Tory leadership debate between Sunak and Truss halted after host faints on air

Live TalkTV Conservative leadership debate abruptly halted after host suffers 'medical issue' in studio

The Conservative leadership debate being held on TalkTV/Sun went off-air on Tuesday after host Kate McCann fainted in the studio.

A loud crash was heard when the at first unknown "medical issue" occurred, interrupting Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss as they clashed over taxes, National Health Service funding and the economy in their second live televised debate.

Ms Truss looked worried and could be heard saying “Oh my God” as she walked off the stage.

The programme immediately went off-air, with a message appearing on the screen saying: "We are working hard to fix the issue and will return to normal programming soon.”

A Sun spokeswoman said the debate had been paused because of a medical issue and TalkTV confirmed this, tweeting: “It’s not a security issue and the candidates are OK.”

It was later reported that McCann had fainted in the studio, with TalkTV tweeting that "although she is fine, the medical advice was that we shouldn't continue with the debate".

"We apologise to our viewers and listeners."

Mr Sunak later tweeted to wish McCann well.

“Good news that you’re already recovering, Kate McCann," he said. “It was a great debate and I look forward to getting grilled by you again shortly.”

Ms Truss also has extended her sympathies to McCann, saying on Twitter: “Relieved to hear Kate McCann is fine. Really sorry that such a good debate had to end.

“Look forward to catching up with Kate and the rest of the The Sun TalkTV team again soon.”

McCann, TalkTV’s political editor, was meant to co-host The Sun’s Showdown: The Fight for No10 alongside The Sun’s political editor Harry Cole, but he tested positive for Covid-19 hours before the broadcast was due to begin.

Before the debate was taken off air, the two Tory rivals locked horns again as they fought for the support of their party members, with taxes and the economy causing the most acrimony.

Ms Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said it was “morally wrong” to raise taxes during a crisis in the cost of living, but Mr Sunak quickly shot back, saying it was “morally wrong” to heap more debt on future generations.

“What has happened is that the tax has been raised on families through national insurance so that they are having to pay more money to the Treasury," she said.

“I do think it is morally wrong at this moment when families are struggling to pay for food that we have put up taxes on ordinary people when we said we wouldn’t in our manifesto and when we didn’t need to do so.”

Interjecting, Mr Sunak said: “What’s morally wrong is asking our children and grandchildren to pick up the tab for the bills that we are not prepared to meet.”

The two also clashed over the rise in national insurance, brought in to help pay for the NHS and social care.

The former chancellor said he was brave for introducing the £12 billion ($14.4bn) tax increase to pay for health social care.

“I made sure we got the NHS the funding it needed to help work through the backlogs, get everyone the care they needed and do that as quickly as possible," Mr Sunak said.

“It wasn’t an easy thing for me to do. I got a lot of criticism for it, but I believe it was the right thing to do as I don’t think we can have an NHS, which is ultimately the country’s number one public service priority, that is underfunded and not able to deliver the care it needs.

“And that’s why I think you can be reassured the NHS is safe in my hands because I’ve taken what was a brave decision to get it the support it needed.”

Ms Truss said she would scrap the national insurance rise and use general taxes to fund the NHS.

“I am committed to the extra money that was announced for the NHS," she said. "It is needed to deal with the backlog and I would fund that money out of general taxation,.

“Under my plans, we will still be able to start paying the debt down within three years, so it is affordable.

"And the fact is whatever Rishi says now, we didn’t need to raise national insurance in order to pay.

"We did have that money available in the budget. It was a choice to break our manifesto commitment and raise national insurance.

“I think it was the wrong choice to make, I spoke out against it at the time in Cabinet. I still remain opposed to it and I’d reverse that rise.”

On “how we fund things” and “the public services that we rely on”, Mr Sunak said it was “entirely reasonable” to ask the largest companies to pay “a bit more” tax because they received taxpayer-funded support during the pandemic.

But Ms Truss, who would scrap the scheduled 19p to 25p increase in corporation tax, said: “I am not talking about cutting corporation tax, I’m talking about not raising corporation tax.

“Under Rishi’s plan we will end up raising corporation tax to the same level it is in France, more than 10 percentage points higher than it is in Ireland.”

Mr Sunak was asked if he had the “guts to stand up to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin” by Andrew from London, a co-ordinator for a logistics company at Heathrow Airport.

“Yes, Andrew, is the quick answer and the reason you can believe me is because as chancellor I did a couple of things that demonstrates that strength," he said.

"A year and a half ago I made sure that our armed forces got the largest uplift in funding that they’ve had since the end of the Cold War to make sure that we’re protected against threats like Putin.

“As chancellor I also worked with all my finance ministers around the world to put in place a sanctions package, the likes of which we had never seen, to try and tighten the grip on Putin’s war machine, stop funding going to him.

"And it does require toughness to stand up to him, and it is going to require all of us to go through some difficult times.”