Image source, Britain's Next PM: The C4 Debate/ITN Productions

Next is Tom Tugendhat, who says trust has been collapsing in politics and in his party.

He says he's willing to call out friends as well as enemies. He says he's been holding a mirror to many of his party's actions and asking those in the party, and in leadership positions, if that's what the public really expects.

The real question, he says, is who is this government for? This government only works when it works for you, he says, addressing the audience.

Tugendhat says he swore loyalty to the country and that is where his loyalty lies.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

I'm in the spin room just beside the studio where the debate is taking place.

It's a sign of how much there is at stake that there are a number of cabinet ministers - and several MPs here preparing to spin for their candidate.

The feeling here is that Rishi Sunak is likely to get down to the final two. Likely not guaranteed. And it's a lot more complicated when the members get involved.

Supporters of Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt are making the case that their candidate is the best person to take on Mr Sunak in a vote of Tory members.

Image source, Britain's Next PM: The C4 Debate/ITN Productions

First up is Liz Truss, who says she can be trusted because she has been in government and delivered things people said were impossible.

She says as foreign secretary she has taken on Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine and is delivering on plans to override the Northern Ireland protocol, thereby "standing up" to the EU.

She says we now need someone with a proven record of delivery.

Guru-Murthy presses her on the issue of trust about the conduct of Boris Johnson and why she didn't resign. Truss says she is a loyal person and owed the former prime minister that.

Image source, .

The first question is from an audience member, who asks: "Why should the public trust any of you?"

Image source, Britain's Next PM: The C4 Debate/ITN Productions

Hosting the 90-minute debate is news anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

He says the heat is on for the candidates, who will face questions from the public to see if they have what it takes to be the next prime minister.

He asks after all the Conservative scandals of recent times who is the right person to lead the country and to defeat Labour and opposition parties at a future general election.

The candidates are at their lecterns and are about to be grilled by members of the public and Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

Stay with us for live coverage of the debate.

We're moments away now from the first TV debate of the Conservative leadership contest.

We'll bring you the updates as they unfold from the debate, which is being held on Channel 4 at 19:30 BST.

TV debate moves from closed-doors contest into openpublished at 19:15 British Summer Time 15 July 2022

19:15 BST 15 July 2022

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent

A lot of this leadership debate has been taking place behind closed doors.

Tonight that will change - for 90 minutes the five people who want to be our prime minister will be subject to scrutiny on live TV.

Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are the outsiders. Both are fighting to stay in the race. But tonight is a chance for them to make an impression and significantly boost their profile.

Can one of them make such an impression that their candidacy becomes hard to ignore - and wins them more backers?

Rishi Sunak is the frontrunner among MPs - it's looking increasingly likely he'll be in the final two. But from the snapshots we've had so far, he's not as popular with Conservative members.

He will want to try and address that tonight - but without taking any major risks which might impact his standing with MPs.

Then there are the two candidates vying for the other place in the final two; Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss. This is their chance to persuade Conservative MPs that they can perform on the big stage, communicate effectively with a mass audience and deal with TV scrutiny.

There are three groups who will be on the minds of the campaigns tonight:

• Tory MPs - who will decide next week who to put into the final two
• Tory members - who will decide from that final two who our next PM should be
• But also crucially voters - who will ultimately decide on whether the last two groups made the right choice and whether they should stay in power at the next general election.

If you are just joining us, here's what we have learnt so far today.

• The five remaining Tory leadership candidates are set to face each other in less than an hour in the first of three TV debates at 19:30 BST on Channel 4 tonight
• Ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak is currently leading the pack, having scooped the most votes, 101, in the second round of the contest on Thursday
• But Penny Mordaunt, who came second with 84 votes yesterday, is currently the bookies' favourite - with Liz Truss moving up into second place ahead of Sunak
• Backers of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss have attacked rival Mordaunt, claiming she lacks the relevant experience to lead the party
• Meanwhile Suella Braverman - eliminated from the race yesterday - has urged the 27 MPs who backed her to lend their support to Truss
• Earlier on Friday, all five contenders took part in an online hustings hosted by the Conservative Home website, facing questions from the public on tax cuts, Russian President Vladimir Putin and restoring trust
• The final ballot to determine the two candidates takes place on Wednesday 20 July. Conservative Party members will ultimately choose a winner by postal ballot - with the result announced on 5 September
• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said his party did not "fear any of the candidates” and reiterated that his party is “united and ready for an election”

Image source, PA Media

In about an hour (19:30 BST), all five remaining candidates will take part in the first leadership debate, broadcast on Channel 4. But what is the format?

They will be answering questions from an "audience of floating voters" which have been chosen and vetted by polling firm Survation, Channel 4 has confirmed.

Each candidate will be first to answer a question at least once, with around seven to nine minutes scheduled for each segment.

The host will be the broadcaster's lead presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who will follow up and clarify the candidates' answers as needed.

Once the questions have wrapped up, they will be given around 45 seconds for a closing statement - with the order allotted randomly ahead of the broadcast.

Image source, EPA

Once Tory MPs have whittled down the leadership race to two candidates, it’s over to less than 200,000 Conservative Party members to vote for their next leader – and, by default, the next prime minister of the UK.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier, two of them discussed a few of the key factors that could play a part.

Is being a close lieutenant of Johnson’s a bad thing?

"Yes and no," said Nicola Lowery, president of the Telford Conservative Association.

People are keen to move on from the Boris Johnson government and many of the candidates are standing on their own policies so “it’s not a massive consideration I’ve heard from our membership", she explained.

“People greatly admire some of what he has achieved,” she added.

“But equally they want to move forward with a candidate who has strong policies.”

Cameron Molland, of the Cornwall Young Conservatives, said the PM had made some “rather disappointing errors of judgement” but in the field of foreign policy he made some "excellent achievements” particularly on Ukraine.

As long as they have integrity “it’s not such a disastrous thing to be close to Boris”, he added.

Tax: Cut now or cut responsibility and in due course?

Pretty much all of the candidates have pledged fast tax cuts apart from Rishi Sunak who says it should be done sustainably over time.

Lowery said she appreciates Sunak’s stance but wants to see cuts now.

“We need to find ways to stimulate the economy and growth,” she said.

Molland agreed, and said particularly fuel duty and the national insurance hike reversal need to happen now.

He said he also understands why Sunak wants to be more cautious but added: “This cost of living crisis is not going away and is certainly not going to get better unless we are willing to act quickly.”

Is Brexit stance important?

“In terms of the party membership it is important that the candidate can be seen to be a true blue Brexiteer,” said Molland.

The intervention of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan is “definitely something that a lot of members will be concerned with”, he added.

Last month, the ECHR - which is not connected to the EU - issued a ruling which prevented the first flight taking asylum seekers in the UK to Rwanda from leaving as planned.

Image source, Reuters

A former soldier, Tom Tugendhat is the only candidate left in the leadership contest who has not held ministerial office.

But he has often held ministers to account - in his role as chairman of the foreign affairs select committee.

His knowledge and understanding of international relations is extensive, having completed a Master's degree in Islamic studies at Cambridge and learnt Arabic in Yemen and worked in PR in Lebanon.

He also holds dual British and French citizenship - having a French mother and a French wife, a judge.

Tugendhat recently found himself banned from entering China, after being accused of spreading "lies and disinformation" about the nation. He pressured the government to ban Huawei from 5G networks.

He was also highly critical of the Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, labelling it Britain's "biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez".

He has often had a strained relationship with Boris Johnson and backed Michael Gove in the 2019 Tory leadership contest.

As a contender for leadership, he has pledged to increase spending on defence to 3% of national income, cut national insurance, reduce fuel duty and increase tax incentives for business investment.

Read his full story.

Image source, UK Parliament/PA Media

Kemi Badenoch has been the surprise package of the Conservative leadership contest.

Rarely mentioned in speculation about who might succeed Boris Johnson before the contest started, she has already seen off some big names and is currently fourth in the race after the second round of the MPs' ballot.

Seen as being on the right of the party, the 42-year-old former equalities minister is standing on an "anti-woke" platform - and is arguing for the state to be slimmed down.

But she has also insisted she will not enter the tax cut "bidding war" with the other leadership candidates.

Born in Wimbledon, south London, to parents of Nigerian origin, she grew up in the US and Nigeria, where her psychology professor mother had lecturing jobs.

She returned to the UK at the age of 16, and studied for her A-levels at a college in south London while working at a branch of McDonalds.

Read more.

There has been a lot of chatter about the top three candidates, as they jostle for votes, in their bid to reach the head-to-head contest.

But what about the other two?

Former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat, chair of the foreign affairs select committee, are considered outsiders in the race for Tory leadership.

In Thursday's vote, Badenoch received 49 votes and Tugendhat, 32.

Where their backers and, more significantly, their votes will go, in the event of elimination, is key. As is the timing of their exit.

And they are facing some pressure.

Supporters of Liz Truss have urged Kemi Badenoch to leave the race - allowing the right of the party to unite behind the foreign secretary’s bid – and diminish the threat posed by rival Penny Mordaunt.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph,, external ex-Brexit minister Lord Frost urged Badenoch, to throw her support behind Truss "in return for a serious job" in government.

