Lord Frost also stepped up his attacks on second-choice Penny Mordant, saying she was “absent on parade” when working with her on post-Brexit negotiations last year. Truss was winning Tory support soon after Attorney-General Suella Braverman was ousted from an increasingly bitter leadership race in which former chancellor Rishi Sunak came in first and Mordaud second in the latest round of MPs’ votes. The competition is heating up as the candidates prepare for the first televised debate on Channel 4 on Friday night. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Frost said: “Kemi and Suella Braverman presented compelling programmes, with different emphases, for change. Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch outside parliament. Braverman was eliminated from the leadership contest after receiving 27 votes in the runoff. Photo: Twitter/Matt Goodwin “But Liz’s depth of experience, energy and ideas – and the simple fact that she has the most votes of the three – put her in first place. “Now is the time for pragmatism. I urge Kemi to resign in exchange for a serious job in a Truss administration.’ Badenoch’s campaign, however, said it was “in to win”. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, who also supports Truss, on Friday declined to directly criticize Mordaunt but emphasized Truss’s experience. He told LBC: “We can’t just elect someone because, for a short period of time, they might look better than others. What we are actually electing is not, in any way, a popularity contest. We’re electing someone who has to govern for probably two years with a huge set of judgments.” Braverman was eliminated from the race after receiving 27 votes in the runoff. He immediately attacked Mordaunt on the issue of trans rights and later announced he would support Truss’s bid. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Rival camps shared a video of Mordaunt debating the legislation in the Commons at the time, in which she says: “Let me say by suggesting, from this despatch box, that trans men are men, trans women are women.” Since launching her campaign, Mordaunt has tried to play down the idea that she is too “woke” for the tastes of Tory members. The contentious issue of trans rights is likely to be raised in tonight’s 90-minute debate at BT Studios, which will be moderated by Channel 4 news presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Candidates will be quizzed by a London audience of 50 to 100 people, most of them swing voters, with Guru-Murthy asking follow-up questions. Candidates will take turns to answer and there will be eight to 10 minutes of discussion with each other. They will each have 45 seconds for final statements at the end. Dame Maria Miller, a Mordaunt supporter, said questions about trans rights and identity should not be part of the “political battle”. He also dismissed criticism from Frost, telling Sky News he was wrong about Mordaunt. “I’ve seen her be a very effective activist. He really is one of the leading supporters of Brexit and has been throughout the campaign.”
