Liz Truss has used the final hustings of the Conservative leadership campaign to sharpen her appeal to the right wing of the party by stressing her commitment to tax cuts, deregulation and an aggressive approach to the culture wars. Addressing party members at Wembley arena, the foreign secretary ruled out any new taxes, promised to consider abolishing the mandatory speed limit on motorways and declared that a trans woman is not a woman.
Throughout the campaign, Ms Truss has stressed her record of loyalty to Boris Johnson and she said on Wednesday that she had not supported any of the “shenanigans” by ministers that precipitated the prime minister’s resignation.
“I believe that, with hindsight, Boris Johnson will be viewed as a hugely consequential prime minister for our country. He delivered Brexit, he delivered the vaccine and he also delivered on standing up to Vladimir Putin and supporting the Ukrainians,” she said.
Polls put Rishi Sunak up to 30 points behind Ms Truss but he received louder and longer cheers when he entered the arena. He said he was proud that he had not told people what they want to hear during the campaign but claimed he had told them what they needed to hear.
Compassionate support
“My plan is the right plan to tackle inflation, to compassionately support those who most need our help and to safeguard our children’s economic inheritance because, as Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson know, maxing out the country’s credit card is not right, it’s not responsible and it’s certainly not Conservative,” he said.
He warned that Britain was more vulnerable than other countries to a loss of confidence by international markets and suggested that Truss’s promises of tax cuts worth tens of billions increased that risk.
“It comes down to borrowing. It comes down to the markets having confidence that the trajectory of the public finances is one that they have confidence in. That is a pretty standard tenet of what anyone who is investing in the UK would want to see,” he said.
He said he was glad he had imposed a windfall tax on energy companies’ profits, a policy Truss opposes. And he said he could not rule out energy rationing this winter if supplies ran low.
“We shouldn’t rule anything out because the challenges that we face with this crisis are significant. And as many countries are looking at how we can all optimise our energy usage, that is a sensible thing for us to be doing as a country,” he said.
‘Terrific ambassador’
The former chancellor has all but ruled out accepting a position in Truss’s cabinet but he praised his rival and said they had more in common than divided them.
“Liz is a fantastic foreign secretary, she is a terrific ambassador for our country and we should all pay her enormous tribute because she is a proud and passionate Conservative. And when this is done, we’re going to come together and we’re going to show it is the Conservative party, and only the Conservative party, that can provide the leadership that our nation needs,” he said.
In an awkward moment at the end of the hustings, however, the two candidates appeared alongside one another onstage but exchanged no words or greetings.
Voting closes on Friday and the winner will be announced in London next Monday. Queen Elizabeth will appoint the next prime minister next Tuesday at Balmoral Castle in Scotland rather than at Buckingham Palace. The queen, who is 96 and suffers from mobility issues, will receive Johnson to accept his resignation before appointing his successor.