But Badenoch's campaign said she had "no intention of stepping down" and was "in it to win".

There had also been speculation that backbench MP Tom Tugendhat, who came fifth in Thursday's vote, might drop out of the contest.

But in a tweet he said he would stay on and put his "vision for Britain forward to the public".

Image source, Reuters

Let's take a look at another of the top candidates.

Liz Truss is a familiar name in political circles, having held a wide variety of posts dealing with high-profile domestic and international issues.

Aged 46, she became the UK's second female foreign secretary.

Born in Oxford to parents she described as "left-wing", Truss grew up in Paisley, Scotland, and in Leeds, where she attended a local secondary school.

Like rival Sunak, she read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, then worked as an accountant before moving into politics.

After two false starts, she was elected MP for the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk in 2010, entering government as an education minister just two years later.

While originally a remainer, she is now at the forefront of plans to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol by scrapping parts of a post-Brexit deal between the EU and the UK.

In her bid for leadership, she has talked up her extensive government experience and pledged immediate tax cuts, including reversing the National Insurance hike and a scheduled rise in corporation tax.

But she has faced questions over why she stood by Boris Johnson.

Here's her story so far.

Image source, PA Media

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says his party does not "fear any of the candidates” for the Tory leadership because the change the UK needs is not at the top of the Conservative Party, which he says has given the country “twelve years of failure”, but a change of government.

Speaking in Berlin after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he says the past few days have drawn a contrast between Tory MPs “squabbling like cats in a bag” and a Labour Party “united and ready for an election”.

Starmer adds that while he “completely understands” why people are “frustrated” about the cost of living crisis, he doesn’t want planned rail strikes to go ahead. He accuses Transport Secretary Grant Shapps of spending “more time on his leadership campaign” than on stopping them.

Image source, EPA

Penny Mordaunt is arguably the least known public face among the top contenders for Tory leadership.

But in the first two leadership ballots, she has come a clear second to the higher-profile Rishi Sunak - and recent polls confirmed her huge popularity among Conservative Party members.

She is now locked in an increasingly bitter battle with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to secure a slot in the final run-off, when MPs have completed the votes to whittle the field down to two.

The 49-year-old Portsmouth North MP has been in and around government for the best part of a decade - and enjoyed a brief spell as a reality TV star, braving the cameras in her swimmers in ITV's Splash.

A former head of the Conservative Party's youth wing, Mordaunt was a prominent backer of Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum and currently serves as minister for trade policy.

During the Brexit referendum, she provoked a row when she claimed the UK could not veto Turkey joining the EU, a statement later declared to be "absolutely wrong" by then PM David Cameron.

She has promised to return to traditional Conservative values of "low tax, [a] small state and personal responsibility".

Want to know more? Read on.

Image source, Getty Images

Most people will know that the former chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is accused by Johnson loyalists of having precipitated the PM’s downfall with his resignation last week, has been talked up as a frontrunner for the top job for some time.

As chancellor he was responsible for steering the UK economy through the pandemic: launching the furlough scheme and the Eat Out to Help Out campaign.

Sunak, 42, has been MP for Richmond in Yorkshire since 2015, but is originally from Southampton.

With a background which includes private school, Oxford University and a career in hedge funds, he may appear, to some, to be the archetypal Tory politician.

In his bid for leadership, he has attracted heavyweight support from former cabinet colleagues, and is pitching himself as someone who would not cut taxes until inflation is under control.

But he has faced criticism that his enormous personal wealth means he is out of touch with the many Britons currently struggling financially with the cost of living crisis.

Read his full story.

Image source, Institute for Government.

Research by the Institute for Government, an independent think tank, shows that Liz Truss has spent more time in the cabinet than her four remaining rivals put together.

Despite Rishi Sunak's higher profile, Penny Mordaunt has spent far longer as a minister than the former chancellor.

But for some Conservative MPs and party members who will decide which of the five contenders will become prime minister, it could be that experience in government does not count for everything. Both Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat have made much of their status as "insurgent candidates" with other qualities, representing a fresh start.

Former leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has just written to her supporters urging them to get behind Liz Truss.

Braverman was knocked out of the race yesterday after coming last in the second round of voting among Tory MPs and publicly expressed support for Truss following the result.

BBC Political correspondent Nick Eardley has seen the message, external sent by the attorney general to fellow MPs, which told them Truss and Badenoch "are not both going to make it into the final two".

She adds that the foreign secretary is "undeniably the better placed candidate" to reach the second round, where Conservative Party members vote on the new leader and PM.