TORY leadership contestants tore chunks out of each other in tonight’s telly clash – as Penny Mordaunt was skewered over her record on trans rights.
The gloves came off as the five Tories competing to be PM knifed each other over their record.
Kemi Badenoch lashed out at Ms Mordaunt
The panel tore into one another
In a series of vicious blue-on-blue attacks, they savaged each other on tax, spending and honesty in politics.
As the race for Downing St turned ugly, all five candidates bashed Boris Johnson in their desperate scramble for votes.
Struggling outsider Tom Tugendhat extraordinarily revealed private conversations during which Rishi Sunak blamed the NICs rise on Bojo.
While rising star Kemi Badenoch – currently fourth in the race – turned the screw on frontrunner Penny over her record on trans rights.
After days of mounting questions over her record, Penny denied she had ever backed people being able to pick their sex.
“I’ve never been in favour of self ID”, she said.
She said trans women change gender but “they are not biological women”.
But Kemi – who took over the equalities brief after Penny – accused her of covering up her past backing of the policy.
Asked if she believed Penny, wildcard Kemi swiped: “I find it difficult to.”
She added: “I took over as Equalities Minister in 2020, the policy that was being pushed was self ID.”
Clearly agitated, Ms Mordaunt snapped back: “That is not correct, that will all be on record”.
Doubling down, Kemi thundered: “It is on record.”
In a vicious 90-minute debate, the candidates savaged one another.
Former Cabinet colleagues Rishi and Liz Truss came to virtual fisticuffs over their differences on tax.
Liz has promised to splurge a whopping £40billion on tax cuts, including promises to dump green levies on energy bills and spike the planned corporation tax hike.
But Rishi is refusing to cut tax until sky-high inflation is under control.
Banging the drum for tax cuts, Liz said: “I would immediately reverse the National Insurance increases which I called out in the Cabinet I was opposed to.
“I’d also remove the green energy levy so that people had more affordable energy bills because I understand how difficult it is for people across the country right now.”
But a scathing Rishi hit back: “Liz, be honest, borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan. It’s a fairy tale. I think it is wrong.”
Not to be outdone, Tom declared that he has always been against the NICs tax rise and argued for it to be binned.
Turning to Rishi, he tore up political niceties to reveal that the ex-Chancellor blamed the rise on Boris.
He said: “We had a long conversation about it, and you set out your position and I asked why on earth this was going to be necessary. You told me because the boss wanted it.”
‘CLEAN START’
Former Army officer Tom T has made a virtue of the fact he has never served in Cabinet – insisting he is the “clean start” the country heeds.
But Kemi said he was guilty of sniping from the sidelines while others did the wavy lifting of running the country.
She said: “It is very easy for Tom to say, I didn’t vote for this….he didn’t have any responsibility.
“It’s easy to sit at the back of the class and tell everybody what they’re doing is wrong when he hasn’t been a minister.”
Bookies favourite Penny accused her rivals of running a smear campaign against her to stop her getting to the final two.
She said: “We are all responsible for our own campaigns and I take it as a big fat compliment that no-one wants to run against me.
“The campaign that I’m running, people can see, is not doing that. I think it’s incredibly important, if we are going to rebuild trust, to stop that sort of thing.
“I would suggest to candidates that they adopt that model.”
Candidates also scrambled to put clear blue water between themselves and Boris’ troubled reign.
Bashing Boris, Ms Badenoch accused the PM of valuing “loyalty” above talent.
She swiped: “I would appoint people because they were talented, not because they were loyal.”
Rishi suggested he had been teetering on the brink of resignation for months before he jumped ship last week – sparking Boris’ downfall.
He dodged questions over whether Boris is “honest”, adding: “I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible and ultimately I reached the conclusion that I couldn’t, and that’s why I resigned.”
Penny dodged questions over whether he thinks Boris is honest, while Mr Tugendhat shook his head and said “no” – sparking applause from the audience.
Liz was the only one to say she was loyal to the PM.
Kemi – a relative unknown outside Westminster who has impressed
Tories with her insurgent campaign, had a good night.
Early frontrunner Rishi fell over himself to side with his up and coming rival, declaring: “I agree with Kemi”.
The famous phrase harks back to the 2010 election campaign, when pity was used in the TV debates about then Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg.
David Cameron and Gordon Brown both famously said “I agree with Nick” while on the telly debates.
It helped make Mr Clegg the breakout star of the contest. He went on to defy expectations, storm the ballot box and lead the Lib Dems into Coalition with the Tories.
