Sunak was wrong to walk out, says Wallace

Defence Secretary aims jibe at former chancellor as he backs rival Liz Truss ‘because she’s authentic’

RISHI SUNAK was last night criticised by Ben Wallace for “walking out the door” by resigning as chancellor, as he backed Liz Truss for the Conservative Party leadership.

Mr Wallace, the Defence Secretary, was an initial favourite among the Tory grassroots to succeed Boris Johnson, but soon confirmed that he would stay in his Cabinet position. He remained in his post as more than 50 members of the Government, including Mr Sunak, quit over the Chris Pincher affair.

“I don’t have the luxury as Defence Secretary of just walking out the door – I have roles in keeping this country safe,” Mr Wallace wrote in The Sun last night. “And the guardian of the markets, you know, the guardian of our economy, is the chancellor.”

In a separate piece for The Times, Mr Wallace added he was backing Ms Truss “because she’s authentic”.

He also flagged Ms Truss’s pledge to increase defence spending to 3 per cent of Britain’s GDP by the end of the decade. Mr Sunak last night refused to match the same commitment and railed against “arbitrary targets”.

Asked what he would say to Mr Wallace, who had not publicly endorsed his rival at that point, he said he had overseen the largest defence spending uplift since the Cold War.

It came as Mr Sunak last night pledged to allow grammar schools to expand, as he faced party members at the first hustings in the leadership race.

He said he wanted to see successful selective schools take on more pupils because he believed in the power of “educational excellence” to transform people’s lives.

Mr Sunak originally appeared to say he wanted to bring grammar schools back in England but his team later confirmed he only meant “expanding existing grammar schools”.

At the same event in Leeds, Ms Truss said that she would review inheritance tax as part of a general review of the tax system and that she wanted to ensure girls in schools had access to single-sex lavatories.

Mr Sunak admitted he was the underdog in the leadership battle, but said he would fight for every vote.

And he was confronted by one party member in the audience who told him many people believed he had been “treacherous” against Mr Johnson and had “stabbed him in the back”. Asked by host Nick Ferrari whether he would bring back grammar schools, Mr Sunak said: “Yes, as you heard from me earlier I believe in educational excellence. I believe education is the most powerful way to transform people’s lives. But I also believe there’s a lot we can do in the school system as it is. It’s about reforming the system to get better grammars.”

There are now only around 160 grammar schools in England and Mr Sunak’s pledge to return to selection could therefore presage a revolution in the education system.

At the hustings, audience member Matthew Dransfield, a 47-year-old business investment consultant, asked the former chancellor: “You’re a good salesman and you have many strong attributes but many people continue to support Boris Johnson, who has delivered consistently through treacherous waters.

“Many people, unfortunately, think that you’ve stabbed him in the back… I’m not quite sure which planet you’re on. How do you expect to take the party through the next election?”

Mr Sunak replied that he was “very grateful to the PM... I gave my everything to that job”.

“For me personally, it got to a point where I couldn’t stay. I had a significant difference of opinion with him on how to handle the economic challenges that were ahead of us,” he said.