London: Nationwide tours, explicit television interviews and what not have the contenders to succeed UK PM Boris done, but looks like the Liz Truss’ races ahead of the Indian origin Rishi Sunak. As the Conservative party heads to close voting on Friday, Liz Truss appears to be poised to take over the charge.
Sunak on Wednesday, closed his final husting event before the election for a new Conservative Party leader and British Prime Minister concludes, thanking his parents and wife Akshata Murty for their support. Given the sharp contrast between his booming welcome and that of his rival, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, it was clear that at least for this audience Sunak was the winning candidate in the race to succeed Boris Johnson.
The London event marked the 12th and final event in the Tory leadership election race, which concludes on Friday at 1700 local time and the winner is set to be announced on Monday. Sunak, the frontrunner in the first leg of the contest when his parliamentary colleagues voted him in as a finalist, has been trailing in the pre-poll surveys. His Ready4Rishi team has used this to frame his campaign around the theme of his self-confessed underdog status in the race.
Meanwhile, Truss’ focus on tax cuts as the solution to the rapidly growing inflation comes as a catch which makes sense as the country battles the worst cost of living crisis. The public is sceptical about the government’s ability to solve any of these issues with many switching to Labour in the polls since December of last year.