All Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak’s worst gaffes, U-turns and awkward moments so far

As millions of us wait for 0.3% of the population to select our next Prime Minister, each of the remaining candidates will have had moments they want to forget.

From losing her way out of the room at her campaign launch to being forced into an embarrassing U-turn over public sector pay cuts, Liz Truss hasn’t had it all her own way.

And Rishi Sunak faced difficult questions after trying to revitalise his campaign by slashing VAT from energy bills – just months after telling the Commons it was the wrong thing to do.

Labour strategists will be licking their lips at some of the statements they’ve seen so far.

But it’s also a serious business for the country, which is facing a zombie government while energy bills shoot above £4,200 a year from January.

Here are some of the most awkward, amusing and U-turny moments we’ve seen so far in the face-off between Mr Sunak and Ms Truss.

Will Brits get cost-of-living payments or not?

Liz Truss has been sending out confusing mixed messages about whether she’d bring in urgent cost-of-living payments for Brits to deal with rising bills this winter.

The leadership frontrunner has agreed to go through with up to £1,200 in support that’s already been confirmed by Rishi Sunak. And she’d hold an emergency budget. But what about extra cash payments?

Ms Truss has dismissed them as “Gordon Brown-style” economics and wants to focus on tax cuts and the suspension of green levies – which will do little for the poorest.

Yet she’s also refused to rule out making cost-of-living payments, even though “I don’t support” them. And an ally said she will look at “targeted” help for those who don’t or can’t work.

Mixing up Gloucestershire and Derbyshire

Gaffe-prone Liz Truss claimed she was in Derbyshire – during a hustings in Gloucestershire.

She told activists at Cheltenham Racecourse: “We need to get on with delivering the small modular nuclear reactors which we produce here in Derbyshire.”

Some audience members gasped and others murmured as they digested her bungle.

Claiming ‘woke’ civil service ‘strays into antisemitism’

Liz Truss sparked an angry backlash after claiming “woke culture” in the civil service “strays into antisemitism”.

The union for senior civil servants said the “inflammatory accusations” from the likely next Prime Minister – for which she gave no evidence – showed a “lack of leadership”.

They warned it “goes further than the usual dog-whistle politics” and senior civil servants would find it “both insulting and abhorrent”.

The claims were contained in a press release from her campaign, in which Ms Truss also praised “Jewish values” such as “setting up your own business”. Critics on Twitter suggested she was resorting to “stereotypes”.

Borrowing U-turn by Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak spelt out his “three-part” plan to top up cost-of-living payments for the most vulnerable through benefits, for pensioners through Winter Fuel Payments, and some support for everyone via a £200-per-home VAT cut.

But despite attacking Liz Truss for putting debt on Britain’s “credit card” he admitted some of his plan – costing in the low billions – would have to be funded by borrowing.

Writing in The Times, Mr Sunak said efficiency savings in Whitehall “will be my approach and I will be relentless in chasing these down. But I will also be honest.

“If it requires some limited and temporary, one-off borrowing as a last resort to get us through this winter, I’m prepared to do that.”

Allies claimed it wasn’t a U-turn because he would only borrow for one-off spending.

‘Levelling down’ public sector pay torpedoed within hours

This was a big, big blunder by Liz Truss.

She announced a “war on waste”, saying pay for public sector workers would be determined based on the cost of living in their areas. In other words, large swathes of the UK would see their pay cut outside of London and the South East.

It provoked a massive backlash, and the candidate issued a statement within hours saying that the idea had been scrapped.

Her team later claimed it had been “misrepresented”, despite issuing a press release stating that £8.8 billion could be saved if adopted for all public sector workers.

She lamely claimed: “I never had any intention of changing the terms and conditions of teachers and nurses.

“But what I want to be clear about is I will not be going ahead with the regional pay boards. That is no longer my policy.”

Rishi Sunak brags about diverting cash from deprived areas

Extraordinary leaked video showed Rishi Sunak bragging that he could funnel public cash from “deprived urban areas” and give it to more affluent towns.

