Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has just announced his support for Boris Johnson in the Tory leadership race.

Cleverly tweeted that Johnson had "learned lessons from his time in No 10" and "will ensure the focus is on the needs of the country".

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman has announced she is giving her backing to Rishi Sunak.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, , externalshe says "we are in dire straits now. We need unity, stability and efficiency. Rishi is the only candidate that fits the bill".

A short while ago, Matt Vickers, MP for Stockton South, announced he is backing Rishi Sunak - despite saying his "friend" Boris Johnson has a "huge role to play in the future of our country".

Vickers joins the ranks of Tories who have gone out of their way to express their admiration and appreciation for Johnson on a personal level while announcing they would not back him as Conservative leader.

This morning, Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker said that "voters out there love him and he's a wonderful man" and that he "lights up the room" - before adding that a Johnson comeback would be a "disaster".

And yesterday, former veterans minister Johnny Mercer said Johnson "is a friend and I love him to bits", although he just didn't think he could "put us through all that again".

Following a blistering six weeks, it appears that MPs increasingly feel that, when it comes to Boris Johnson, separating the personal from the political will be essential to restoring the fortunes of the Tory party.

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak dominate Sunday's front pages as the race to become the next Conservative leader and prime minister intensifies.

The Sunday Times cast doubt on whether Johnson has enough backers to make it onto Monday's ballot. Meanwhile, Sunak is surging ahead, winning the support of key figures on the Tory right like Kemi Badenoch and Lord Frost, the paper says.

The Observer says that senior Tories are engaged in a frantic campaign to stop Mr Johnson returning to Downing Street, with claims that he could bring about the end of the Tory party. It also reported that Mr Sunak backers think Mr Johnson's return to No 10 could jeopardise economic stability.

The Sun says Johnson and Sunak need to set an example to their party by healing their rifts. The headline wonders if it'll be "Deal or No Deal", as it reports on a "secret summit" between the two men.

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday has a poll suggesting Johnson would offer the Conservatives the best chance at a general election. , externalHowever, the survey still gives Labour a 10-point lead and a Commons majority of 26 with Johnson in charge.

The Sunday Mirror argues that poll after poll shows the people want a change of government, external, not just a change of leader.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, asks if the new Boris Johnson would be any different from the old one, external, who he says panicked and spent so much it might yet bankrupt the country.

Lastly, the Sunday Express shows strong support for Mr Johnson, declaring that "Boris is Back!".

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

I hear Rishi Sunak is about to get another cabinet backer.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan has thrown her weight behind the former chancellor.

Image source, PA Media

Speaking to the BBC, Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke promised "changes to the nature of the operation [Boris] runs": "He’s been very clear about that - it will be a small, tight, disciplined Downing Street under his leadership."

Clarke also said that Boris Johnson "delivers for the places other politicians have left behind" and that there is a "huge amount of support for Boris in the North East".

"It’s that support that we’re trying to recreate at the next election," he added.

A split has already emerged in the cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Liz Truss about who its members want to lead the Conservatives.

Some of the key cabinet names publicly backing frontrunner Rishi Sunak are:

• Home Secretary Grant Shapps
• International Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch
• Work and Pensions Secretary Chloe Smith

Others who have declared their support for Boris Johnson are:

• Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke
• Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris
• Alok Sharma, COP26 President
• Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Nadhim Zahawi
• Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan

And we can expect Commons leader Penny Mordaunt to be in favour of her becoming prime minister.

Chloe Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary, has come out in support of Rishi Sunak after listening to "his hopes for our country" and her local Conservative members.

"I intend to back Rishi to be prime minister, acting in the national interest and achieving the stability and opportunity that our nation needs," she tweeted.

By the BBC's tally, the total number of Sunak's declared supporters is now 139.

The main news in the Conservative Party leadership contest is that frontrunner and former Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has formally declared he will run.

Writing on Twitter Sunak said, external "I want to fix our economy, unite our Party and deliver for our country."

Here are the other key updates from today so far:

• Business secretary, and Johnson loyalist, Jacob Rees-Mogg, told Laura Kuenssberg he has been told Mr Johnson does have the 100 backers needed and he is "clearly" going to stand, after papers cast doubt on the amount of parliamentary support for him
• Former Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, said support for Sunak is "growing by the hour"
• Tory leader candidate, and current Commons leader, Penny Mourdant, denied she is speaking to Johnson's camp over a potential deal
• Leading Brexiteer Steve Baker told Sky's Sophy Ridge he is backing Rishi Sunak because Johnson is "bound to implode, taking down the whole government with him"
• Johnson is still yet to formally announce he is running
• Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called again for a general election, describing the Conservative Party as a "chaotic circus"

Current figures collated by the BBC show that support for each candidate is currently as follows, with numbers expected to grow as more MPs declare who they are backing:

• Rishi Sunak - 136 MPs
• Boris Johnson - 56 MPs
• Penny Mourdant - 23 MPs

More now on leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt's dismissal of reports she has offered Boris Johnson's team her support in exchange for a prominent position.

Speaking to BBC One's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, she said the suggestion was "completely false" and insisted she was "in it to win it".

Only 23 MPs have publicly come out to support Mordaunt's bid so far.

But the Commons leader said she was "very confident" about making progress and pointed out that during the last leadership contest in the summer, she secured endorsements from 105 MPs.

