Michael Gove backs Rishi Sunak in Tory leadership bid

Michael Gove has said he will back Rishi Sunak to be the next Conservative Party leader, saying he has what the job requires.

The ex-levelling up secretary wrote in The Times rival Liz Truss's tax policies would put business executives before the poorest in society, calling the plans a "holiday from reality".

He also said he himself did not expect to return to frontbench politics.

It comes as Mr Sunak unveils plans he says will help British motorists.

The former chancellor is battling it out with Foreign Secretary Ms Truss to replace outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the leader of the Tories. The result will be announced on 5 September.

A number of cabinet members have publicly backed Ms Truss, who is also the bookmakers' favourite.

Mr Gove backed Kemi Badenoch earlier in the contest, but writing on Saturday he said he was now in favour of Mr Sunak, raising doubts over Ms Truss's plans to deal with soaring prices and living costs.

He said: "Proposed cuts to national insurance would favour the wealthy, and changes to corporation tax apply to big businesses, not small entrepreneurs. I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take precedence over supporting the poorest in our society, but at a time of want it cannot be the right priority."

He went on: "And here I am deeply concerned that the framing of the leadership debate by many has been a holiday from reality. The answer to the cost-of-living crisis cannot be simply to reject further 'handouts' and cut tax."

Mr Gove said the tax hikes brought in by Mr Sunak as chancellor had been "a consequence of Covid, not Rishi's inner preferences".

"I know what the job requires. And Rishi has it," he said.

Mr Gove added he did not plan to return to frontbench politics himself, writing: "I do not expect to be in government again. But it was the privilege of my life to spend 11 years in the cabinet under three prime ministers."

Mr Gove missed out in his own leadership bids in 2016 and 2019 and was most recently sacked as Levelling Up Secretary after publicly telling Mr Johnson to quit as prime minister ahead of his ultimate resignation.

The Sunak campaign welcomed Mr Gove's backing, with a spokeswoman saying: "Delighted to have the support of a party and Cabinet veteran who has intellectual heft and shown the radical reforming zeal in every job he has had, that we now so desperately need."

Meanwhile, Mr Sunak promised to tackle the "war on motorists" if he became prime minister - describing smart motorways as "unsafe" and pledging to stop any new ones being built.

He also said he would clamp down on rogue parking fines and review some of the neighbourhoods that have been designated as "low traffic areas" in recent years.

Mr Sunak pledged to introduce a transition to electric vehicles without punishing drivers, while also delivering a "rural rollout action plan" to ensure countryside communities were not left behind.

Ms Truss appears to be the frontrunner in the polls and has been backed by senior Conservatives colleagues including Nadhim Zahawi, Thérèse Coffey, Sajid Javid, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nadine Dorries, along with former leadership candidates Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat.

Mr Sunak was recently questioned during a recent Sky interview as to why he was unable to win the public support of close colleagues, other than his main backer, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

The two leadership candidates appeared at a hustings in Manchester on Friday evening - answering questions in front of party members.

Ms Truss spoke about her plan to lift the ban on new grammar schools, saying she wanted everyone "right across the country" to have the choice to enlist their children at one.

She went on to criticise the Mayor of Greater Manchester, calling Andy Burnham the "miserabilist mayor... who doesn't want opportunities" for people in the city.

Mr Sunak used the event to share his plans on rolling out private-sector style "surgical hubs" across the country in the NHS and he also criticised the UK's foreign policy.