British finance minister Nadhim Zahawi formally endorsed Liz Truss to be the next Conservative Party leader, Reuters reported. "Foreign secretary Truss will overturn stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a Conservative way," Zahawi wrote in The Telegraph. Zahawi, who took over as finance minister from Rishi Sunak early July, was eliminated from the UK leadership contest in the first vote after he failed to get the required minimum of 30
votes.
Tom Tugendhat, the Tory backbencher and chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee who was in the initial shortlist before being knocked out of the race earlier this month, said he preferred Truss' campaign pitch with its promise of immediate tax cuts. The former soldier in the British Army said that after watching the candidates go head-to-head in live TV debates, "only one has convinced me she's ready". "Liz has always stood up for British values at home, and abroad. With her at the helm, I have no doubt that we will move with determination to make this country safer and more secure," he wrote in The Times newspaper.
It follows the endorsement of another Tory heavyweight Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who also threw his support behind Truss describing her as "authentic, honest and experienced". Sunak was initially the frontrunner in the race in the ballots of his party colleagues, winning the most support from MPs in the first few rounds of voting. But since then, polling among the Tory membership that will vote for the winner has shown Truss is more popular.