A clip taken in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, at the end of last month shows the former chancellor saying Labour formulas targeting poorer parts of the country “needed to be undone”.

He told Tory Party members that he had started to change these formulas, to ensure “areas like this are getting the funding they deserve”.

According to RightMove, the average house price in the leafy town 30 miles outside of London last year was £498,933 – compared to £281,161 across the rest of England.

Labour’s shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, branded the revelation “scandalous” and said the Tories were “showing their true colours”.

She added that public cash should not be used as a “bribe” to Tory voters, but Mr Sunak’s team said it had been taken out of context.

Rishi Sunak’s contactless card woes

Multimillionaire Rishi Sunak confessed he had to be taught how to use a contactless bank card.

The out-of-touch Tory leadership hopeful was pictured in March struggling to buy a can of his beloved Coke at a petrol garage.

A viral clip showed the till worker raising a barcode scanner, but instead of presenting the can, Mr Sunak held up his card to the plastic screen.

Now he’s admitted it was “the most embarrassing thing” that’s happened during his time as Chancellor – and “since then someone’s taught me how to use that contactless machine.”

An ally of Mr Sunak later insisted it was a joke.

‘It’s cheap and you know it’

Liz Truss was caught on a hot mic apologising for attacking the media during the Tory leadership hustings in Darlington.

The Foreign Secretary accused “some of the media” of trying to “talk our country down” during the event, and accused journalists of framing questions in a “left-wing way”.

As she hugged the host of the hustings at the end of the event, Ms Truss could be heard to say: “I am sorry I was mean about the media, Tom.”

Tom Newton Dunn could be heard to reply: “It’s cheap and you know it”.

Liz Truss gets lost trying to find her way out of leadership launch

Not the greatest start to her campaign as footage showed the Foreign Secretary take a wrong turn trying to get of the room.

A clip widely shared on social media showed her stride into a crowd after giving a speech spelling out her plans to run the country – before looking around in confusion.

Many in the room clearly found it hilarious, with three people seen erupting into giggles by the doorway.

Children ask when Boris Johnson will be booted out and call for Larry the cat to be PM

Ms Truss was confronted by children who said they “hate” Boris Johnson and asked why he hadn’t been “kicked out” of Downing Street yet.

The Tory leadership candidate visited Little Miracles charity in Peterborough where she faced a grilling from kids on the race to be PM.

One child suggested making Larry, the Downing Street cat, the next Prime Minister before another boy declared: “This is so awkward”.

Ms Truss was asked where Boris Johnson was by one of the children, when another butted in saying: “We hate him”.

The Foreign Secretary explained he was “back in 10 Downing Street” when an incredulous child asked: “Have they not kicked him out yet?”

One said: “Do me a favour, when you become Prime Minister, evict him.”

Ms Truss replied: “He will have to move out then, that is true.”

Rishi Sunak ‘flip flops’ over VAT, setting up Boris Johnson jibe

With his campaign flailing and Liz Truss seemingly taking the initiative with her big promises about tax cuts, Rishi Sunak clearly needed to pull something big out the bag.

And so he gleefully announced that slashing VAT from energy bills – which would save each household just under £160 a year – would be one of his first moves as PM.

The problem was that it hadn’t been that long since he’d voted against such a move, and said it would disproportionately benefit high energy users, rather than those struggling to make ends meet.

It also set up Boris Johnson to deliver a veiled jab at his former Chancellor, telling an audience in Birmingham that slashing VAT from energy bills would be “easier than we thought”.

Tory member taunts Sunak telling him Boris Johnson ‘made him’

One thing we’ve seen a lot of in this campaign is the fury the former Chancellor provokes among Boris Johnson loyalists.

At a hustings event hosted by LBC in Leeds, an audience member reminded Mr Sunak: “He’s the man that made you a senior politician” and accused him of being on “another planet”.

This was met with applause from the audience, with Tory members cheering as host Nick Ferrari pointed out that 14,000 had signed a petition calling for the PM to remain in post.

