabinet colleague over her “unfunded” tax cuts that he said would tip “millions into economic misery”.

The Foreign Secretary told a BBC hustings audience, “I don’t believe this negative declinist language” but she struggled to set out exactly why.

As the leadership rivals campaigned to replace Boris Johnson, a Tory peer suggested the desperate leader is planning to cling on to his premiership if party members back him.

Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch has set up a petition calling for Mr Johnson to carry on as Prime Minister.

More than 10,000 party members have signed it, demanding his name be added to next month’s ballot but one Tory MP called it a “sideshow”.