London, Aug 1 (AFP/APP): British Conservative frontrunner Liz Truss won further heavyweight endorsement Monday as party members began a month of voting to decide the next occupant of 10 Downing Street.
Truss’s lagging rival, Rishi Sunak, vied to make up lost ground with a plan for future tax cuts — and potentially to host a future women’s football World Cup in Britain after England’s “Lionesses” won the European championship.
Truss also invoked Sunday’s final against Germany, vowing: “I will channel the spirit of the Lionesses” at a members’ hustings in the southwestern city of Exeter — the second of 12 such events before the winner is announced on September 5.
Truss said the women’s team “fought bravely against the odds and got things done and delivered a massive massive victory. And that’s what we can do”.
Sunak, a polished debater, needs to recapture momentum after Truss steamed into a strong polling lead on a platform of immediate tax cuts to address Britain’s worst cost-of-living crisis in generations.
– ‘Status quo isn’t an option’ –
In a blow to his campaign, international trade minister Penny Mordaunt, who narrowly came third to Truss in a run-off, announced she was supporting Truss as “the hope candidate”.
Speaking at the Monday hustings, Mordaunt praised Truss for “her authenticity, her determination, her ambition for this country”.
“She knows what she believes in and her resolve to stand up against tyranny and fight for freedom,” Mordaunt said.
“That’s what our country stands for. And that’s why I know with her, we can win.”
This came after Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi joined other luminaries of Boris Johnson’s cabinet in backing the foreign secretary against Sunak, his predecessor in the Treasury.
“Liz understands that the status quo isn’t an option in times of crisis,” Zahawi wrote in The Telegraph, attacking Sunak’s plan to prioritise fighting inflation now, before cutting taxes later.
“We need a ‘booster’ attitude to the economy, not a ‘doomster’ one, in order to address cost-of-living woes and the challenges on the world stage,” the new chancellor said.
Sunak’s resignation from the scandal-tainted Johnson’s cabinet helped spark a ministerial exodus that forced the prime minister out last month.
As they began receiving postal and online ballot forms, a large minority of the roughly 200,000 Tory members is said by pollsters to nurse a grievance against Sunak — one shared by Johnson.
The prime minister is not formally taking sides, but has told aides that he intends to give his successor some words of advice, “whoever she may be”, The Sunday Times reported.
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