A direct poll on a sample of more than a thousand voters showed that 39% considered the winner of the telefight the former Minister of Finance and 38% the current Minister of Foreign Affairs.
London, Thanasis Gavos
The two remaining contenders for the leadership of the Conservative Party and prime minister in Britain, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, shared their impressions of their first televised debate on Monday night.
A direct poll on a sample of more than a thousand voters showed that 39% considered the winner of the telefight the former Minister of Finance and 38% the current Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The two would-be successors to Boris Johnson had a heated confrontation once again on the subject of the tax policy they will follow as leaders of the country.
Mrs. Trass insisted that she will make an immediate tax cut, starting with the withdrawal of the increase in insurance contributions that Mr. Sunak has decided as minister to cover the financial needs of the health system and to fill the gap in public finances from the pandemic spending. Ms Truss said this would be followed by the scrapping of the rise in corporation tax and the green tax on energy bills.
The minister, who turns 47 today on Tuesday, accused her opponent that with the increases in taxes and contributions he has prevented investments and compressed growth, leading the economy to the brink of recession. He also accused him of breaking Conservative Party election pledges on taxes. He called the “crashing” of the economy in order to repay government debts faster a “huge mistake”, noting that she herself would start repaying the debt created by the pandemic in three years.
Mr Sunack on the other hand reiterated that the tax cuts promised by Liz Truss leave a funding gap of more than £40bn which can only be covered by additional government borrowing. He also warned that cutting taxes before galloping inflation is controlled will intensify inflationary pressures and push the lending rate to 7% (from 1.25% today).
As he repeatedly noted, burdening future generations with debt repayments “is not conservative at all.”
Ms Truss hit back that her opponent was trying to intimidate the public and Mr Sunak accused her of “putting millions of people into misery” with her economic policies.
The two rivals also crossed swords on issues such as upgrading the UK’s poorest areas, integrity in politics, their stance on Brexit, how tough they have been on China and their view of Boris Johnson, with Mrs. Trass, after initial evasions, to agree with Rishi Sunak that the outgoing Prime Minister will not have a place in the next government.
At the end of the debate, however, Ms. Trass, addressing Mr. Sunak, said that she would like him in her government, although she would prefer him to be “more daring” in his economic policy, while Mr. Sunak praised the strict attitude of the Minister Foreign against Russia.
After the telefight ended, however, Liz Truss’ staff accused Rishi Sunak of being too aggressive, a charge that the 42-year-old politician’s staff rejected.
The instant poll by Opinium also showed that 41% of viewers thought a Tras election would represent change, compared to 24% who said the same for Rishi Sunak. 65% believe that with Sunak at the helm the country would live “one of the same”.
52% of the respondents judged that each candidate was mainly positioned negatively in terms of the opponent’s program, rather than positively in terms of his own (percentage of 38%).
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