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Liz Truss releases Tory leadership campaign video
Tory leadership frontrunners are facing mounting pressure to help households tackle the rising cost of living and the “financial timebomb” due to explode this autumn.
The economic response of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak has emerged as the main battleground in the bid to succeed Boris Johnson as the next prime minister.
This comes as the foreign secretary is drawing heat from the allies of the former chancellor for suggesting there will be no “handouts” and subsequently playing down the comment.
Ms Truss told the Financial Times that she would “look at what more can be done” in the light of warnings from Bank of England about the longest recession since the financial crisis and inflation soaring to over 13 per cent.
She however added: “The way I would do things is in a Conservative way of lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts.”
Slamming the comment, Mr Sunak said it was “simply wrong to rule out further direct support” for struggling families this winter.
Sunak camp hits out at Truss for ‘U-turn’ on cost of living
Liz Truss’s rival Rishi Sunak hit out at the foreign secretary for saying that she would help tackle the cost of living crisis by “lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts”.
Slamming the remarks, he said: “It’s simply wrong to rule out further direct support at this time as Liz Truss has done. And, what’s more, her tax proposals are not going to help very significantly people like pensioners or those on low incomes who are exactly the kind of families that are going to need help.”
Supporters of Mr Sunak accused his rival of another U-turn after she last week rowed back on proposals to cut public sector pay outside London.
Conservative leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak visits Scotland for the first time during the Conservative Party leadership campaign on 6 August 2022 in Edinburgh, Scotland
(Getty Images)
Former chief whip Mark Harper tweeted: “Stop blaming journalists (again) – reporting what you actually say isn’t ‘misinterpreted’.
“2nd time in just 5 days. This kind of thing happened under the current PM & hugely damaged trust in us all.
“So just what does ‘not giving out handouts’ mean then?”
The former chancellor’s camp also rounded on Ms Truss’s plans to use a September emergency budget to immediately reverse the national insurance rate rise brought in by Mr Sunak when he was chancellor.
Namita Singh8 August 2022 05:30
Truss misinterpreted over ‘handouts’ remark, says Mordaunt
Trade minister Penny Mordaunt put her weight behind Liz Truss as she denied that the foreign secretary ruled out expanding direct payments.
Claiming that the comments were misinterpreted, the former Tory leadership candidate said: “It’s not that she’s ruling out all future help; that’s a misinterpretation of what she said.”
“What she is looking at, though, is enabling people to keep more of the money that they earn. It makes no sense to take money off of people and then to give it back in very, very complicated ways. We need to simplify this and we need to ensure that households are as resilient as possible, and stopping taking large sums of tax from people is one way of doing that,” she said
Penny Mordaunt speaks during the second Conservative party membership hustings on 01 August 2022 in Exeter, England
(Getty Images)
Namita Singh8 August 2022 05:19
Liz Truss backs away from rejection of cost of living crisis ‘handouts’
Liz Truss has been forced to back away from her rejection of cost of living “handouts” amid growing calls for an emergency budget to help families facing a “financial timebomb” this winter.
For the second time in a week – following her earlier U-turn on regional pay – supporters claimed that the Tory leadership frontrunner’s comments had been “misinterpreted”.
But leadership rival Rishi Sunak said the foreign secretary was “simply wrong” to rely on tax cuts rather than direct payments to help the millions of people struggling to pay energy bills.
He signalled that he planned another multibillion package of assistance if he were to become prime minister in September.
More in this report from our political editor Andrew Woodcock:
Liz Truss backs away from rejection of cost of living crisis ‘handouts’
Calls for emergency budget to avert ‘financial timebomb’ for families
Namita Singh8 August 2022 05:03
Welcome to The Independent’s UK politics blog for 8 August 2022 where we provide the latest on the Tory leadership race and everything that is buzzing in Westminster.
Namita Singh8 August 2022 04:37
