“As chancellor I was very keen to make sure I started to cut taxes,” Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “What I’ve announced today is based on that, and that’s because I believe in rewarding work and the best way to for the government to give the signal that it is the reduction of people’s income tax”. The current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, announcing his support for Sunak’s rival Liz Truss in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, said: “Liz understands that the status quo is not an option in times of crisis. “To quote the great economist Sam Bowman, we need an ‘enhancing’ attitude to the economy, not a ‘destructive’ one, in order to deal with cost-of-living woes and challenges on the global stage. Liz will overturn stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a conservative way.” When asked to respond to Zahawi’s comments, Sunak laughed and said: “As you can tell, I find it rather amusing.” He pointed to his pro-Brexit credentials and economic aid package during the Covid pandemic, adding: “It’s my opponent in this competition who wants to stay in the failed orthodoxy of having these ultra-low corporate tax rates and, you know what, they do not work to increase business investment in this country – we have tried it for a decade. “It’s completely different to do things right now that would make things much worse and put people’s mortgages at risk,” Sunak said, in an attack on Truss’ ambitions to cut taxes immediately. Sunak is under pressure to make inroads as leadership polls suggest Truss is enjoying a boost among Tory MPs who will decide the next prime minister as postal ballots begin to fall on the Tory carpet. In the latest YouGov poll, Truss holds the lead among Tory MPs, with the general public favoring Sunak on 28% to Truss’s 25%, with 47% undecided. Mr Sunak’s proposed plan to cut income tax to £16m by the end of the next parliament would cost around £6bn a year. As prime minister he said he wanted to cut income tax in a way that was “responsible”, ensuring it could be paid, and that it was done in tandem with economic growth. “I don’t think it would be wise to go on an excessive borrowing spree at a time when inflation and interest rates are already on the rise,” he added. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST It is the latest policy promise to be called “another U-turn” by a Truss campaign source, after Sunak recently promised to cut VAT on energy bills, a policy he rejected in office. And the UK is forecast to experience the lowest growth in the G20 – apart from Russia – and the worst growth in the G7 at around 0.5%. “The public and members of the Conservative party can see through these flip-flops and twists,” the source said. Asked to name another country that has raised taxes amid falling living costs, Sunak said “every country will be slightly different in how they deal with it”, while highlighting the UK’s publicly funded healthcare system through of taxation and the growing backlog. “What he’s suggesting is that he stays absolutely with the failed orthodoxy of the last 10 years,” Sunak said of Truss’s policy, adding that the world was looking at the final months of Boris Johnson’s leadership through rose-tinted glasses. Addressing Johnson’s behavior and citing his resignation along with 60 MPs, Sunak said the government had found itself on the “wrong side of a moral issue”. In an attempt to regain public momentum, Sunak said: “Today what you have seen from me is an exciting, radical but realistic vision for reducing taxes in the coming years.” He pledged to tackle NHS backlogs, tackle the “culture of wake-up call”, tackle illegal immigration and take advantage of Brexit.
