Tory leadership race: UK retail titan Lord Stuart Rose backs Rishi Sunak
The Conservative party should choose Rishi Sunak as its next leader as he has a “big brain” and understands “the need for us to get our economy back on track”, according to Asda chair Lord Stuart Rose.
Rose – who was previously chief executive at Argos, Marks & Spencer and the Arcadia Group – said “we need somebody who’s a fiscally competent, compassionate middle of the road Conservative” to be next Prime Minister.
Sunak finished first in yesterday’s first leadership poll thanks to the votes of 88 Tory MPs, however it was considered a slightly disappointing result around Westminster.
New favourite at the bookmakers Penny Mordaunt outperformed expectations and picked up 67 votes, putting serious pressure on Sunak as the party votes again today, and also came out top in a shock YouGov poll of Conservative members.
Sunak has been the only major candidate in the campaign not to promise immediate tax cuts, with the former chancellor arguing the party should not tell itself “fairytales” when inflation is roaring and economic prospects are dire.
Other candidates have promised tax cuts worth tens of billions of pounds on things like Income Tax, Corporation Tax and fuel duty.
Stuart told LBC that he agreed with Sunak and that “promising unfunded tax cuts is, in my view, completely the wrong way”.
He said: “My view, and it’s a tough decision, is that we have to put the fire hoses onto inflation first, and then we have to get that under control so that we can then say, right, as we go forward, and we get the balance sheet in a better place, that we can afford to reduce taxes.
“Tax reductions day one unfunded are unsustainable and where are we going to pay for them from, because we have got record amount of debt in the UK?”
There are now six candidates left in the Conservative leadership race – Sunak, Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch.
Conservative MPs will hold a series of votes between now and next Thursday to whittle these names to a final two, who will then compete for the votes of 200,000 party members in a six-week campaign.