The two contenders for the position of British prime minister have started competing head-to-head for the votes of the Conservative Party members who will elect the new leader of the nation.
(AP) LONDON — The two candidates aiming to be the next prime minister of Britain began a head-to-head contest for the votes of Conservative Party members who will elect the new leader of the nation on Thursday.
While Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is promising rapid tax relief to supporters of the right-wing ruling party, which is divided and demoralized following three stormy years under departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former Treasury Chief Rishi Sunak is preaching budgetary restraint.
The two contenders for the position of British prime minister have started competing head-to-head for the votes of the Conservative Party members who will elect the new leader of the nation.
(AP) LONDON — The two candidates aiming to be the next prime minister of Britain began a head-to-head contest for the votes of Conservative Party members who will elect the new leader of the nation on Thursday.
While Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is promising rapid tax relief to supporters of the right-wing ruling party, which is divided and demoralized following three stormy years under departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former Treasury Chief Rishi Sunak is preaching budgetary restraint.
Following months of ethics allegations, Johnson resigned as party leader on July 7. Conservative parliamentarians narrowed the field of 11 contenders to two finalists on Wednesday: Sunak and Truss. Until a replacement is chosen, he serves as prime minister. On September 5, the winner of the party leadership election will be sworn in as prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Only roughly 180,000 Conservative Party members are eligible to vote for the future president of the nation. The 67 million people living in the rest of the U.K. must watch the campaign from a distance as the candidates clash in television debates and party gatherings against a backdrop of rising costs, escalating climate extremes that broke U.K. temperature records this week, and the conflict in Ukraine.
Unless the Conservative candidate decides to call an early general election, the victor of the race won’t have to face British voters until 2024.
That does not imply that they will have it easy. As Truss left a meeting with local lawmakers in London on Thursday, protesters opposing the killing of badgers to stop the spread of bovine disease surrounded her.
Truss, who oversaw the United Kingdom’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is running as a low-tax, small-state conservative in the vein of Margaret Thatcher, is the favorite, according to oddsmakers.
Truss said in interviews on Thursday that she has the “toughness” and “grit” necessary to steer the nation through difficult times.
“These are incredibly challenging times. We must be courageous, she told the BBC. “Given the problem we are facing, business as usual is not an option.”
Sunak, who led the British economy through the pandemic before leaving Johnson’s administration last month, also claims to carry Thatcher’s mantle, whose free-market policies in the 1980s revolutionized the British economy. Sunak contends that cutting taxes before bringing inflation under control would be foolish. He was elected by party legislators, but the Tory grassroots may not approve of his prior position as Britain’s top tax collector.
Sunak asserted in a piece for the Daily Telegraph that the economic foundation must consist of “low inflation and strong public finances.”
Sunak supporter and legislator Robert Jenrick made fun of Truss by saying, “Making unfulfilled tax pledges just to win a leadership battle is the antithesis of Thatcherism.”
Sunak also encounters open hatred from Johnson backers who view him as a traitor for leaving the cabinet earlier this month, a decision that assisted in the removal of the prime minister.
When Johnson was punished by police for government parties that violated COVID-19 lockdown guidelines, he refused to retire from office. Johnson clung to office throughout months of scandals involving his finances and judgment. After his ministers collectively resigned over one controversy too many—the appointment of a politician accused of sexual misconduct—he ultimately resigned.
Both Truss and Sunak want to remove themselves from the moral quagmire that surrounds Johnson while convincing Conservatives that they can replicate his electoral success, which gave the Tories a resounding victory in 2019.
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