Truss and Sunak face off at Manchester hustings – live

Rishi Sunak has said he will not pursue policies that risk making inflation far worse – inadvertently attacking Liz Truss for wanting to pass £50bn of debt to future generations, adding: “That is not right.”

Rishi Sunak said he is saying the things that people need to hear, even if they are not the things that they want to hear, and that is what leadership is all about.

He then attacked a “lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women”, and moved on to criticise Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham’s record in office.

The ex-chancellor said Mr Burnham was “on the side of the unions and British people deserve better”.

Rishi Sunak is making his familiar introductory pitch to the GB News audience.

“The bonds of family are far greater than anything any government could ever hope to replicate,” the ex-chancellor says, going on to describe his time working at his mother’s pharmacy in Southampton as a child.

The best way to reduce inequality and spread opportunity is to ensure every child in the UK has a first-class education, he said.

“That in a nutshell are my values – patriotism, family, service, hard work,” he said.

According to GB News host Michelle Dewberry, the channel’s viewers have asked for Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss be quizzed about Channel crossings, pensions – and, in one instance – whether they would hold a referendum on the return of capital punishment.

Tonight’s hustings event is set to kick off at 7pm in Manchester.

Alastair Stewart of GB News will interview the leadership rivals separately. Questions, selected at random, will then be put to the pair by Tory party members.

Here is another glimpse of the venue in the past hour from the broadcaster’s political correspondent Tom Harwood, who perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly suggests the event “will not be one to miss”.

Polls have consistently put Liz Truss as clear favourite to win the race for No 10, with elections guru Sir John Curtice saying he would be “extraordinarily surprised” if she does not take office.

He told The Times that the foreign secretary “would have to foul up in some spectacular fashion” for her rival Rishi Sunak to enter Downing Street.

The latest YouGov polling of Conservative Party members suggests that two-thirds now intend to vote for Ms Truss – compared with just 34 per cent for Mr Sunak.

However, if the Tory leadership election were a three-way fight including Boris Johnson, YouGov found that the outgoing PM would get twice as many votes as either of those rivalling to replace him.

Tonight’s debate comes after Liz Truss was accused of showing “her true colours” in an unearthed 2009 paper she co-authored while deputy director of the Reform think tank.

The controversial report called for the removal of the winter fuel payment, abolition of universal child benefit, patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10 per cent.

It also called for several major military procurement projects to be axed, including the Royal Navy’s planned aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – which were described as “inappropriate defence projects”.

Ms Truss’s campaign sought to distance the leadership candidate from the paper, with a campaign spokesperson saying: “Co-authoring a document does not mean that someone supports every proposal put forward.

“Liz is focused on her bold economic plan to boost growth, cut taxes and put money back into hardworking people’s pockets.”

But Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Liz Truss’s track record shows her true colours. She is out of touch and out of step with the public.”