THE FIRST 100 DAYS
Liz Truss urged to put country first as she prepares to become PM with families and firms fearful of cost of living catastrophe
Conservative leadership frontrunner Liz Truss has been urged to put her country before her political ideals if, as expected, she replaces Boris Johnson as prime minister tomorrow.
Truss is firm favourite to be declared the winner of the contest and the country’s new prime minister at lunchtime tomorrow but will immediately need to address the looming economic catastrophe as families and firms face being crushed by the cost of living crisis.
During the contest with former chancellor Rishi Sunak, Truss appealed to Conservative supporters by promising tax cuts, business deregulation and rejecting “handouts” as a way of helping people affected by the crisis.
She is also reported to be planning a shake-up of employment laws with a review of protections for workers and is said to be considering lifting the ban in England on fracking after it was halted in 2019 because of concerns about earth tremors.
Political historian Sir Anthony Seldon, writing in The Sunday Post today, said that despite suggestions Truss would be the most rightwing prime minister since Margaret Thatcher, tackling the cost of living, the threat of widespread industrial action and the NHS reaching breaking point will give her little space to implement her own ideas. If the prime minister does not lay out a clear plan, they are all the more likely to become thrown off course when the pressure piles on,” he said.
Truss last month labelled Nicola Sturgeon an “attention-seeker” who should be ignored, but political strategist and public affairs expert Ramsay Jones said the new prime minister would have to take a “pragmatic” approach to Scotland.
Jones, who was David Cameron’s special adviser on Scotland, said: “For the past month, two months, we’ve had candidates, to a greater or lesser degree, playing to the party and telling them what they wanted to hear to secure their votes.
“But the truth is what happens on day one of being in Downing Street is far more important than what was said during an election campaign. As ever with the party, it is going to be a tussle between muscular unionism and a more pragmatic approach, which I would argue has been the hallmark from the Cameron years onwards.
“The SNP is the elected Scottish government, we have to deal with them, there’s business to be done, and rather than give the SNP what they want, which is a row, you offer them constructive engagement and it’s up to them if they want turn that down.
“I would envisage an early visit around the whole of the country to say ‘I am the prime minister for all four corners of the UK’. Week one will be appointing Cabinet ministers and addressing the cost-of-living crisis. Week two and three will be getting around the country and putting plans into action.”
Jones said he expected imminent announcements on two green freeports in Scotland and a carbon capture power station in Peterhead.
He said: “One of the first formal meetings David Cameron had outside London was with the first minister at Holyrood. Theresa May was also up in Scotland very quickly. I think it’s something that should be considered the new prime minister too.
“They should be saying to the leaders in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, ‘There are big-ticket issues facing us all, why don’t we sit down together and find out where there is common ground so that we can work through them’. That’s what the public expects grown up politicians to do.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said tackling the cost of living crisis would be “front and centre” in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government, which will be published on Tuesday.
Sturgeon said: “I will seek to work constructively with whoever becomes prime minister, although both candidates seem to have spent the campaign focused on how they can undermine the Scottish Parliament or put Scotland in its place, rather than engage with the legitimate aspirations of the people of Scotland.
“People in Scotland will be watching carefully how Westminster responds to the current emergency facing the UK. The ‘broad shoulders’ that we were told existed in 2014 are nowhere to be seen, and the promise of remaining in the EU and of lower energy bills were evidently not worth the paper they were written on. Instead a decade of austerity, Brexit and brutal welfare cuts have contributed hugely to the current cost crisis.”
Scottish Labour want to introduce an emergency Cost of Living Act, which would introduce a temporary rent freeze to protect tenants from soaring prices, a ban on winter evictions and changes to laws on debt.
Scottish Labour business manager Neil Bibby said: “Scots expect their parliaments to be focused on the issues that matter and their governments to use every power they have – but the SNP and the Tories are asleep at the wheel. We have a moral duty to act. Every party must back these plans to offer a lifeline to those snowed under with debt.”