Liz Truss has been given a fresh boost in her bid to become the next Tory leader as she and rival Rishi Sunak prepare to face off for the cameras on Sky News tonight.
A second poll in less than 24 hours showed the gap between the foreign minister and Sunak widening.
The new survey of Conservative Party members by ConservativeHome published on Wednesday found that Ms Truss is most likely to become the next Prime Minister, with 58% of those asked backing her.
It was found that Mr. Sunak had the support of 26%, while 12% were undecided.
Sajid Javid backs Liz Truss as PM for politics
Meanwhile, former health secretary and unsuccessful Tory leadership candidate Sajid Javid also endorsed his campaign in a second major coup of the day for Mr Sunak.
Javid, writing in The Times, said Sunak’s refusal to cut taxes meant the UK was at risk of becoming a “middle-income economy”.
Learn more about Tory Leadership Race
Whereas, he said, Ms Truss had “the will to challenge the status quo”.
Javid is the second former leadership candidate to back the Foreign Secretary this week after Penny Mordaunt declared her support on Monday.
A YouGov poll of Tory members released on Tuesday also showed Ms Truss extending her lead over Sunak to 34 points in the Tory leadership race.
The poll, carried out by The Times, found that 60% of party members now say they will vote for the Foreign Secretary to succeed Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.
This compared with just 26% for former chancellor Mr Sunak.
A spokesman for Ms Truss’s campaign said polls show that “Liz’s vision for Britain is resonating with members”.
Truss “takes nothing for granted”
As the leadership race continues to heat up, candidates Sunak and Truss will go head-to-head for the cameras again tonight on Sky News.
Sunak will be fighting to make up ground in what is a key week in the race for the keys to No.10.
The battle for Number 10, which takes place at 8pm tonight at Sky Studios in west London, will see candidates take on familiar questions from the live studio audience of Conservative Party members who are still undecided who to vote for. for
This will be followed by an in-depth interview with Kay Burley.
Yesterday, both leadership contenders took part in the latest convocations held in Cardiff.
Ms. Truss told the audience that he is “taking nothing for granted” and that “there is still a long way to go in this leadership election”.
In the first turbulence of her campaign, Ms Truss was forced on Tuesday to reverse a plan to link public sector pay to regional living costs.
On Monday night, the frontrunner in the leadership race said she would save £8.8bn by introducing regional rather than national pay boards to set civil servants’ salaries, reflecting where they lived.
But experts warned that to reach the sum, the plan would have to branch out beyond government departments, with teachers, nurses and police also receiving lower pay than workers in the south.
It sparked outrage from Tory MPs and by lunchtime today, less than 24 hours later, Truss’ team had released a statement saying the policy would not be going ahead.
“Loyal, honest and hardworking”
Sunak welcomed his U-turn, saying it would have meant “nearly half a million workers in Wales would take a pay cut”.
“I don’t think that cutting the pay of hundreds of thousands of workers here, and indeed in every region of the UK, is a Tory policy that we should be taking and I’m glad he’s changed his mind,” he told the public in Cardiff.
Elsewhere during the boxes, Sunak hinted that he would consider abolishing inheritance tax if he became prime minister.
He told the crowd it was “not what he set out to do,” but it was something he could look into.
“I have put forward a plan to steadily reduce income tax over time because I want to reward hard work. But as you have heard in my previous statements, I am someone who believes in supporting aspiration,” l ex-chancellor said
“I think that’s a conservative value that many of us in this room will hold dear and inheritance tax is one way of doing that.
“So, over time, is that something we should look at? Of course we should, because the people who are working hard should be rewarded for that.”
In a boost to Sunak’s campaign, former chancellor Nigel Lawson warned that Ms Truss’s proposed financial policy risked a repeat of the spiraling inflation of the 1970s.
Lawson, who has previously backed Sunak, told The Telegraph: “We saw the impact of rising prices, crippling the economy and putting millions out of work.
“Savings eroded and investment collapsed. I am deeply concerned that we are in danger of repeating the mistakes of that decade.”
Meanwhile, both candidates were also asked at the hustings to describe themselves in three words.
Sunak said “loyal, honest and hard-working”, while Ms Truss said: “determined, loyal and funny”.
“The Battle for Number 10” will be broadcast live for 90 minutes and free-to-air on Sky News channel 501, DTT channel 233, Sky Showcase channel 106 and Sky News digital channels.