Liz Truss

Two candidates remain in the battle to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the UK Conservative Party and Prime Minister, as betting companies adjust their ...

Analysis: in the most unpredictable leadership race in years, MPs' vote was closer than final two would have liked.

But she did have the advantage of Tuesday night’s result, which knocked out Badenoch. Truss’s team were fishing for votes in an easier pool, with her having positioned herself as the flagbearer of the right of the party. Many of those she already knows; Truss has always prioritised outreach to her parliamentary colleagues, holding surgeries in the tea rooms and hosting “fizz with Liz” (a term that has become legendary in SW1 but which her allies say she has never used). Since the race began, Truss has declined all broadcast interviews, apart from the debates, focusing on honing her message to MPs. She convinced a new generation of “red wall” MPs that she could be the standard bearer for Brexit, showing her commitment to the cause with evidence of trade deals signed and the Northern Ireland protocol bill.

The race now moves to Conservative Party members who will decide the new leader and prime minister. Read more at straitstimes.com.

And Mr Sunak and Ms Truss have very different approaches. Mr Sunak, who campaigned for the UK to leave the EU, is eager to burnish his pro-Brexit credentials. Still, members’ opinions are volatile and both Mr Sunak and Ms Truss have about six weeks to make their case. Meanwhile Ms Truss has faced the opposite challenge, having to justify her decision to stay on in Mr Johnson’s caretaker government after dozens of ministers resigned. Ms Truss has defended her support, insisting she was bound by the cabinet’s “collective responsibility” when asked about Mr Johnson’s controversies. But the outgoing prime minister’s shadow will now hang over them in very different ways.

LONDON: If it's not the pictures of her standing atop a tank in a nod to Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, it's the meme-defining moment when she ...

Others believe she can steady the ship after Johnson's turbulent three years in power. Advertisement Advertisement Her robust stance on Russia, China and with Brussels over Brexit will also feature in the campaign. Advertisement Advertisement

State of play: Sunak (137 votes) finished first in the final vote among Conservative members of Parliament, while Truss (113 votes) leapfrogged trade minister ...

State of play: Trade minister Penny Mordaunt (92 votes) and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss (86 votes) also survived. - Sunak's resignation as chancellor helped start the exodus that ultimately forced Johnson out. The last round of voting on Wednesday will trim the field down to the final two, before the party's roughly 200,000-strong membership selects the next Conservative leader and thus the U.K.'s next prime minister. Conservative members of Parliament held their penultimate vote on the party's next leader on Tuesday, with former finance minister Rishi Sunak (118 votes) finishing first and right-winger Kemi Badenoch (59 votes) eliminated. State of play: Sunak (137 votes) finished first in the final vote among Conservative members of Parliament, while Truss (113 votes) leapfrogged trade minister Penny Mordaunt (105 votes) to reach the runoff round. The race to replace Boris Johnson as U.K. prime minister and Conservative Party leader is down to two: former finance minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

Liz Truss has undergone a political reinvention to become the favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative party and UK Prime Minister.

The UK foreign secretary is now the hot favorite to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister.

"It was another example of the focus on messaging over substance." "I honestly think it's already over," one supportive MP said Wednesday. "She's no good at the hustings — we saw that last week — but it doesn't matter a jot. More colleagues rushed to Truss this week, he added, as it became clear she had a real shot at the top job. Both his Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg rowed in behind her campaign and were unafraid to get personal with her rivals. A YouGov poll of Tory members this week suggested that in a run-off between Truss and Sunak, it would be the foreign secretary who comes out on top. “We think that debate crystallized in people’s minds that she was someone who could really take it to Rishi," an aide said. She was then widely judged to have performed disastrously in the first of two televised leadership debates, and has continued to poll poorly among the general public over which candidate would make the best prime minister. “It's all about who has the most friends," one supportive MP explained. Truss has pledged to cancel his planned 6p rise in corporation tax, and abolish a £12 billion increase in national insurance contributions. Similarly, Truss appears to have picked up crucial votes at the 11th hour from her right-wing rival Kemi Badenoch, who was eliminated Tuesday night. Truss had been slow to launch, stuck abroad in Indonesia on ministerial duty when the Johnson regime imploded earlier this month. She now finds herself the hot favorite to win the race for No. 10 Downing Street.

