CHANCELLOR Nadhim Zahawi and former UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt have been eliminated from the Tory leadership race.
The two hopefuls have dropped out of the race after the first round of voting by Conservative MPs this afternoon.
In the first round of voting Rishi Sunak secured 88 votes, ahead of Penny Mordaunt on 67 and Liz Truss on 50.
Tom Tugendhat won 37 votes, Kemi Badenoch had 40 and Suella Braverman secured 32 votes.
Mr Zahawi only secured 25 votes and Mr Hunt tallied up just 18 votes, eliminating them from the race to become the next prime minister.
Candidates needed at least 30 MPs to support them to progress to a second round.
Mr Hunt warned the remaining candidates “smears and attacks may bring short-term tactical gain but always backfire long term”.
“A gentle word of advice to the remaining candidates: smears & attacks may bring short term tactical gain but always backfire long term,” he tweeted.
“The nation is watching & they’ve had enough of our drama; be the broad church & unbeatable, election winning machine that our country deserves.”
Mr Zahawi did not announce his favoured candidate for the Tory leadership after he was dumped from the race.
In a statement, he said: “I am very grateful for the support of colleagues in this leadership election and to Conservatives up and down the country who have got behind me and sent me best wishes.
“Clearly my part in the contest has now ended.
“I don’t intend to make any further intervention, but I wish all the candidates in the leadership contest the very best of luck.”
A spokeswoman for Liz Truss said: “Now is the time for colleagues to unite behind the candidate who will cut taxes, deliver the real economic change we need from day one and ensure Putin loses in Ukraine.
“Liz has the experience to deliver the benefits of Brexit from day one, grow our economy and support working families.”
Mr Tugendhat tweeted: “This is a fantastic result.
“I’m delighted to be going through to the next round with the momentum we need to change this country for the better. Our country needs #ACleanStart”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel