Now Javid turns on ex-ally Rishi and endorses Truss
SAJID Javid last night endorsed Liz Truss to become the next Prime Minister by launching a personal attack on his friend Rishi Sunak.
He warned that Mr Sunak’s plans would see Britain ‘sleepwalking into a high-tax, low-growth’ economy and risked leaving the country slipping into mediocrity with a ‘loss of global influence and power’.
Mr Javid, a Cabinet ‘big beast’ who has served as home secretary, chancellor and health secretary, praised frontrunner Miss Truss as embodying ‘the best of Thatcher and Reagan’.
He said her ‘bold’ agenda was ‘best placed to win a general election’ against Labour.
It came as Miss Truss attacked Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford as a ‘low energy version of Jeremy Corbyn’ at a hustings in Cardiff last night. The Foreign Secretary was also questioned about her history as a Liberal Democrat and someone who campaigned for Remain.
She said: ‘I think being a convert is actually an asset, because what do we have to do at the election? We have to convert people. We can’t just talk to ourselves, we actually have to go
‘Liz is bringing the party together’
there and win in the country.’ Miss Truss earlier insisted her U-turn over a regional pay policy for public servants showed she was ‘decisive’.
Mr Javid’s backing for Miss Truss is a major blow for Mr Sunak, who has failed to pick up any new endorsements from current or former Cabinet ministers since reaching the final two.
Mr Sunak was mentored by Mr Javid and succeeded him as Chancellor. Miss Truss has now won the support of five former leadership candidates. Yesterday a Conservative Home poll put Miss Truss 32 points ahead among Tory members, with 58 per cent of those surveyed intending to vote for her, compared to 26 per cent for Mr Sunak.
It came after a weighted poll by YouGov on Tuesday put the Foreign Secretary 34 points ahead.
Revealing his endorsement in The Times last night, Mr Javid said Miss Truss had the ‘ willingness to challenge the status quo’.
In words that will be seen as a personal attack on Mr Sunak, he said: ‘Some claim that tax cuts can only come once we have growth. I believe the exact opposite – tax cuts are a prerequisite for growth.
‘Of course we need more than that, especially significant supply side reform, but tax cuts now are essential. There are no risk-free options in government. However, in my view, not cutting taxes carries an even greater risk.’
The resignations of Mr Javid and Mr Sunak within ten minutes of each other on July 5 sparked the mass resignation of 60 ministers and junior members of the Government. Mr Javid then suffered a shock early knockout in the Tory leadership race.
He said last night: ‘As a nation we are sleepwalking into a big-state, high-tax, low-growth, social democratic style model which risks us becoming a middle-income economy by the 2030s with the loss of global influence and power.’
Yesterday, in another boost for Miss Truss’s campaign, Tony Blair’s former adviser John McTernan said the Labour Party should fear the Foreign Secretary, describing her as a ‘formidable opponent’ and a ‘powerful communicator’.
The former chancellor’s team have sought to downplay his opponent’s massive poll lead, saying Tory members are ‘notoriously difficult’ to survey and that he is winning support in the party’s southern heartlands.
A Truss campaign source said Mr Javid’s backing was a ‘big one for us’, adding: ‘His support signals that Liz is bringing the party together and they’re uniting behind her bold plan to cut taxes, grow the economy and deliver for the country.’ Meanwhile, Mr Sunak launched a fresh attack on Miss Truss’s ‘premature’ tax cuts, which he said would ‘stoke inflation’.
He said in a statement: ‘If we rush through premature tax cuts before we have gripped inflation all we are doing is giving with one hand and then taking away with the other. That would stoke inflation and drive up interest rates, adding to people’s mortgage payments.’ Miss Truss countered by saying ‘we cannot tax our way to growth’ and insisting her plans would not drive up prices further.
Mr Sunak also hinted that he would consider abolishing inheritance tax if he became prime minister.
He told the hustings in Cardiff that it was ‘not what he set out a plan to do’ but it was something he could look at.
‘I’m someone who believes in supporting aspiration,’ he said. ‘I think that is a Conservative value that many of us in this room will hold dear and inheritance tax is a way to do that. So, over time, is that something that we should look at? Of course we should.’
Mr Sunak was also accused of a U-turn when he said he was ‘open’ to scrapping a ban on onshore wind in England. A fortnight ago, he told a newspaper he would ‘scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England’.