In comments similar to former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s opening campaign gambit, Hunt told The Sunday Telegraph he is standing to be leader “because we have to restore trust, grow the economy, and win the next election”.

He added: “Those are the three things that have to happen and I believe I can do that.”

Here is the full story on the latest Tory candidates to throw their hat in the ring:

A trio of cabinet ministers declared they were running for the Tory leadership on Saturday night, amid calls to alter Party rules to thin out the increasingly crowded field of candidates.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss, chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and transport secretary Grant Shapps all threw their hats into the ring.

Shapps, who was among the cabinet ministers to tell Johnson that his time was up last week, said he would end the period of “tactical government”, repeatedly distracted by crises. He was not among the ministers to resign last week and pointed to his loyalty to previous premiers.

Related: Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi and Grant Shapps join race to be next Tory leader

A “flag” was raised by officials over the financial affairs of the new chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, before he was promoted, the Observer can reveal.

Civil servants in the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team are said to have alerted Boris Johnson to a HM Revenue and Customs “flag” over Zahawi before his appointment. The PM appointed him despite the possible concerns over his tax affairs.

“It’s extraordinary that flags were raised ahead of Nadhim’s appointment by the Downing Street proprietary team,” one source said this weekend. “These sorts of concerns would stop someone receiving an MBE or OBE. The idea he could be chancellor or even prime minister is unbelievable.”

A spokesperson for the chancellor said: “All Mr Zahawi’s financial interests have been properly and transparently declared.” A source close to Zahawi said he and his wife had never claimed non-domicile status.

Related: Revealed: officials raised ‘flag’ over Nadhim Zahawi’s tax affairs before he was appointed chancellor

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, appeared to be less than satisfied with education minister Andrea Jenkyns admitting she “should have shown more composure” after making a rude gesture to a “baying mob” outside Downing Street.

Without directly referencing her explanation or the incident in question, Barton tweeted: “In my 32 years as a teacher, 15 of them as headteacher, I inevitably dealt with moments of poor behaviour and inappropriate conduct – from young people and staff.

“I have to say, ‘I’m only human’ was never good enough as an excuse from any of them for any of it.”

The UK Russian embassy tweeted the picture, commenting: “British culture definitely has a new prospects with A.Jenkyns.”

Here is more from Nadhim Zahawi on his pitch to become Boris Johnson’s successor, four days after being appointed chancellor.

“The Conservative Party has made me who I am today. It gave me an education, it provided my family with a home and, most importantly, it provided hope. Making the most of my education, with the security of a safe home, I grew up with the understanding that nothing was impossible.

“Society is a reflection of its leaders, and under Margaret Thatcher, the Britain I knew was full of boundless optimism and opportunity. That has been lost and a change is needed. The country is confronting some of the greatest challenges for a lifetime.

“My aim is a simple one: to provide the opportunities that were afforded to my generation, to all Britons, whoever you are and wherever you come from. To steady the ship and to stabilise the economy. Thanks to Brexit, we are now a free nation.

“Let’s not just talk about the opportunities that follow, let’s take them. If a young boy, who came here aged 11 without a word of English, can serve at the highest levels of her majesty’s government and run to be the next prime minister, anything is possible.”

Marcus Fysh, the MP for Yeovil, said he was backing foreign secretary Liz Truss to be the next Tory leader.

In a tweet, he said: “There are many great talents and friends standing for Conservative Leader but for me the one who is experienced, tough, practical, has the right economic plan, will sort the NI Protocol and make the most of independence from the EU, unite Party & country and win, is Liz Truss.”

Michelle Donelan, who resigned from the role of education secretary on Thursday less than 36 hours after accepting it, said she was backing Nadhim Zahawi to be the next Tory leader.

Justin Tomlinson, MP for North Swindon, said he had resigned as deputy chairman of the Conservative party in order to “be free to support Kemi Badenoch to be our next PM”.

In a series of posts on Twitter, he added:

Determined, honest, straight-talking – Kemi Badenoch presents a real opportunity for change with a new style of politics that focuses on people not big government.

As a campaigner, focused on getting colleagues re-elected I know how the Westminster bubble is so detached from voters – Kemi Badenoch will smash through this disconnect and deliver on what ordinary people want. This is how we renew as party and win the next general election.

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns was filmed sticking her middle finger up to protesters outside Downing Street on Thursday after Boris Johnson’s resignation speech.

The minister has since said she was “sticking up for herself” after receiving death threats.

Grant Shapps launched his leadership bid by telling the Sunday Times he was ruling out a general election.

He said he would produce an emergency budget, instructing his chancellor to cut personal tax for the most vulnerable and giving state support to firms with high levels of energy consumption.

He said:

I have not spent the last few turbulent years plotting or briefing against the prime minister. I have not been mobilising a leadership campaign behind his back. I tell you this: for all his flaws – and who is not flawed? – I like Boris Johnson. I have never, for a moment, doubted his love of this country.

Shapps added:

It is easy to criticise Boris after keeping one’s head down for years while being happy to benefit from his patronage. I am glad that I did not do that.

