London, 22 August 2022: Times Radio will host the latest Conservative Party hustings between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak on Tuesday 23 August at 7pm in Birmingham, as the two leadership candidates go head-to-head in front of an audience of over 1,000 Conservative Party members.

Times Radio’s John Pienaar will present the sold-out event, interviewing each candidate and moderating questions from the audience.

The two-hour event will be broadcast live on Times Radio from 7 to 9pm and streamed in vision on the Times Radio YouTube channel.  Build-up coverage will start at 4pm with Times Radio Drive, presented by Carole Walker, and Carole will present reaction immediately after the hustings.

The Birmingham hustings take place at the NEC and are the 10th in a series of 12 hustings being organised by the Conservative Party for its members around the country.  Access to the official live stream will be made available free of charge to other broadcasters by the Conservative Party.  A pooled broadcasting arrangement will be in place inside the auditorium. 

John Pienaar said: “Conservative party members are picking a Prime Minister to take our country through a cost of living emergency and a global strategic crisis, both of them frightening and both of which could get much worse. There are still a lot of Conservative votes up for grabs and the country as well as the party selectorate want and deserve a lot more answers than anyone has been able to get so far. My aim on Tuesday evening is to get answers.”

Times Radio Programme Director Tim Levell said: “Times Radio is all about quality live news at any time of day and night.  Giving our listeners a chance to hear from the two people who want to be our next Prime Minister is exactly what we’re all about.  And with John Pienaar’s years of experience interviewing politicians, there’s no one better at spotting undeliverable promises or calling out policies that don’t add up.”

John Pienaar presents Drive on Times Radio from Monday to Thursday every week. Prior to joining Times Radio ahead of the station’s launch in 2020, he was the BBC’s deputy political editor, and is a lobby journalist and broadcaster of more than 30 years’ standing.

 The latest RAJAR results for the period ending 26 June 2022 revealed Times Radio is delivering a reach of 570k listeners, who are listening to 3.15m of Times Radio every week. The station has become the destination for a higher proportion of AB profile listeners than BBC Radio 4, LBC and BBC Radio 5 Live, engaging with The Times’s take on major rolling news events. 

Its roster of broadcasters. including the award-winning Aasmah Mir, Stig Abell, Matt Chorley, Mariella Frostrup, Carole Walker, Ayesha Hazarika, Kait Borsay, Cathy Newman and Ruth Davidson, continue to navigate listeners through an unprecedented news agenda as the cost of living spirals, the war in Ukraine rages on and the country prepares for a new Prime Minister. 

Times Radio is available on DAB radio, online and via the free Times Radio app.