ANNA MIKHAILOVA: Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are on the menu at democracy-for-sale dinner
Just four days before they learn if they’ve been chosen to be PM, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss will ingratiate themselves with the constituents that really matter – Tory donors.
A ‘secret leadership dinner’ with the party’s biggest chequebook-holders is planned for September 1, I can reveal. Guests at the ‘tuxedos and tiaras’ shindig will express their love and largesse – while, of course, wanting nothing in return.
Strangely, this glitzy spectacle of democracy for sale doesn’t feature on the Conservative Party HQ’s official leadership hustings programme.
Liz Truss could be reunited with Lubov Chernukhin, the Russian-born, now British-passport-holding party donor, who bought dinner with her, then-PM Theresa May and four other Cabinet Ministers for £135,000 in 2009 Pictured: Former investment banker and Conservative party donor Lubov Chernukhin arrives at the Victoria and Albert Museum during the Conservative Party Summer Party this year
Perhaps Truss will be reunited with Lubov Chernukhin, the Russian-born, now British-passport-holding donor, who in 2019 bought dinner with her, then-PM Theresa May and four other Cabinet Ministers for £135,000. Truss got into hot water by posting a picture of the group on her Instagram. As the Thatcher legacy candidate admitted last week, sometimes she just gets too enthusiastic.
For his part, Sunak will be among an audience where his £3,500 bespoke suits are de rigueur. A donor told me they expect the event to be ‘less of a hustings, more selling yourself to the people you want at your side at the next election’.
The secret September dinner could also be a swansong for party Treasurer and major donor Malik Karim as we await Boris Johnson’s Lavender List of those heading for the House of Lords. Whatever promises Liz and Rishi make as they scrabble for the votes of 160,000 Tory members, expect the winner to bring a sudden batch of donor ideas with them to Downing Street.
Boris Johnson’s farewell party at Chequers was as wonderfully vindictive as his approach to governing. Only ‘uber loyalists’ were allowed, one guest told me. Another added: ‘The criteria was loyalty to the end’. Among those not invited was Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland, who had called for Johnson to quit. Revellers enjoyed a BBQ while mingling with fellow dead-meat and offered a choice of Magnums or Twisters as they muttered sotto voce: ‘What have we done?’
Tory MPs are often called the ‘most sophisticated electorate in the world’.
Which will be why during the leadership ballots, several ran back into the voting room in a panic looking for the phones they had forgotten.
No more money for public-sector workers. The National Insurance tax hike stays. Plans to tackle the cost of living – but not until October. No, not the manifesto of continuity candidate Rishi Sunak. But the exciting radical alternative put forward by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
No number of glossy interviews wearing flattering red dresses can compensate for the Blair heir having nothing new to say and policies that are copycat blue.
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