Even as the skies darkened over his premiership, often because of errors committed by him, I hoped he could pull it back. Because in losing him, we would lose a man who makes a unique connection with people.

The Conservative MP Steve Baker, who has ruled himself out of running for the leadership of the party, has been setting out his reasons for supporting the attorney general Suella Braverman in her bid.

He told GB News:

In terms of experience, she does, of course, run her own department and she is the Attorney General so she is in the Cabinet and she advises on the law across all government departments. For me, I’ve been with Suella through hell and high water, the moment that came when we had to decide would we be the last people to stand against Theresa May’s deal and when I wobbled under the pressure, Suella didn’t.

I can still see her sitting there completely across all the detail as I was, and absolutely resolute. This country needs to be led by someone, as it has been before, someone with absolutely fierce resolve and the ability to listen to others, authenticity, good character, the charisma, and she has got it all. I’m excited to back her.

I believe in freedom because that’s the best way to make the people of this country prosper. We are not going to be going back to 1979, 1980 or 1990, we can only go forward. Margaret Thatcher famously said ‘no such thing as a society’ but what she meant was it is intangible.

What does that mean? It means societal relationships and individuals and how they relate to one another. We’ve got to go forward with somebody who inspires in others a warm relationship and professionalism and responsibility. Whether it be at work, at home or in the family, we can’t go back to Thatcherism, we can only go forward with a new commitment to the values we know endure.

The Conservative leadership election appears to be wide open, with candidates from almost every ideological wing of the party. With one nation Tories and fiscal conservatives, Brexiters and remainers, there will be an array of views for MPs and activists to consider.

Here is a rundown of the runners and riders – and what we know of their political and social stances.

Related: Tory leadership race: the contenders to replace Boris Johnson

A spokesperson for Boris Johnson said reports that he is planning to stand down as Prime Minister on Monday in order to run again for Tory leader are completely untrue.

Johnson resigned as leader of the Conservative Party on Thursday, but said he intends to remain in office until his successor is elected, PA Media reported.

Speaking in Downing Street, he said:

It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister.

And I’ve agreed with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of our backbench MPs, that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week.

And I’ve today appointed a Cabinet to serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place.

In a large state room in the heart of Downing Street, as they waited to deliver their fateful verdict to Boris Johnson, a group of cabinet ministers was forced to mingle awkwardly with the prime minister’s closest allies.

The delegation had slowly grown throughout Wednesday evening. Nadhim Zahawi, who had accepted the job of chancellor less than 24 hours earlier, home secretary Priti Patel, trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, cabinet office minister Kit Malthouse, Welsh secretary Simon Hart and transport secretary Grant Shapps were all present at various points.

Even Simon Clarke, the Treasury minister and one of Johnson’s most loyal supporters from the earliest days of his leadership campaign, joined by phone. “Everybody in that room agreed the game is up,” said one present. “Every single person was there to say that.”

Related: Fears of ‘Trump moment’ before Boris Johnson was finally made to realise his time was up

Defence minister Ben Wallace, who earlier today ruled himself out of the Tory leadership race, has visited the military camp in the north-west where up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers will arrive for specialist military training.

The Royal Navy is threatening to “walk away” from Boris Johnson and Priti Patel’s plan to stem the number of boats carrying asylum seekers across the Channel as official data shows how spectacularly the policy has backfired.

Defence chiefs are said to be fed up with trying to enact the prime minister and home secretary’s rapidly imploding plan of using the military to control small boats in the Channel.

Ministry of Defence data shows crossings have close to doubled since the military was given “primacy” over the issue from mid-April compared with the first three months of this year.

Patel and Johnson were warned that deploying the Royal Navy would be likely to increase the number of crossings but ignored expert advice because, according to internal sources, they wanted to appear tough.

Related: Priti Patel’s plan to end Channel crossings in disarray as Navy threatens to ‘walk away’

Conflicting reports are emerging about the scene outside Downing Street on Thursday, when Andrea Jenkyns shouted at protesters and later stuck her middle finger up at them. In a statement earlier today explaining her actions, Jenkyns called them a “baying mob”.

The Guardian’s chief political correspondent Jessica Elgot was among those who were there.

More declarations of support. Chris Philp, who resigned earlier this week, has said he would back Sajid Javid if he runs, saying he has “the competence, values and wide electoral and pan-UK appeal”.

Meanwhile Ben Bradley, once called the “first blue brick in the red wall” as Mansfield MP, will be supporting Kemi Badenoch, perhaps unsurprisingly as the two have shared similar thoughts on identity politics before.

Bradley told LBC: “I think she’s a really fresh face, actually, she’s not tainted by the kind of current frustrations and the chaos that we’ve had in recent weeks.”

For Suella Braverman, Richard Drax and Philip Hollobone have joined her team according to the Sunday Times’ chief political commentator Tim Shipman.

Rishi Sunak has thanked his supporters as the number of MPs saying they want him to be the next party leader continues to grow.

My colleague Peter Walker has this profile of Kemi Badenoch and how she is bringing culture war rhetoric to the leadership contest.

