The Tories must stop tearing each other into shreds, says ROSS CLARK

But what a bruising experience it has been getting this far. Even before yesterday's two ballots there were accusations that candidates were lending their votes to others in the hope of

knocking out their mostfeared opponent. Tuesday's BBC debate descended into a shouting match, while Conservative policies have been attacked by the very Cabinet ministers who are responsible

for them.

The contest has so far resembled a bizarre therapy session where participants have been set the task of humiliating each other, and themselves.

It is not surprising that passions should run high in a contest that will choose not just the Tory leader but Prime Minister. It presents a rare chance in politics to be propelled straight

into the top job without having to win a general election first.

But however rich the prize may seem now, it won't be worth having if, by pummelling each other and their ideas into a pulp, the remaining candidates in this contest end up doing Jeremy

Corbyn's work for him and destroy the Conservative party's chances of winning the next election.

THE Labour leader must have been chortling to himself on Tuesday when the then five Conservative leadership hopefuls started laying into each over proposed tax cuts and past spending cuts.

Labour has struggled over the past nine years to convince the public that what it condemns as "Tory austerity" is a bad thing.

On the contrary, an internal Labour party inquiry into its 2015 general election defeat concluded that David Cameron's Conservatives won not in spite of austerity but because of it - voters

could see that Gordon Brown had left the public finances in an appalling state and saw the need to take corrective action.

Yet the candidates seem to be falling over each other to condemn their own spending record. Jeremy Hunt - remarkably, given he was health secretary for six years - said he thought social

care cuts had gone too far.

Then there was a fierce argument over tax plans, with Boris' plans to raise the threshold for the 40 per cent tax rate roundly attacked by his four opponents and Rory Stewart seeming to tick

off the others for even thinking about tax cuts, ever. It was an astonishing spectacle from a party supposedly committed to low taxes.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, mumbled an apology for suggesting that women dressed in burqas resembled letterboxes. Why? His whole point was that, while he personally didn't understand why women

should want to hide away, he defended the right of people to dress how they choose.

Ironically, Boris made his apology to an Imam who had tweeted the suggestion that women had only themselves to blame if they were raped by "predatory" men. I know whose side of the argument

the vast majority of the British people will be on, regardless of their religion - they would favour the views of a man who believes that women should be free to choose to dress how they

like, not one who thinks women should hide themselves from view to save themselves from "predatory men".

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CONSERVATIVE leadership candidates should not be indulging in a contest to see who can trash the Government's reputation the most. They should be apologising for one thing only - the failure

to carry out the instruction of the British people to leave the EU on what was supposed to be the appointed date of March 30 this year.

Otherwise they should be vigorously defending the Government's record. They should be proud that the deficit has fallen to £24billion, that the economy has grown in each of the past 25

consecutive quarters, that unemployment is at its lowest in 45 years, that inflation is close to the Bank of England's target of two per cent.

They should be reminding us of how house-building has increased how, after years of declining home-ownership, more young people are able to buy themselves a home.

They should be proud of how our air is getting cleaner and how more of our energy is coming from renewable sources - not grovelling in front of the 15-year-old Glaswegian schoolgirl who

demanded they commit themselves to the hopelessly unrealistic target of cutting carbon emissions to zero by 2025.

Where the Government has failed - such as on knife crime - they should be proposing solutions, but taking each other seriously, not trying to shout each other down.

We have another four weeks of hustings before our new Prime Minister is finally chosen.

For the sake of the country, the tone needs to change to make voters look more favourably on the Conservative party, not see it as a squabbling rabble.

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