Great Britain: Truss, Sunak and the Shadow of Johnson

Weeks of standstill are coming to an end in the UK. At noon, the Tories will announce who party members have elected to succeed Boris Johnson – polls see a clear favorite.

Much of what the two top candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have announced in recent weeks would probably both sign. Both want to stop the crossing of refugees from France to England.

Both repeatedly emphasize that the Conservative Party is on the side of the self-employed, the entrepreneurs, i.e. those who create jobs.

And both are Brexiteers, and now they want to do everything they can to ensure that the opportunities that – from their point of view – Brexit will bring can fully unfold.

Where the similarities end

But there are also differences. There’s Liz Truss, who has hinted in recent weeks that she wants to continue Boris Johnson’s politics and his political style. She wants to dissolve the parliamentary inquiry into whether Johnson lied to MPs.

Rishi Sunak, on the other hand, keeps his distance from Johnson. He promises to lead a government that is “competently and decently run.”

Shadow candidate Johnson

Sunak knows that he has the majority of Britons on his side. But the election campaign also made it clear that there is a third candidate among party members, a shadow candidate – Boris Johnson.

The party base is still with him. So point for Liz Truss.

candidate of simple solutions

In the past few weeks she has been the candidate for simple solutions. Lower taxes for more growth, even if experts doubt that the government can even afford it.

Here Sunak attacked her, the politician who liked to pose for the photographers in the same way as Margaret Thatcher, the legendary former prime minister.

And she announced that she has “the right plan to fight inflation, to support those who need our help, while thinking about the generations to come”. To then bring the Tory icon into play: “Because Margaret Thatcher already knew it’s not right to fully exploit a country’s credit card. That’s not responsible and it’s not conservative either!”

Score with tax cuts

But the tax cuts are affecting many party members. They want the state to stay out of a lot of things, to take on fewer tasks, and that there are no aid payments for the needy, who will soon no longer be able to pay their energy bills.

Truss railed against Brussels, advocated tougher police action to fight crime and railed against “wokeness”.

A woman can only be a person who was also born a woman, Truss said at an appearance in London and claimed that left-wing teachers taught it differently in schools. She wants to change that.

The hall is enthusiastic, whether it is true or not.