But Mr Sunak was uncompromising, stating: “I’d say to them that I think close to 60 people resigned in Parliament and it’s incumbent on the Prime Minister to have the confidence of the parliamentary party, and that wasn’t there at the end.

Truss schooled on Labour-supporting Leeds manager by MP

Many a politician has discovered that talking about football can be a tricky subject.

So it proved for Liz Truss when she tried to curry favour with an audience in Leeds, telling them that the UK “needs to channel the spirit of Don Revie”.

Mr Revie was a hugely successful manager for Leeds United between 1961 and 1974, before he endured three difficult years in charge of the England national team.

In this time the Three Lions failed to qualify for the European Championships and the World Cup.

This was pointed out with relish by Labour MP Chris Evans – who wrote a biography of Revie. Mr Evans said: “As much as I love Don, he had a reputation for playing dirty & had a disastrous time when put in charge of the country. So I can see why Liz Truss thinks Revie is a good comparison to the Tories.”

And he gleefully wrote on Twitter: “She forgot to add that Don Revie was a Labour supporter.”

“I’m ready to hit the ground’, Foreign Secretary brags

Ms made an amusing first gaffe just minutes after securing her spot onto the Tory leadership ballot.

The Foreign Secretary’s first tweet after she made it onto the ballot with ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak told Brits she was “ready to hit the ground”.

Many observers were quick to point out she may have missed out the word “running” from the popular phrase – changing the meaning entirely in an awkward gaffe.

Earlier this afternoon, Ms Truss managed to beat Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt by just eight votes, tweeting two minutes after it was announced: “Thank you for putting your trust in me. I’m ready to hit the ground from day one.”

The tweet was hastily deleted – but not before it was screenshotted by amused Twitter users. She later wrote another to say: “I’m ready to hit the ground running from day one.”

Sunak supporter accidentally posts instructions in support tweet

This wasn’t an error by either candidate, but it certainly raised some smiles.

Tory MP Paul Maynard posted his support for the former Chancellor, but made a bit of a mess of it.

Mr Maynard posted a picture of himself with a quote saying he was backing Mr Sunak. Unfortunately he also tweeted instructions he’d been sent by the candidate’s team, writing: “If you’re happy, can you tweet and include the hashtag Ready4Rishi, and crucially the website Ready4rishi.com, and then your infographic below.”

The tweet was swiftly deleted.

Sunak can’t make up mind on windfarms

Rishi Sunak was again accused of indecisiveness after appearing to change his mind on onshore wind farms.

On Wednesday he said he would consider building them – despite having said earlier on his campaign that he would continue with a turbine ban.

He told an audience member in Cardiff who asked if he would be “bold enough” to scrap restrictions on onshore wind: “Yes, in a nutshell. We’ve already said that we are aiming to do that where we can do it with local communities.

“That has proven difficult, but I think actually with the different economic incentives, it might be possible that we can get that to work.”

A few weeks before, on July 19, he had told The Telegraph: “I want to reassure communities that as Prime Minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore.”

However the following night he said it was all a mistake and he hadn’t changed his mind at all – telling Sky News presenter Kay Burley: “I misunderstood the question.”

Liz Truss’s video calling for the monarchy to be abolished

If Ms Truss is successful in her bid to become PM, she will need to make regular visits to the palace.

In light of this, a video showing her as a student Lib Dem activist calling for the monarchy to be scrapped couldn’t have resurfaced at a worse time.

The then-19-year-old said she agreed with Paddy Ashdown, the former Lib Dem leader who said the royal family should be consigned to the past.

Ms Truss said: “I agree with Paddy Ashdown when he said: ‘Everybody in Britain should have the chance to be a somebody’.

‘But only one family can provide the head of the state. We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all.

“We do not believe people are born to rule.'”

Asked repeatedly about the footage while on the campaign trail, she said she regretted it “almost immediately” and said it was a good thing that she was flexible enough to change her mind.

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