Rishi Sunak launches campaign to become PM in Grantham with calls to improve health service

Rishi Sunak  is launching his bid to become the next Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher’s birthplace today.

He already enjoyed breakfast at Vaculug, Gonerby Hill Foot, whose chairman Harjeev Kandhari apparently was at university with Sunak

The former chancellor’s s campaign team is drawing up plans to try to reverse what one called a “worrying trend” after Truss pulled ahead by 24 percentage points in polling of party members.

About 160,000 members will have the chance to decide the next Prime Minister when they receive ballots from 1-5 August. They can cast their votes immediately or wait until closer to the 1 September deadline.

In a speech in Grantham today, Sunak will try to move the debate on from tax cuts to the NHS by pledging to put the health service on a “war footing” with a vaccines-style taskforce set up to drive down the “emergency” of “massive backlogs”.

“If we do not immediately set in train a radically different approach the NHS will come under unsustainable pressure and break,” he is expected to say. “And so from day one, I will make tackling the NHS backlog my number one public service priority.”

A blitz of media appearances and visits are expected over the next fortnight, alongside a dozen hustings where the candidates will go head-to-head over the course of the six-week campaign.