Rishi Sunak and Kwasi Kwarteng go head-to-head ahead of hustings

It may feel as though the Tory leadership contest has been going on forever, but we have not even reached the half-way point in terms of official Conservative party hustings. The sixth hustings event will take place at Cheltenham tonight at 7 pm. There will be another six to go after that.

The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, is the frontrunner and this morning her camp is launching a fresh line of attack against her rival, Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, two leading Truss supporters, Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, accuse him of trying to realise the benefits of leaving. Sunak is a chancellor against attempts to do exactly that and realise the benefits of leaving the EU, and he abopts cutting EU regulations. We both saw it in cabinet, including resisting reforms to the EU s Solvency II regulation making it harder for pension funds and investors to invest in British business and infrastructure, and moving ahead with legislation to fix issues with the Northern Ireland protocol.

Sunak voted for the deal in 2016 when Truss supported it. Part of the reason why she appears to be so popular with Tory members who are overwhelmingly pro-Brexit is because she has managed to portray herself as a Brexit evangelist, while portraying Sunak as someone who has been captured by remainer, Treasury orthodoxy.

Sunak plays the role of Snowball from Animal Farm in this scenario.

Sunak believes that Britain offers economic opportunities and, in response to the article, a campaign spokesman said:

Sunak campaign sources said it was categorically wrong to say Sunak opposed reforming the Solvency II rule and that he supported standing up to Brussels over the Northern Ireland protocol.

Both candidates are meeting Conservative members before the hustings tonight. Kwarteng will meet energy firm bosses this morning, along with chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. There was a suggestion that they might use the meeting to propose expanding the scope of the windfall tax on energy companies. But that proposal has been downgraded Truss, the probable next PM, who is not keen, and now it is not clear what outcome we should expect from the meeting. There will be no major change on energy policy until the new Tory leader is elected. I try to monitor the comments below the line BTL but it is impossible to read all of them. If you have a direct question, include Andrew somewhere and I'm more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line ATL, although I can't promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to draw my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.