As the U.K.'s leadership contest continues, here's everything you need to know about the two remaining candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

If Sunak were to win the vote, he would become both the country’s first South Asian leader and the youngest in over 200 years, at the age of 42. Over the next six weeks, a final vote will be cast from a wider ballot of 180,000 rank-and-file Conservative members, with the results announced on September 5. Since then, multiple rounds of voting, heated television debates, and plenty of behind-the-scenes lobbying have seen the pool whittled down to just two candidates, after the final remaining frontrunner, Penny Mordaunt, was eliminated earlier today.

Liz Truss has links to secretively funded climate sceptic groups while Rishi Sunak opposed climate spending as finance minister.

According to research by the Overseas Development Institute, the UK under Sunak gave just $3.2 bn in Sunak’s first year as finance minister, half of its “fair share” towards the $100bn target. Sunak’s political career and climate record is shorter than Truss’s. He was elected to parliament in 2015 and plucked from obscurity to become Boris Johnson’s chancellor just as the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Domestically, Sunak’s spending cuts led to the cancellation of a badly run home insulation subsidy scheme in 2021. And as the UK’s high temperature record was shattered this week, with a provisional reading of 40.3C, a poll found 70% of voters understood that climate change was the driver. In an attempt to win Tory MPs’ votes today, Sunak announced he would not relax planning rules for onshore wind. A readout of the CEN hustings shared with Climate Home shows that Truss mainly focused on conserving nature. The rest were undecided. The figures for 2021 have yet to be released. This has generally hindered UK climate policies. In 2018, she criticised her own government’s attempts to control air pollution from wood-burning stoves. She boasted of bringing back beavers to the UK as environment secretary, promised to review the UK’s list of protected species and lead a delegation to the biodiversity Cop in Montreal. Despite this record, she has earned the support of the party’s most climate-aware ministers Zac Goldsmith. When Johnson resigned, the international environment minister tweeted that most of the leadership candidates “couldn’t give a shit about climate and nature” but has gone on to back Truss as “the obvious choice”.

The two candidates in the Conservative leadership race are setting out their pitches to the party members who will choose Boris Johnson's successor. · Rishi ...

Writing in the Daily Mail, Ms Truss said "the central issue at the next election is going to be the economy" and "we have been going in the wrong direction on tax". In the Daily Telegraph, Mr Sunak wrote that he believed in "hard work, family and integrity", adding: "I am running as a Thatcherite, and I will govern as a Thatcherite." Mr Sunak has previously said the tax burden needed to be reduced but not immediately, saying it was a matter of "when not if". She also pledged to bring in an emergency budget to get the changes through quickly and to announce a spending review to "find more efficiencies in government spending". Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Sunak said he would introduce "a set of reforms as radical as the ones Margaret Thatcher drove through in the 1980s". There were gasps at how close the election to make the final two was and a real awareness of the responsibility party members now carry, on behalf of the country.

LONDON -- Britain's former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak will battle Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to become the country's next prime minister in the fin.

Over the next six weeks, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss will battle it out at election meetings and national debates to emerge as Britain's new leader at a ...

She has secured supporters among the Conservative Party's right-wing for her promises to increase defence spending and slash taxes. Britain will have a new prime minister by September 5. Truss is known to emulate Thatcher, sometimes copying her outfits with attention to detail.

UK foreign secretary shrugs off accusations of fiscal irresponsibility after entering final round of Tory leadership contest.

Winner of Tory leadership contest to be announced on Sept. 5 will automatically become British prime minister - Anadolu Agency.

