The British people have little faith in either of the Tory leadership hopefuls on the major issues facing the nation, a new poll has found.
It comes as Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak were braced for protests ahead of the only Scottish hustings in the race to replace Boris Johnson as PM.
Fresh polling from YouGov found voters had little confidence in either candidate – or ousted PM Boris Johnson – to make the right decisions on key issues like the cost of living, Brexit and Covid.
Mr Johnson fared best of the three on the pandemic – but still only one in three of those polled had confidence in him.
On the cost of living, all three received approval scores of around minus 50 – with even Tory voters lacking confidence in the leadership hopefuls.
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And while Mr Johnson scored a miserable minus 55 on ‘levelling up’ – the core agenda of his government, Rishi Sunak fared even worse, scoring minus 60.
Mr Sunak, the former Chancellor scored best on “the economy in general” – but was still in negative figures, on minus 27, ahead of Ms Truss on minus 46.
Both hopefuls were expected to be grilled on Scottish independence, devolution and their plans to tackle inflation during last night’s hustings.
Blue-on-blue attacks between the pair continued yesterday – with Mr Sunak’s campaign urging his rival to “come clean” on her cost-of-living plan.
Ms Truss insisted her priority would be cutting taxes, saying it would be wrong to focus on “sticking plasters”.
But a Sunak campaign spokesperson said: “It’s not good enough to say wait until late September. Families need certainty now – bills are going to go up and wages have taken a hammer blow from rising inflation.”
Candidates were braced for angry demonstrations outside the city’s Concert Hall, where the hustings was set to take place.
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Local campaign group Perth Against Racism has called for an “all-Scotland festival of opposition to the Tory party” outside the venue, which was expected to attract protesters from across the country.
Meanwhile, a separate poll found more than a third of Tory voters do not believe the next Prime Minister will finally fix the social care crisis.
The new polling from retirement specialist Just Group found 37% of those surveyed do not think either candidate will uphold the government’s manifesto commitment.