Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi, Sajid Javid, Suella Braverman will speak out and demand tax cuts in an all-out attack on Rishi Sunak’s economic policy. Sunak, the front-runner, will not appear today, but Robert Jenrick, one of his leading supporters, accused his opponents this morning of “fantasy tax cuts” and warned them not to make promises they couldn’t keep. in the race to succeed Boris Johnson. He criticized “completely unfunded tax cuts in the heat of the Tory leadership election which were partly caused by a lack of confidence”. • Who will be the next prime minister? Jenrick insisted that big tax cuts would require increased borrowing or spending cuts, arguing that Tory members “understand that these are difficult times and they require someone who is financially literate and has a proper plan”. But Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, who until recently sat at the cabinet table with Sunak and Jenrick but supports Truss, said: “Tax rates are very, very high. Do we want to continue on this path or reset or try something else?” Kwarteng said the priority was to stimulate growth and “we are not doing that by raising taxes to the highest levels since 1949. That makes absolutely no sense.” He said Truss had argued privately against the increase in national insurance introduced by Sunak to fund the NHS. Tom Tugendhat, who bills himself as a fresh start without ever having been in government, pointed out that he was one of the few Tory MPs who voted against the national insurance “tax on jobs”. “I certainly think we should be looking to lower taxes in every aspect of society,” he added. As the competition begins in earnest, the prime minister spent the morning visiting the Francis Crick Institute LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES A rushed timetable is expected to be agreed after the 1922 Committee election of Tory backbenchers this afternoon. This will set a high bar for candidates to get on the ballot – with the support of 20 to 36 MPs, or 10 per cent of the parliamentary party, to be nominated – in an attempt to thin out a field of 11 declared candidates. far away. MPs will get them down to two finals in just over a week, so the choice can be put to members once parliament’s summer recess begins on Thursday next week. The acceleration of the debate will become a battle for the future of the party’s economic policy: if members accept Sunak’s argument, then he will win. But if they insist on faster tax cuts, the contest is wide open to become the standard bearer of the right.
Truss launched the campaign website a month ago
Liz Truss has registered her official website to become the next Tory leader almost a month before Boris Johnson quits (Oliver Wright writes). The lizforleader.co.uk website was launched at the weekend as part of the Foreign Secretary’s campaign to succeed Johnson as Prime Minister. But a search of the domain name – first carried out by Sky News – shows it was registered on June 8, 2022. This was two days after Boris Johnson narrowly won the 1922 Commission vote of confidence, in which Truss publicly supported him. Liz Truss listed the site two days after Boris Johnson won the trust — and in which she had backed him JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE TIMES Rishi Sunak and Tom Tugendhat registered their sites last week on July 6th and 9th respectively. Most of the candidates do not appear to have a campaign website yet. Penny Mordaunt’s pm4pm.com was registered on 24 May 2019 – the day Theresa May announced her resignation. Mordaunt did not win this competition, but kept the domain name. Using the slogan “trusted to deliver”, Truss launched her campaign with a slick video highlighting her work on trade deals and the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol bill. He said he needed a prime minister with “experience, who can hit the ground running from day one”, in a possible search for inexperienced cabinet rivals. While such Machiavellian tactics are unlikely to damage her campaign among Tory MPs – who have been well aware of her long-term leadership ambitions despite protestations of loyalty to Johnson – it could cause her trouble later in the race. A large proportion of Tory members still support Johnson and the actions of the two finalists in the days before his resignation are likely to come under scrutiny.
The chancellor reverses plans to cut government budgets
Nadhim Zahawi has backed down on proposals to cut the operating costs of every government agency by 20 per cent to fund his promises to cut taxes (Geraldine Scott writes). The chancellor had suggested to Sky News that he would force all departments to make cuts, pointing to his record at the Department for Education. He said “nothing is off the table” when asked how he would cut taxes as promised. The majority of Conservative leadership contenders have promised tax cuts, except for Rishi Sunak, who said the country could not tell itself “fairy tales” about the state of the economy. But few have determined how to deliver on the promises. Zahawi told Sky News: “I think it’s right to do this exercise across government, it’s an important exercise. It is right to exercise fiscal discipline in public sector pay.” However, the team behind his leadership bid sought to clarify that it meant a 20 per cent cut in civil servants, which has already been proposed by Boris Johnson. Sajid Javid yesterday said his plans would cost around £39 billion a year and insisted he does not “believe in unfunded tax cuts”. He promised a “scorecard” showing how it could be achieved and said he would demand “efficiency savings” from all departments by 2024. Liz Truss promised to “start cutting taxes from day one”. Kwasi Kwarteng, the Truss-backed business secretary, said it was accepted that public spending would have to be cut. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned the candidates that to avoid raising taxes again in the coming years, they will have to scrap some benefits or make cuts to the NHS. Robert Jenrick, who backs Sunak, said the Tories’ “credibility” was at risk from candidates promising cuts. “Announcing fantastic tax cuts to help get through a leadership election, I don’t think is wise.”
Breakdown: candidates must play in two galleries
The Tory leadership election has two audiences, Tory MPs and Conservative party members. It would be risky to assume they want the same thing (writes Chris Smyth). It is often assumed that Tory members are more staunchly right-wing than MPs, but while polls show there is some truth to this idea on social issues, the reverse is true on the economy. While Rishi Sunak is being blasted by his opponents for his tax increases and spending, evidence suggests that could hurt him more in the first round of the contest. If it comes down to the last two, the members could be more understanding. Research from the British Election Study and others, published in the journal Political Studies last year, they show that on issues of redistribution, big business and the fortunes of ordinary workers, Conservative voters are slightly to the right of the average voter, members further to the right — but MPs are much more likely to hold classical right positions. Hence the fuss today to offer tax cuts. In terms of values, it is a striking finding that the average Conservative MP is more socially liberal than the average voter. Tory MPs are far less likely to support the death penalty, bemoan the lack of respect for young people and call for tougher sentences than voters as a whole. Members, by contrast, are far to the right of voters on most of these issues. Unsurprisingly, then, all the leadership candidates have pledged to maintain the policy of deporting some asylum seekers to Rwanda, which has caused considerable concern to many Tory MPs. Tory voters’ views on such matters may boost the hopes of Priti Patel, who is likely to enter the race today and will feel she has a chance as the right’s “genuine” candidate if she makes it to the bottom two. However, both MPs and Tories will choose a leader with half an eye on the wider electorate: they know they need a leader who can win the country as a whole. They will second guess each other and the voters. They should also be mindful that what may be wildly popular in some constituencies will be toxic in others. Added to this is the fact that, as Jeremy Corbyn has discovered, even adopting policies that may in themselves be popular can contribute to branding a leader as extreme or dangerous. These overlapping levels of calculation mean that it is still very difficult to predict who will be Britain’s next prime minister by the end of the summer.
They are smearing me with rumors about taxes, says Zahawi
Nadhim Zahawi has said he is “beaten” by stories about his tax affairs as senior Tories worry about the bitter tone of the leadership election campaign (Chris Smyth writes). The chancellor denied claims the National Crime Agency or HMRC were investigating irregularities in his finances – but promised to release his tax returns as prime minister, in a move aimed at Rishi Sunak. With insinuations and unsubstantiated claims of rival camps rife, Sunak has already had to deny claims by Nadine Dorries, a close ally of Boris Johnson, that she is working with Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser. Tory MPs were sent a 400-word attack on Sunak yesterday saying there was “nothing conservative about [his] big tax and big spending agenda.” This…
