FORMER Conservative minister Liam Fox has backed Rishi Sunak as a Prime Minister who can gain the trust of the public.
He said: “I think…that the recent weeks have been shambolic and I think the party now has to get the trust of all the British people, including those who have long been our supporters.
“What they’re looking for is a calm, confident, competent government, Conservative government that believes in sound money that believes in aspiration and rewards effort.
“I hope that the progress that I believe we will make, will convince those that the Conservative Party is still on their side. The alternatives, let me tell you, are appalling.
“But it’s up to us and accept that in recent times the Conservative Party by its behaviour has not shown a great example.
“I hope that once his leadership campaign is over, and if Rishi Sunak does become prime minister, I believe he has all the qualities to give us that confident and competent government.”
Speaking in an interview during Breakfast with Stephen Dixon and Rosie Wight on GB News, he said: “We need to be as realistic with the British people, be honest with them and to have the best judgement possible.
“Rishi has already shown through the furlough, that he’s got good economic judgement. I think many of the things that he said might happen have come to pass in recent times.
“And I think it’s about giving people the confidence that the government’s got the right formula for the longer term.”
Later, Conservative MP Steve Double also told the programme that people in his constituency wanted a quick resolution to the leadership issue.
He said: “I spent the weekend in my constituency and talked to several members of my local association and actually the vast majority, the ones that I spoke to actually said to me, please don’t let it go to the members vote this time.
“You MPs need to sort this out. I fully appreciate there’ll be some members who will be disappointed if it doesn’t go to a members vote, but I think for the sake of the country in the national interest, we MPs need to get this done as quickly as possible and [put] a new prime minister in Number 10, hopefully today.
“The first thing a new Prime Minister will have to do is form a government and Rishi has made very clear that he will draw from across the breadth of the parliamentary party in forming that government.
“We’ve already seen with the people backing him that he has got people such as Steve Bake, and Simon Hall who are not by any anyone’s imagination, sort of on the same wings of the party coming together to say we need to unite behind Rishi in the national interest and back him to be Prime Minister.
“I’m very confident that Rishi will be able to do that, he will be able to form a government that represents the whole breadth of the parliamentary party and unite everyone behind him.”
