chancellor by 2020, and it is his record in thatjob, his response to covid, his outlook on tax, that is serving up their first big skirmish of this contest. chris mason, bbc news, westminster. it s one thing for the prime ministerial hopefuls to be laying out their economic stalls but do their numbers stack up? today, the independent think tank, the institute for fiscal studies, has been looking at what rishi sunak and liz truss have said so far. here s our economics editor faisal islam. here are the steps in between the foreign office and the treasury. the two departments, in mr sunak s case, until very recently, where the mps vying to be our next prime minister ran great offices of state. it s been a very busy time with war in europe and a related inflation crisis. but the debate over who gets to number ten looks like being driven by economics. the backdrop is important here. inflation is at a 40 year high and heading higher.