The foreign secretary has cast herself as a radical rebel in her race to become Britain’s next prime minister, portraying her rival, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, as a defender of a failed economic orthodoxy. Truss has promised sweeping civil service reforms, claiming it could save almost £11bn a year from British red tape, with proposals including lower pay for civil servants working in poorer parts of the UK. The front-runner in the Tory leadership race has declared a “war on waste in Whitehall”, pledging to cut public servant holidays and cut 326 diversity officers working in government departments. Truss, speaking at an event in Exeter, also refused to rule out breaking up the Treasury, which she claims is driving Britain into recession by pursuing failed policies, including raising taxes to try to reduce the deficit. She said she was “prepared to crack eggs” to challenge Whitehall orthodoxy and refused to rule out splitting the Treasury into separate Finance and Treasury ministries. “Well, I wouldn’t want to warn them if I was going to do that,” he said, before adding: “I think the Treasury needs to change. And it was an obstacle to progress.” Her comments coincided with ballots being sent to more than 150,000 Conservative party members who will choose the successor to outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. the result will be declared on 5th September. Truss’s campaign was given another boost when Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who secured the support of 105 Tory MPs in the early stages of the leadership contest, backed the Foreign Secretary’s bid. Mordaunt offered her support for Truss in a surprise appearance at the Exeter hustings, attended by Tory members. He said the foreign secretary was the candidate of “hope”. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak is hoping to use the events to regain momentum in the contest and has injected more passion into his campaign appearances and his allies insist he can still beat Truss. Truss’s Whitehall initiative combines a push against what some Tory campaigners see as a bloated state with an attack on “diversity and inclusion” jobs – another front in the so-called “war on vigilantism”.
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Truss wants regional pay boards to adjust pay to the cost of living where civil servants work. It says this could eventually save £8.8bn if the idea is extended to all public sector workers, including nurses and teachers. Allies of Truss said any new pay scales would only apply to new recruits. He also wants to move more civil servants out of London and bring holiday entitlements in line with the private sector. Truss’s team says the idea of cutting wages for employees working in less prosperous areas would prevent the public sector from “crowding out” the private sector, which is struggling to compete with higher wages paid by the state. But Truss will face questions about how cutting public sector pay in areas such as the North could deliver on the government’s “flattening” agenda. There would also be strong opposition from civil service unions. “If Liz Truss is elected and tries to go ahead with these proposals, she will face opposition at every turn,” the Civil and Commercial Services union said, adding: “Civil servants are not a political tool they are used and abused.” Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said Truss “would do well to consider whether any chief executive of a private company would believe that publicly attacking his staff in this way was a viable strategy for long-term success”. Sunak, who has pledged to cut the basic income tax rate from 20 percent to 16 percent by the end of the next parliament, is hoping party members will back him as a candidate to achieve election victory in 2024. But by moment The polling evidence to support this claim is not overwhelming. An IpsosUK poll found that among members of the public, Sunak and Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer were tied on 39 points when asked who would make the most capable prime minister. In the same question Starmer beat Truss 41-35 and Johnson 51-31. However, a separate poll by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found that voters, when asked who would make the best premiership now, gave Starmer a 40-33 lead over Sunak, but gave Truss a 37-36 lead over Starmer .