Rishi Sunak has said he would much rather lose the Tory leadership contest than makes promises he could not keep as prime minister. While Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has been promising tax cuts and getting rid of a rise in national insurance and in the corporation tax, Rishi has been arguing such moves would be disastrous in the fight to bring down inflation, predicted to climb to 13 per cent next year, according to the Bank of England.

On Wednesday night, he told the BBC: “I haven’t been saying the easy things, and actually I’m prepared to lose this contest if it means that I’ve been true to my values. “I’m fighting for the things that I think are right for this country. I’d rather lose on those terms, than win by promising false things that I can’t deliver.”

In the country at large, most voters tend to believe Rishi. Yet the choice of leader will be made by between 160,000 and 200,000 Tory party members, whose decision will be announced on September 5. Even though the Conservative parliamentary party prefers Rishi, it is claimed members will opt for Truss by a wider margin for reasons that remain unclear. When Rishi and Truss appeared before a Sky TV audience of party members who had not made up their minds, the vote afterwards was 75-25 in favour of the former chancellor.

Earlier this week after the two candidates had appeared at a hustings in Darlington, the presenter Tom Newton-Dunn said no vote would be taken, “otherwise I will be in trouble”. No explanation was given but the suggestion appeared to be that the Truss team did not want their candidate to suffer another embarrassment. It is said that the Tory party members, being older, tend on rely on newspapers, especially the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, rather than social media for their news and views. It could be argued on the basis of polling, that it would be better for the country if Truss were to stand aside in favour of Rishi.