Stage is set for a spectacular battle between Truss and Sunak to take PM’s job

THERE are bloody noses and then there are total knockouts – and Boris Johnson has just been properly beaten up.

But when the floored PM is finally counted out, it will trigger a battle of ideas among those scrambling to replace him.

The two main challengers — Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss — will square up as they try to fight it out for the keys to No10.

They are both more classic Tories than Boris, with his free-spending and high-tax agenda, and will need to demonstrate it to their MPs if they are to seize the crown.

“Dishy” Rishi Sunak has for some time been a red-hot favourite to become the next Prime Minister.

At just 5ft 7in, he doesn’t look like a heavyweight. But unlike Mr Johnson, he is young, highly disciplined and desperate to get the UK back on track.

Within the past few weeks, however, a serious new rival has emerged — Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

The stage is now set for a spectacular battle between these two ferociously intelligent and ambitious young Cabinet ministers for the hearts and minds of a battered Conservative Party.

First, a reality check: The Prime Minister isn’t done quite yet.

He’s like a half-decent old car that has been in a nasty crash. The wing mirrors have been smashed, there’s a big dent in the back and there are so many scratches it will need an all-round respray, but it is not a complete write-off.

Grassroot Tories

The temptation is to patch it up and try to get it to go another few thousand miles, because buying a new one is such a hassle.

But when the vehicle can no longer be relied on to get you from A to B, the calculus changes.

In this case, B is winning the next General Election — and Boris Johnson’s ability to pull that off is now in real doubt. MPs are starting to look for a shiny new vehicle.

Rishi Sunak is the Model S Tesla: Immaculate, high- performing and reassuringly expensive.

Educated at Winchester College, Oxford University then Stanford University in the US, the Chancellor certainly has the smarts.

At the Treasury he works so hard he sometimes has to be reminded to eat.

He has an uncomplicated domestic life, has made remarkably few enemies and — unusually for a politician — has no obvious vices.

All this would be a relief to older Tory party members who have never much approved of Johnson’s colourful romantic past.

A stint as a banker in Silicon Valley, California, and marriage to an Indian heiress before he became a politician has given him the kind of cosmopolitan outlook needed to make post-Brexit Britain a success.

Before the pandemic, Sunak might have been expected to position himself as a low-tax, small-state free-marketeer — which would not particularly have marked him out from the competition.

His trouble is that all that went out the window with Covid-19.

As Chancellor, he has presided over record borrowing and the highest tax burden since the 1960s. Grassroot Tories hate this — and it will be his Achilles heel.

He has tried to portray himself in a different light by ordering Treasury officials to review the options for tax cuts.

But this is before the rises he has imposed, which will take the tax burden to the highest level in 70 years, have even kicked it.

So it may not wash with many Tories.

Come the leadership contest, he will argue that as Chancellor he has been a victim of circumstances.

But he has never publicly expressed any misgivings about enabling Johnson’s pseudo-socialist approach.

By contrast, Liz Truss — a nearly new Range Rover to Sunak’s Tesla — can distance herself from the Government’s high-tax, low-growth approach.

Tucked away in the Foreign Office, her opportunities for grandstanding on the world stage have been limited by Covid, but she will find it much easier than her rival to convince the party faithful that she is a true Conservative.

They think she might be a young Mrs Thatcher, an image she is desperately playing up.

She has well-established credentials as a liberal free-marketeer — all of which will be music to the ears of grassroot Tories who will have the final say over who gets the top job.

More experienced than Sunak, having entered Parliament in 2010 to his 2015, she is now his main rival.

She is keen to portray herself as a modern-day Thatcher, a freedom-loving, low-tax, woke-bashing, true-blue Tory — and even posed for a picture on top of a tank.

But her rivals in the Sunak camp politely point out that, unlike the Chancellor, she was a late convert to Brexit and actively campaigned for Remain during the 2016 referendum campaign.

Gold wallpaper

Of course, these won’t be the only two contenders.

Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is rather like a Mazda RX-7 — flashy and exciting but perhaps unwise — no doubt fancies her chances.

Her problem is her reputation for being a very difficult boss and her abject failure to stem the tide of migrants crossing the Channel.

Then there’s charismatic Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. An Old Etonian, he oozes authority but will probably throw his weight behind Truss.

Other contenders are not household names: Cool Mark Harper, who as a former Chief Whip certainly knows how to organise supporters and has been on manoeuvres for some time; Steve Baker, a staunch Brexiteer with a strong following among lock-down sceptics; and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, a possible outside bet.

But there are far more serious issues: The seemingly never-ending Covid crisis causing so much suffering and crippling the economy; the appalling state of the NHS; sky-high inflation; and the chaos over the asylum system.

Above all, there is the possible break-up of the Union at the hands of the Scottish Nationalists.

With every day that Johnson is distracted by yet more shameful revelations about his gold wallpaper and Downing Street Christmas parties, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon capitalises. She is a ruthless operator — and is making headway.

Recent history is a reminder that mortally wounded premiers can stagger on for ages. Just look at Theresa May and Gordon Brown, who were still in Downing Street long after the game was up.

But if Boris Johnson fails to address the really big problems facing this country — fast — it won’t be long before he’s off to the scrapyard.