Conservative leadership contest: New Prime Minister has unenviable task to unite the nation - The Yorkshire Post says

It is crunch time for the remaining six contenders, as they find out their fate through a series of secret ballots by MPs but arguably, it is also the most important week in modern times for the country’s governing party as a whole.

Like Parliament and the nation, it remains very much divided over the way forward with the biggest political upheaval in British post-war history and so it is of little surprise that the matter of how to tackle the Brexit impasse dominated much of Sunday’s Channel 4 debate. Despite his absence, Boris Johnson, who picked up 114 votes in the first ballot last week, remains the frontrunner and his campaign has been further boosted by the support of former leadership contender Matt Hancock. Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove are leading the rest in the race to secure the second place on the ballot, but at hustings yesterday, hopefuls Rory Stewart and Sajid Javid said they believe they too have the required number of supporters to survive today’s voting round.

There are perhaps questions to be asked over how democratic the process has been, with the rules of the leadership selection process meaning only a tiny proportion of the electorate, the 160,000 Conservative Party members, will decide on a new leader once the options are whittled down to two.

The outcome is effectively determining the future for Britain and whoever is to emerge as the next PM has an unenviable task on their hands – to unite not only party members, but the country too.

Though the planned EU departure will of course command much of their political agenda, pressing issues such as health and social care and this newspaper’s calls to Power Up the North must not be overlooked in doing so.