Gove backs Sunak and says Truss ‘on holiday from reality’

Ex-minister warns foreign secretary would put ‘safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives’ before nation’s poorest

Michael Gove has endorsed Rishi Sunak to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, accusing Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss of taking a “holiday from reality” over the cost of living crisis.

Throwing his weight behind the former chancellor, who sought to bill himself as the “underdog” during Friday night’s hustings, Mr Gove also said he did not expect to return to frontbench politics – having been the longest-serving minister in cabinet until he was fired for privately telling the PM to resign.

“It was the privilege of my life to spend 11 years in the cabinet under three prime ministers,” Mr Gove wrote in The Times. “I know what the job requires. And Rishi has it.”