Even before Friday’s TV debate, with venomous newspaper briefings and allegations of vote-lending flying, that seemed a remote prospect. And when the five contenders gathered at an east London venue for the Channel 4 broadcast, the blades were soon flashing. Rishi Sunak humiliated Liz Truss over her promise of more than £30 billion in immediate and unfunded tax cuts. The foreign secretary said she would pay for these by “spreading the debt that we accumulated during Covid over a longer period”. The former chancellor told his erstwhile cabinet colleague: “There’s no such thing as Covid debt.