Under Theresa May's premiership, Truss was justice secretary, then chief secretary to the Treasury, who is second-in-command to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. After May's resignation and under Boris Johnson's premiership, she was international trade secretary and then foreign secretary, a position she still holds. More seriously, she shot to national prominence -- and popularity within her own party -- as international trade secretary. In Johnson's government, she has also taken photos directly evoking Thatcher, from wearing similar clothes to recreating famous pictures, such as that of her riding in a tank. Truss has undergone a political evolution from Liberal Democrat to Conservative, and then from supporting Britain's membership in the European Union to becoming one of the hardest-line Brexiteers in the Cabinet. On social issues, she has also taken an increasingly strident stance against what she perceives as excessively progressive positions on issues such as race, sex and gender. She studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Oxford University -- the degree of choice at the university of choice for Britain's political elite. She joined the Conservative Party after graduation.

Foreign secretary tells BBC her tax cut plans would cost roughly £38bn a year as she lays out campaign against Rishi Sunak.

In her paper, the clerk of the journals adds: “It is for the committee and the house to determine whether a contempt has occurred and the intention of the contemnor is not relevant to making that decision. This ruling is bad for Johnson because he has already admitted that some of the comments he made to MPs about Partygate were misleading. The clerk’s memo explains that while “much of the commentary has focussed on whether Mr Johnson “deliberately” or “knowingly” misled the Committee”, “this wording is not in the motion”. The committee will seek to take evidence from Johnson and others in public in the autumn. Johnson could face a recall petition, which could lead to a byelection in his constituency, if the committee were to recommend a lengthy suspension from parliament as a punishment. What is the gamble is what we’re doing at the moment because, currently, the United Kingdom is projected to head for a recession. What is a gamble is what we’re doing at the moment. This shows that the MPs are being exceptionally thorough – which is not surprising because an inquiry of this kind is unprecedented in modern times. What is the gamble is what we’re doing at the moment because, currently, the United Kingdom is projected to head for a recession. What is a gamble is what we’re doing at the moment. Truss claimed that “economic orthodoxy” followed by governments over the past 20 years has failed to deliver proper economic growth. Truss claimed that “economic orthodoxy” followed by governments over the past 20 years has failed to deliver proper economic growth.

The radical economic policies backed by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss would set UK markets on a downward spiral, according to investors at some of the top ...

Liz Truss vows a new economic approach, as she battles with Rishi Sunak to be the next prime minister.

And where does she see the limit of borrowing? In her first broadcast interview of the leadership campaign, Ms Truss told the BBC she was "wrong" in the 2016 Brexit referendum, when she backed Remain. More borrowing, as she advocates now? Mr Sunak has previously said the tax burden needed to be reduced but not immediately, saying it was a matter of "when not if". He is expected to set out further policies in the coming days. It hasn't delivered growth." Meanwhile, Mr Sunak made his case in the Daily Telegraph, pledging to deliver "a set of reforms as radical as the ones Margaret Thatcher drove through in the 1980s".

Liz Truss, the favourite to become Britain's next prime minister, on Thursday criticised rival Rishi Sunak over his tax policies while finance minister, ...

"I have developed my political views and ideas. he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. He urged his successor to "cut taxes and deregulate where you can to make this the greatest place to live and invest". Truss's message to the members is that she is a politician of conviction who will "bulldoze" through institutions that stand in the way of reform. "I am a Thatcherite, I am running as a Thatcherite and I will govern as a Thatcherite." "We've got a really positive message to take out to all our members now -- crucially, who is the best person to beat Keir Starmer and the Labour Party at the next election?"

In YouGov polling Liz Truss has the advantage right now, however things can change quickly says YouGov Associate Director Patrick English.

He added that there is a sense among the membership that want to see tax cuts and classic party values at the heart of government. He says they want someone strong with honesty and integrity and the second important thing they are looking for is more of a return to conventional conservatism. In YouGov polling Liz Truss has the advantage right now, however things can change quickly says YouGov Associate Director Patrick English. Speaking to Bloomberg Daybreak's Caroline Hepker and Alex Webb he outlines what two key things party members are looking for in their next leader.

Tory leadership candidate details her proposals to cut taxes that she voted for as part of Johnson's cabinet.

