- Friday, April 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
Liz Truss, who is leading the two-person race for the British prime minister’s post, has promised to do “all I can” to support millions of struggling families as the country’s common man prepares for the worst collapse in living standards in six decades.
In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, Truss, the foreign secretary, rubbished what she called “Gordon Brown-style handouts” to give respite to people’s finances as inflation threatens the British economy.
However, Truss said that she was ready to offer more support to the people through something like an emergency budget if she managed to become the next premier, succeeding Boris Johnson who quit in July after his government imploded.
“I can assure you that I will do all I can to help households across Britain,” Truss told the publication.
“I understand how difficult the circumstances are… that people are facing pressure on food bills and fuel bills and with the cost of living.
“I’m somebody who gets things done. I look at the evidence and I sort things out and that’s what I’ve committed to doing,” she said.
Truss has locked horns with Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, and their race has been more about the ideas on tackling the looming economic crisis and the cost of living threat.
Both Truss and Sunak hit back on the campaign trail with the former going to Manchester and the latter in London following the hustings event on Tuesday night with Conservative Party members in the constituency of Darlington.
However, with the crisis looming large and business groups and anti-poverty activists seeking immediate action to defuse what former Labour prime minister Brown called a ticking financial timebomb, both Truss and Sunak are under pressure to come together with Johnson to develop an emergency plan to help Britain’s struggling families.
But while Truss was less accommodative and called the idea “bizarre”, her opponent was okay with it. He said he would look to back people with “direct support” to pay the soaring bills.
When the Standard asked Truss about her idea of support to offer, she said she preferred to give people the power to “keep more of their own money” and implement tax cuts to boost economic growth.
