Liz Truss will win the Tory leadership contest but not by as wide a margin as expected, a Conservative pollster has said.
Lord Hayward, a former MP, said the current foreign secretary should pick her cabinet from all sides of the Tory party if his prediction was accurate.
His comments came shortly after Tory MP Kevin Hollinrake, a Sunak ally, said Ms Truss’s victory was “not cut and dried”.
After conducting a private poll of the 700 Tory members in his constituency, he claimed Mr Sunak had an 8-point lead over his rival.
“I’ve seen some of the polls and national polls. I think it’s quite hard for pollsters to determine who is a Conservative member and who is not because there’s not an open database,” he said.
His comments came hours before the end of Tory leadership race, with voting closing at 5pm on Friday.
Meanwhile, in a move branded “very odd” by critics, Boris Johnson will attempt to clear his name over Partygate by publishing government legal advice.