About 160,000 fee-paying members – half aged over 60, 97% white and a large proportion male and from southern England – will have the chance to vote next month. “I think he did a fantastic job with the 2019 election, and that he delivered Brexit and the vaccines. The interview came on the day after she and the former chancellor Rishi Sunak became the final two candidates in the running to become the UK’s next prime minister. She added: “What is the gamble is what we’re doing at the moment, because currently the United Kingdom is projected to head for a recession. Robert Jenrick also appeared on the Today programme, in support of Sunak’s leadership campaign. She added: “We have had a consensus of the Treasury, of economists, with the Financial Times, with other outlets, peddling a particular type of economic policy for 20 years.

Liz Truss claims her economic agenda of tax cuts and public spending will revitalise the UK economy, but it is not just her rival prime ministerial candidate ...

But one thing is for sure: “they will mean higher borrowing or less public spending, or some combination”, so vast swathes of Whitehall and welfare spending will need to come under the hammer. Truss is likely to cause consternation in financial markets if she seeks to meddle in the central bank’s decision-making. Harking back to Margaret Thatcher’s stance in 1979, Truss believes inflation is partly the result of cheap borrowing fostered by the central bank, so tighter monetary policy would limit rising prices.

Patrick Minford is a fellow at the Centre for Brexit Policy and led Economists for Free Trade, both of which have strong ties to the Global Warming Policy ...

Truss has been linked to a string of libertarian think-tanks opposed to government climate targets. Steve Baker, an influential backbench MP and GWPF trustee who leads an anti-green faction in parliament, is backing Truss’ bid for leader. However, she has a record of working with free market think-tanks that are opposed to government action on climate change, and she has vowed to overturn the UK’s ban on fracking for shale gas.

Former chancellor says opponent's economic policies risk stoking inflation and pushing up interest rates.

With inflation already at a 40-year high, he told LBC: “My strong point of view is if the government goes on a huge borrowing spree, that is only going to make that situation worse. He said spending cuts would be extremely difficult in the current circumstances. The Labour MP Stella Creasy said: “Families across this country are crying out for affordable childcare so that they don’t have to choose between their career and their kids. The former Conservative chief secretary to the Treasury David Gauke said he was concerned about Truss’s plans. Analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggested Truss’s promises were ultimately likely to lead to public spending cuts. We’re stuck with a zombie government and ministers focusing on the leadership campaign instead of doing their jobs.”

Those responsible for her imprisonment have still not been sanctioned, despite the Foreign Office knowing their identities, says Richard Ratcliffe.

Richard Ratcliffe is the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was held hostage in Iran between 2016 and 2022. Unlike the US, the UK has seemingly been pretty sanguine about the torture and hostage-taking of its citizens. The quiet growth of hostage diplomacy is not unique to Iran, as recent actions by Russia demonstrate. The swirling pace of the musical chairs means that some things don’t get seen, and the quiet stuff risks not being delivered. I also understand that his officers enforced the last-minute, forced, and therefore fake confession of Nazanin, and subsequently blocked the furlough of other British nationals in defiance of what had been agreed with the United Kingdom.” This is exactly the opposite of what a free media is all about. Most have been looking for a critique of Liz Truss and her campaign’s claim that she was the one who brought my wife Nazanin home after she had been imprisoned in Iran. During these past months Iran’s hostage diplomacy has escalated, with a new wave of European hostages coming to light. However, the way this was done had consequences for those left behind, a fact the government is reluctant to acknowledge. There is a continuing parliamentary inquiry that is trying to understand some of the decisions made. “Ameneh Sadat Zabihpour: a reporter with state-controlled Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. She is known for eliciting forced confessions from prisoners in front of camera during interrogations. As Chris Bryant MP, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, stated in parliament today, these included:

The race to become next prime minister has come down to an increasingly bitter battle between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Heather Stewart weighs up the ...

But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. Truss is promising immediate tax cuts worth about £30bn while Sunak says he will prioritise balancing the books and tackling inflation over what he calls ‘fairytale’ economics.