The race for the Tory leadership, and the keys to No 10, tightened to six candidates on Wednesday.
13 July 2022
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt have been eliminated from the race to succeed Boris Johnson after the first round of voting by Tory MPs.
The senior Conservatives failed to get the 30 votes required to get to the next stage of the Tory leadership contest on Wednesday afternoon.
The frontrunners, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and trade minister Penny Mordaunt, coasted through in their bid to be the next prime minister.
Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat, Attorney General Suella Braverman, and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch also progressed to the final six candidates.
Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the Conservative 1922 committee overseeing the contest, read out the results in a crowded Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons.
