The two candidates for the Conservative leadership, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, were questioned by the BBC’s veteran political commentator Andrew Neil on Friday night. Both men found the experience testing, though while Johnson seemed to bluff his way through the encounter, Hunt often appeared caught in the headlights. Here are the key moments from the two half-hour interviews.

Johnson on not backing Kim Darroch

Johnson, the frontrunner, was pressed to explain his decision not to support the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, who quit on Wednesday after days of criticism by the US president, Donald Trump.

AN: When you were asked four times in the ITV debate to support our man in Washington, you did not do so. After watching it, he was so dismayed by your failure to do so it was one of the reasons he resigned.

BJ: Actually, I spoke to him the following day and said how sad I was that he had resigned, and he pointed out that he didn’t watch it. So you might need to check your facts, Andrew, before you make –

AN: Did it play a factor in his resignation?

BJ: He said that what somebody had relayed to him had certainly played, had been a factor in his resignation –

AN: So what – your lack of support for him was a factor in his resignation?

BJ: I think that unfortunately what I – what I said on that TV debate was misrepresented to Kim.

Johnson on the Gatt arrangement

Johnson’s claims on Europe were also forensically examined, and the pair shared a bad-tempered exchange about the minutiae of article 24 of the general agreement on tariffs and trade (Gatt), which ended with the leadership hopeful admitting he did not know what one of the key clauses consisted of.

AN: So how would you handle – you talk about article 5B in Gatt 24 –

BJ: Paragraph 5B. Article 24. Get the detail right. Get the detail right, Andrew. It’s article 24, paragraph 5B.

AN: And how would you handle paragraph 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, because that is –

AN: How would you get round what’s in 5C?

BJ: I would confide entirely in paragraph 5B, which is enough for our purposes.

AN: Do you know what’s in 5C?

BJ: No.

Johnson on London’s crime rate during his mayoralty

Neil also challenged the former foreign secretary about his achievements as London mayor, since Johnson has repeatedly tried to take credit for falling crime rates during his stewardship of the capital between 2008 and 2016.

AN: It went down 20% in London when you were mayor, crime?

BJ: Crime went down roughly 20% when I was mayor.

AN: How much did it go down at the same time in the rest of the country?

BJ: Well –

AN: By 26%.

AN: So you were behind the rest of the country.

Hunt on not being ‘Theresa May in trousers’

Hunt has been painted as the continuity candidate, having backed May’s EU withdrawal bill each time it was put before the House of Commons.

AN: Jeremy Hunt – like Theresa May, you voted to remain. Like Theresa May, you’re a Tory technocrat. Like Theresa May, you voted for her Brexit deal, three times. Why would the Tories want more of the same when it’s hardly been a golden age for them?

JH: Because, Andrew, I am a totally different person and I have a totally different plan. And I did vote three times for Theresa May’s deal, and I’ll tell you exactly why: because I wanted to leave the European Union as quickly as possible. And had we voted to do that, as indeed did Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg and many other people, we would have left the EU by now and I think we would have been in a better position as a country.

AN: But a lot of Tories look at you and they say, ‘We tried you. It didn’t work.’ Trying Theresa in trousers isn’t going to be any better.

Hunt on being an entrepreneur

The foreign secretary has repeatedly reminded audiences at hustings and on TV debates he was the only person running for the leadership who had a successful business background, but Neil gave him short shrift on this.

JH: … I would be the first prime minister who’s been an entrepreneur –

AN: You’re an entrepreneur?

JH: Yeah.

AN: Who knew that?

JH: Have you not heard that before, Andrew?

AN: Well, only about 50 times … When you were an entrepreneur, you didn’t do negotiations anything like what will be required in Brussels, anything like the scale. And you go on about being an entrepreneur, [but] you weren’t exactly Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, were you?