Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are cast in the Conservative Party leadership race as heirs to Margaret Thatcher, while divergent perceptions emerge on the campaign trail about their connection to the legacy of their predecessor, Boris Johnson.
The legacies of Johnson and Thatcher have become topics of discussion as the two candidates hold a series of public debates across the country, tonight on SkyNews in what is likely to be the last televised head-to-head.
The most recent sign of the former leaders’ influence was, during a rally in Leeds last week, when a militant accused Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister, of having “stabbed in the back” Boris Johnson.
Sunak “is a good salesman and has many strong attributes, but many people continue to support Boris Johnson, who has consistently implemented measures in difficult times”, and “unfortunately they believe that you stabbed him in the back”, said the militant, in one. of the most difficult moments of the face-to-face encounters between the two candidates for succession.
The prime ministerial candidate replied that “he is proud of this government”, but that “it has personally reached a point” where he resigned for disagreements about behavior and how to deal with the economic crisis.
Johnson resigned from the leadership of the Tories on July 7, after dozens of more than 50 members of the government resigned, including Rishi Sunak two days earlier, triggering an election that will also determine the successor as head of government.
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Culture Minister Nadine Dorries called the circumstances in which Boris Johnson was forced to resign a “coup”, and a petition for the prime minister to stand against Sunak and Truss received more than 10,000 signatures.
Seen as the candidate for continuity, the Foreign Minister does not waste this advantage, having argued that, unlike many colleagues, she did not resign or publicly criticize the leader.
I have always been a fan of Boris Johnson, I think he did a fantastic job as Prime Minister. He was proud to serve as a loyal member of his government,” he said.
If Rishi Sunak can’t invoke proximity with Boris Johnson, at least he’s been trying insist on the credentials of a “true conservative” and heir to Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister between 1979 and 1990.
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My values are Thatcherite. I believe in hard work, family and integrity. I am a Thatcherite, I run as a Thatcherite and I will govern as a Thatcherite,” he stated in an article for the Daily Telegraph.
The former finance minister believes that is what he is doing by resisting tax cuts to ease the impact of record 9.4% inflation on people and businesses in the UK, to focus on reducing high debt due to the measures taken during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The increase in the social security contribution imposed in April and the planned rise in corporate tax aim to “pay the bill”, a plan that he considers the most “responsible” and most “conservative”.
Liz Truss has also invoked the spirit of the “Iron Lady,” and not just because she is a woman.
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What he admires about Thatcher, he said in an interview with the Daily Mail, is that she “challenged orthodoxy”, something she intends to emulate with the promises to lower taxes at the cost of greater public indebtedness to ease the impact of the growing cost-of-living crisis and stimulate the economy.
The proposals, which could cost more than 30,000 million pounds (36,000 million euros), have aroused the suspicion of experts, who fear that they will contribute to an increase in inflation.
“There were 364 economists who opposed Mrs. Thatcher’s plan,” Truss recalled, recalling the episode in which British academics signed a letter to the then prime minister to warn her of the risks to the economy of the tax hike contained in the plan. 1981 budget.
By resisting an expected tax cut, Thatcher showed determination to bring the budget deficit under control, which attracted market confidence and allowed interest rates to be lowered, ushering in a period of economic growth.
Rishi Sunak visited Margaret Thatcher’s former constituency, Grantham, in central England, to promote “common-sense Thatcherism”, but the Foreign Secretary has been hinting more subtly.
In February, Liz Truss was photographed in Moscow wearing a fur coat and hat similar to those worn by the former prime minister in the same city in 1987, as was the image above a military tank in November last year. to a Thatcher one in 1986.
Nor did it escape the most attentive viewers, nor did they spare social media, when the style of Truss’s lace blouse in the first televised debate of this election was found to be identical to that worn by Thatcher in 1979.
Source: Observadora
