BETA filters Key Facts (5) Liz Truss (7) Rishi Sunak (3) Nicola Sturgeon (2) Penny Mordaunt (2) Ben Houchen (1) Simon Hoare, Conservative MP for North Dorset, described Liz Truss’ plan as “nonsense” and a kick in the teeth for public sector workers living outside London. From Adam Payne of PoliticsHome: Tory MP Simon Hoare, who supports Sunak, on Truss’ public sector pay policy: “It is the very antithesis of the conservatism of a nation, politically suicidal and economically illiterate “Leads a Coach and Horses to the Leveling Agenda” And he adds: “It’s just nonsense” — Adam Payne (@adampayne26) August 2, 2022 Here’s yet another Conservative backlash at Liz Truss’ plans to cut £8.8 billion from public sector pay outside London. Chris Clarkson, MP for Heywood and Middleton and a supporter of Rishi Sunak’s leadership bid, said Truss’ plan to link wages to living standards where they work was unlikely to pass focus groups. I’m not sure a promise to cut people’s pay based on where they live will survive the first contact with focus groups, let alone the reality. — Chris Clarkson MP 🇬🇧🇺🇦 (@ChrisClarksonMP) August 2, 2022 Jacob Young, MP for Redcar, who is also backing Sunak’s bid, described the scheme as a “bad idea” and called on Truss to withdraw from the scheme “as a matter of urgency”. Steve Double, MP for St Austell and Newquay, said Truss’ plan would be “hugely damaging” to public services in Cornwall. This is a terrible idea and would be extremely damaging to public services in Cornwall where we are already struggling to recruit NHS staff. The billions of pounds saved would come directly from rural economies. This flattens out rather than upwards. Just one reason I’ll vote @RishiSunak https://t.co/koUHx6eeSo — Steve Double MP (@stevedouble) August 2, 2022 Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon, said the scheme would not help bring the South West up. How can this possibly help the Southwest level? I’m supporting @RishiSunak because he has a viable economic plan to ensure areas like #NDevon aren’t left behind by city-centric policies that would see our vital public service workers get paid less @Ready4Rishi https:// t.co/imZgBkZTzp — Sarane Saxby MP (@SelaineSaxby) August 2, 2022 Richard Holden, MP for Durham North West, also said the plan would “kill” the government’s leveling scheme. The ONLY way @trussliz could get £8.8bn a year is with pay cuts for: 👩⚕️👨⚕️Doctors & Nurses👮♀️👮♂️ Police and Correctional Officers It would kill #LevellingUp#Liz4Leader must drop the policy NOWhttps://t.co/oH60qByjj6 — Richard Holden MP (@RicHolden) August 2, 2022
Tory mayor ‘speechless’ at Truss plans to cut public sector pay
Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, said he was “speechless” at Liz Truss’ plan to cut public sector wages in less expensive parts of the country. Houchen, who is backing Rishi Sunak’s leadership bid, said the plan would undo some of the “levelling” work to boost areas such as Teesside. Really speechless. There is simply no way to do this without a massive pay cut for 5.5 million people, including our nurses, police and armed forces outside London. So much we’ve worked for in places like Teesside will be undone https://t.co/PU7vDKoToo — Ben Houchen (@BenHouchen) August 2, 2022 Updated at 11.03 BST
Sunak closes gap in Truss in Tory leadership contest, poll shows
Jessica Elgott Rishi Sunak has closed the gap on Liz Truss in the Conservative leadership race, with the foreign secretary leading by just five points in the latest membership poll. The former chancellor’s campaign team has stressed in recent days that it is finding a much tighter race on the ground than suggested by the most recent YouGov poll a fortnight ago, which gave Trish a 24-point lead. The latest poll was conducted by Techne for a private client, but data tables for the poll of 807 Conservative members have been released. It comes after days of renewed momentum for Truss with a string of high-profile endorsements, including from Penny Mordaunt – a sign that ambitious ministers saw the race as close. Mordaunt, who was beaten by Truss to be Sunak’s challenger in the final stage of the leadership contest, said Truss was “the candidate of hope”. The endorsement came as a blow to Sunak after a bitter campaign in which Mordaunt supporters accused Truss of a damaging “blue-for-blue dogfight”. Mordaunt was the latest in a number of new Truss backers, including former leadership candidates Nadhim Zahawi and Tom Tugendhat, as well as former cabinet minister Brandon Lewis and West Midlands mayor Andy Street. Read my colleague Jessica Elgot’s full article here:
Truss calls Sturgeon ‘deeply worrying’ and shows ‘complete disrespect’
Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney, said comments about Nicola Sturgeon by Liz Truss were “deeply concerning and worrying”. People in Scotland, “whatever their politics, will be absolutely horrified by the appalling statements made by Liz Truss,” Sweeney told the BBC. Swinney told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon has far more democratic legitimacy than Liz Truss will have if she becomes Prime Minister, and I think Liz Truss has absolutely no right or basis to make these remarks. Scotland’s Health Secretary Humza Yousaf described Truss’s comments as “microscopic ramblings” but warned she was waging an “all-out attack on devolution”. Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said Truss had shown “complete disrespect” for the first minister and “contempt for all those who voted for independence with a majority of MSPs in last year’s election”. Slater added: He knows the democratic case for a referendum is unanswerable, so he would rather patronize us and ignore us. Updated at 10.16 BST
Truss and allies launch attack on ‘always whining’ Sturgeon
Liz Truss and her allies have come under fire for comments against Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, which could further strain the relationship between Westminster and Holyrood if the Tory leadership hopeful becomes the next prime minister. In last night’s leadership showdowns, Truss branded Sturgeon an “attention seeker” who should be ignored as she rejected the idea of another independence referendum. Truss said: What we need to do is show the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales what we have to offer them and ensure that all our government policies are implemented across the UK. Truss ally and Brexit opportunity minister Jacob Rees-Mogg repeated the attack this morning and said the SNP leader was “always whining”. Rees-Mogg said: When he keeps thinking about having a referendum and going to the Supreme Court and all that, we have to say “Wait – you’re doing this because you’re failing to deliver for the people of Scotland and the United States. The UK government should also deliver for the people of Scotland”. Updated at 10.10 BST
Labor calls Liz Truss’ £11bn ‘fantasy’ ‘war on Whitehall waste’
Good morning. Plans by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and Tory leadership hopeful, to save billions a year by cutting public services have been described as “ridiculous” and “a fantastic recipe for flat-out”. Truss has pledged to cut civil servant pay and cut spending to claw back £11 billion a year in a “war on Whitehall waste” if she becomes prime minister. In its announcement on Monday night, the Trust unveiled plans to move more civil servants out of London and link their pay to living standards where they work. He also unveiled plans to cut civil servants’ allowances. Truss also promised to “fight left-wing groupthink in government” and scrap diversity and inclusion jobs, saying they “distract from delivering on the priorities of the British people”. Truss said: As Prime Minister I will run a more agile, more efficient, more focused Whitehall that prioritizes the things that really matter to people and is laser-focused on frontline services. There is “too much bureaucracy and stale groupthink” in Whitehall, he added. But her campaign, which received another boost with the backing of Penny Mordaunt on Monday, was forced to repeat some of its figures within hours of publishing a raft of proposals to cut public service costs. Deputy Labor leader Angela Rayner said Truss’ plans showed the Conservative government’s “commitment to raise the bar is dead”. It would also reduce “Northern pay, exacerbating the gap that already exists,” he added. Rayner said: Liz Truss declares war on herself with her fantastic recipe for flattening. This adventurous prime minister is stuck in the past, fighting old battles and promising a fight to the bottom for public sector workers’ pay and rights. Trade unions and policy experts condemned the plans as unworkable and said the Trust had dramatically exaggerated the potential savings it claimed would be £11 billion a year. Alex Thomas, program director at the Institute for Government, said: The total civil service salary is only about 9 billion. You are not going to reduce the civil service salary to 200 million unless you restructure the state quite radically. He argued the “complicated and controversial” move would mean nurses and teachers would be paid less or receive slower pay rises than others, adding: This is not a war on Whitehall, it is more like a war on Workington. Dave Penman, head of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, accused Truss of recycling “failed policies and tired rhetoric from the 1980s”. It described its plan as outside the “P&O Ferries handbook” which would lead to cuts in “payments, terms…
