Rishi Sunak under fire over boast he moved funding from deprived UK areas

Rishi Sunak's campaign spent Friday on the back foot as he faced widespread criticism over his remarks about reversing government funding for deprived urban areas

Rishi Sunak insisted he is not out of the Conservative leadership contest after his campaign suffered another blow when a video emerged of him boasting about deliberately moving funding away from deprived urban areas of the UK while he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In an interview with GB News published late Friday, Sunak said he had spoken to thousands of party members in recent days and that the contest is closer than suggested by a bombshell YouGov poll on Tuesday, which found his rival Liz Truss had a huge 34-point lead with Tory members.

“I’m getting a really positive reception