Leader battle’s already getting nasty...

THE battle for the Tory leadership turned nasty last night as the “wacky races” contest to replace Boris Johnson stepped up a gear.

A total of nine senior Tories have entered the leadership run. But behind closed doors, campaign teams have already begun briefing against rivals.

Reports suggested some Tories had met Labour staffers to turn over dirty dossiers on their opponents.

The contest has quickly descended into chaos as a clip of the favourite, Rishi Sunak, emerged online, showing the privately educated multimillionaire saying he had no “working class” friends.

The cringe-worthy video shows the former Chancellor make the embarrassing confession during the BBC series Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl.

In the clip, Sunak says: “I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are working class... Well, not working class.”

Penny Mordaunt’s campaign got off to a tricky start, after her launch video included footage of several figures who had not given permission.

Her team scrambled to edit the clip, but the original featured convicted killer Oscar Pistorius, the former amputee sprinter. He was seen congratulating Jonnie Peacock after a 100m final at the London 2012 Paralympics.

Peacock subsequently replied on Twitter, saying: “I officially request to be removed from this video... Anything but blue please.”

The clips of Peacock were replaced with a shot of a plane flying overhead. Several other elements of her video were also altered in the second video, with cricketer Jonny Bairstow, the Welsh football team and a smiling policeman all removed.

Meanwhile, Labour has called for all of the candidates to open up their tax affairs to scrutiny. The move comes amid rumours Nadhim Zahawi is being investigated by the HMRC, which he denies and called a smear, and claims that two rivals, Sunak and Sajid Javid, pictured above, “have benefitted from non-dom status”.