Kemi Badenoch, the latest entrant to an increasingly crowded race to succeed Boris Johnson, has marked her brief time in parliament by the relative speed of her ascent and a willingness to embrace controversy and conflict over culture war issues.

Elected to the safe Essex seat of Saffron Walden in 2017, Badenoch took just two years to join the frontbenches and was, until her resignation this week, a joint minister for levelling up and equalities.

Last year Badenoch, a former junior education minister, was even briefly tipped to succeed Gavin Williamson as education secretary, although in the end she was reshuffled to another second-tier role.

Badenoch’s pitch to Tory MPs places her very much on the right of the party, where she risks seeking support from a similar ideological pool to Suella Braverman, the attorney general, who entered the race on Wednesday.

Related: Kemi Badenoch brings culture war rhetoric to Tory leadership race

Here is Ben Wallace’s full statement. He was the bookmakers’ second favourite, behind Sunak, before pulling out of the race.

After careful consideration and discussing with colleagues and family, I have taken the decision not to enter the contest for leadership of the Conservative party.

I am very grateful to all my parliamentary colleagues and wider members who have pledged support.

It has not been an easy choice to make, but my focus is on my current job and keeping this great country safe.

I wish the very best of luck to all candidates and hope we swiftly return to focusing on the issues that we are all elected to address.

Andrew Bridgen, who was one of the MPs to become a prominent early critic of Boris Johnson as his premiership entered its final months, has said that he believes a deal could be struck to choose a new prime minister within the next fortnight.

It would mimic the short timeframe between David Cameron’s resignation, expecting him to be a caretaker prime minister, before Theresa May won the Conservative party leadership – meaning that Tory members would not get a vote. It would mean a new leader before the upcoming summer recess.

Bridgen told LBC’s Matt Frei: “The 1922 Committee will truncate the leadership rules so we will be down to two candidates before summer recess, they will go out to the membership, probably three weeks or four weeks and we’ll have a new prime minister and a new government before the end of August.

“I think it’s even possible Matt, that in just over two weeks time we’ll get down to two candidates, who may even come to an accommodation given the pressures to form a government and move on both domestically and internationally.”

He said there would be a candidate from the right of the party who would win, and it was possible that there would be a deal with the other candidate to speed up the process.

“I think the 1922 will make that threshold at least 20 … they will move it up to 20 or 25 nominations to reduce the field to four or five and we can easily whittle that down in a fortnight to two candidates.”

Endorsements are starting to trickle in. Caroline Dineage, the Gosport MP, has told Penny Mordaunt that she has her support.

Mordaunt has not formally declared her candidacy yet but is thought to be popular among MPs and members.

Elsewhere Bim Afolami, who resigned as vice-chair of the Conservative party during a live TalkTV interview on Wednesday, has said he will back Rishi Sunak.

RMT head Mick Lynch is appearing on Sky News, live from the Durham Miners’ Gala (see 10:10).

Disputes still continue between the union and railway companies, as Lynch calls for the government to intervene and says firms want to “strip thousands of jobs out of our industry, dilute or rip up our terms and conditions and they won’t give us a payrise”.

Lynch says more strike action is likely. “They are proposing to make our people poorer. Now railworkers won’t accept that and I’ve got a feeling … that workers want to fight back.”

George Freeman, who was once regarded as one of the policy brains behind Theresa May’s government and resigned as a minister on Thursday, has criticised Andrea Jenkyns for her gesture to protesters outside Downing Street earlier this week (see 10:00).

Treasurer of the 1922 Committee Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has criticised Nadine Dorries’ comments about the leadership race after she said it had “unleashed the hounds of hell”.

The senior Tory told Times Radio: “I think it’s not helpful … However we do this process we do want to unite the Conservative party behind a candidate.

“And that is why I think it needs to be a proper, open, democratic process so that everybody can see what’s going on.

“Hopefully, we will do it without any hitches and I think that is the way that we will end up with a candidate that everybody will ultimately support as a leader of the party and the next prime minister.”

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes pieces on what exactly happened in No 10 this week as Boris Johnson tried to cling to political office, before slowly coming to accept that he had to resign.

Alex Wickham has written this account for Bloomberg, after speaking to people close to events inside Johnson’s final hours before resigning.

It includes details of a teary meeting between Priti Patel and Boris Johnson, the exchange between the PM and Michael Gove when he was sacked, and an awkward embrace between Johnson’s director of communications Guto Harri and Rishi Sunak, hours after Johnson announced his resignation.

That night, some of those who might replace him attended a garden party hosted by the Spectator magazine.

Johnson’s communications chief Guto Harri got into a blazing and public row with Gove adviser Josh Grimstone, who accused Harri of briefing against his boss.

A Sunak aide spotted Harri and went over for a hug. According to people present, a smiling Sunak, standing next to her, asked Harri: “Don’t I get one?”

“You want a hug?” Harri said in disbelief, knowing that the former chancellor had made no contact with Johnson since his shock resignation. Harri had spent his week fighting to save the prime minister, Sunak was aiming to replace him, and in front of London’s political elite, the two men shared an awkward embrace.