Read more here.

With just over 24 hours to go until nominations for the next Conservative Party leader close at 14:00 BST on Monday, 211 out of 357 Tory MPs have gone public with their support:

• Rishi Sunak - 133 MPs
• Boris Johnson - 55 MPs
• Penny Mordaunt - 23 MPs

Many others may not declare who they are backing, and more could announce their decisions today - so expect the numbers to continue to change rapidly.

We are only including MPs who have told the BBC on the record who they are backing, or those who have publicly declared their support.

Candidates will require the support of at least 100 Conservative MPs to be on the ballot.

Image source, PA Media

Home Secretary Grant Shapps says he is backing Rishi Sunak to become leader of the Conservative Party.

In a tweet,, external he said: "We need someone who can provide stability and proven economic competence in these challenging times."

The former transport secretary was appointed to his current role by Liz Truss four days ago, following the resignation of Suella Braverman.

Shapps had backed Sunak in the summer's leadership contest against Truss, after dropping out of the race himself.

The business secretary tells the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg there's a great deal of support for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and that he will stand to be leader of the Conservative Party - and therefore potentially returning as prime minister.

This comes amid reports in Sunday's papers that he may not have the crucial 100 backers needed to get to the final two.

"The people who are doing the numbers for Boris' campaign tell me that they have the numbers," he said.

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Image source, PA Media

What will really stay with me from this morning was the sombre reality check from a former governor of the Bank of England.

Lord Mervyn King called on politicians to tell the hard truths he believes the public need to hear: that we are confronting a tough economic picture for years to come, potentially a more difficult period than the years of austerity under the coalition.

Nor did he hold back from identifying mistakes he believes the Bank of England has made, along with other central banks around the world, in being too slow to try to stamp out inflation and too reluctant to pull back from quantitative easing (the process of printing money).

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Despite all the frantic speculation about a possible deal between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab - a political ally of the former chancellor - said there would be no deal between the two men.

They met last night, and had what was described to me as "friendly discussions",

But the Sunak camp is clear - there will be no accommodation between the two men, for now at least.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, in the Johnson team, said definitively that the former prime minister will stand again - although his team are still shy about putting forward the names or firm numbers of those who they claim are ready to back him. So far, so unclear in terms of the final candidate list.

The will he, won't he, of Boris Johnson goes on.

Penny Mordaunt, the only candidate who fronted up to the studio this morning, maintained she is still in it to win it, making her case as the potential leader who can pull the party together and end the shenanigans.

Notable though, that she was deeply reluctant to get into any detail.

Rishi Sunak has just declared he is running to be the next Conservative Party leader and prime minister after days of speculation, during which he amassed the support of well over 100 MPs.

In a tweet announcing his candidacy, Sunak writes "the United Kingdom is a great country but we face a profound economic crisis".

Sunak says he can "fix our economy, unite our party and deliver for our country", and that although "the challenges we face now are even greater" than those posed by the pandemic, "the opportunities - if we make the right choice - are phenomenal".

Promising to deliver on the 2019 manifesto which won the Tories 43.6% of the vote, Sunak says that under him there will be "integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of government".

"The choice our party makes now will decide whether the next generation of British people will have more opportunities than the last," he writes.

Addressing fellow MPs, he writes:

Ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak has just confirmed he is running to be leader of the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party faces a "terrible political picture" at the moment, and "it's not looking likely" that they can regain their popularity, says Prof Jane Green of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre at Oxford University.

It would take something "substantial" to turn around their electoral fortunes she tells Laura Kuenssberg.

Meanwhile ex-Bank of England governor Mervyn King says the Tory candidates need to offer more than just "words" on the economy, and put in place a real plan to tackle inflation and the other economic challenges the UK faces.

Lastly, former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, re-emphasises that he wants his party "to settle down" and it has to start telling people "how difficult" things are going to be economically in the future.

Next up is Boris Johnson's former deputy Dominic Raab, who pledged his support for Rishi Sunak yesterday, saying he can't back Johnson as prime minister while the Partygate inquiry continues.

Raab tells the BBC Sunak has double the number of people supporting him than Johnson, including "big names" like Sajid Javid, Steve Baker and Kemi Badenoch.

Raab says Sunak was right on the approach to the economy and Jeremy Hunt is currently enacting his vision - and that support for Sunak is "growing by the hour".

On Sunak's record, Raab notes he was the chancellor who took the country through Covid and "saved millions of jobs through the furlough scheme" and saved businesses.

"He is also the politician who set out what is clearly the right plan to get financial stability, market stability, inflation and interest down and get the country moving forward."

Raab doesn't say whether Sunak would keep Jeremy Hunt in place as chancellor.

Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg says former Prime Minister Boris Johnson will "clearly" stand to be the next Tory leader, saying there's a "great deal" of support for him.

Asked whether he truly had the necessary 100 Conservative MPs supporting him to get his name on the ballot, Rees-Mogg says "the people who are doing the numbers" for Johnson's campaign say he does.

The BBC's own tally of public support puts Johnson on 55 MPs, Rishi Sunak on 129 MPs and Penny Mordaunt on 23 MPs.

Rees-Mogg adds that Johnson has been "the greatest electoral asset" the Conservative Party has had in modern times.