Amid signs of growing panic among senior Tories over Truss’s economic policies, several former ministers told the Observer on Saturday that the party would suffer devastating losses in the blue and red wall seats unless Truss changes her stance if and when she enters the Number 10. After Michael Gove described Truss’ plan to focus on tax cuts as a “holiday from reality” and announced he was backing Rishi Sunak, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer gives Labor and its leader a double boost, days after supported the complete freeze. on your energy bills this fall. Labor now enjoys its biggest lead in the Opinium polls in recent months – eight points – while Starmer has surged well ahead of Truss in the past two weeks when voters are asked who would make the best prime minister. Two weeks ago, 29% of all voters said Truss would make the best prime minister, compared to 28% who chose Starmer. This weekend, Truss fell to 23%, while Starmer, who announced his price cap policy only last Monday, increased his rating to 31%. When the choice was Starmer vs. Sunak, 29% supported Starmer and 23% supported Sunak. A Saturday Times poll by YouGov, whose current methodology tends to give Labor a higher percentage than Opinium’s, showed Starmer’s party enjoying its biggest lead in 10 years, with 43% – 15 points ahead from the Conservatives with 28%. Truss – the runaway front-runner in the contest to become the next Tory party leader and prime minister – insists she will resist more “handouts” to those struggling most with the cost of living, an approach she describes as “Gordon Brown economics”. . Instead, he says, he will use tax cuts as a way to stimulate the economy – despite warnings from economists and senior Tory peers that this will simply boost and feed inflation. In an interview with this weekend’s Observer New Review, former Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke described the Truss approach as “nonsense” and “simplistic”. Graphs showing how respondents answered the question of which leader would make the best PM between Sunak, Truss and Starmer Clarke says: “Everyone would do it if this worked. There is little touch from the government of Argentina or Venezuela about it. This is not the time for tax cuts because we have huge public debts. The tax cuts will boost demand growth, but the problems are supply constraints, so they will push inflation even further.” Already, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab and former Tory leader Michael Howard have come out to criticize Truss’ approach. Gove said cutting the tax loophole would benefit those least in need and fail the poorest: “The answer to the cost of living crisis cannot simply be to drop further ‘handouts’ and cut taxes. Proposed cuts to national insurance would favor the wealthy and changes to corporation tax would apply to big business rather than small business owners. “I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take priority over supporting the poorest in our society, but in a time of need it cannot be the right priority.” Another former Gove and Truss cabinet colleague, who supports Sunak, said: “If Liz doesn’t change tack and back a real economic package that helps more of those in need, I think we’re going to be in big trouble. But to do so he will need to go back on what he said in the leadership campaign, which will also not be without consequences.” A former minister added: “We can write off those ‘blue wall’ seats under Liz. Cutting taxes won’t help us gain support for the “red wall.” You can’t cut taxes and level up.” Reacting to Gove’s announcement, a spokesman for the Sunak campaign said the former chancellor was “delighted to have the support of a party and cabinet veteran who carries incredible intellectual weight and has shown radical reforming zeal in every job he has held, which now so desperately needed.” He added: “Michael also understands the seriousness of the challenges we face in winter and we need honesty about it and a plan to deal with it and support people, which Rishi has.” Meanwhile, the Lib Dems have launched a new ‘Truss attack unit’ to highlight what they say is her failure to help people with energy costs, in the hope of winning over more voters in the blue wall seats they came from second ones. Conservatives in the 2019 general election. Michael Gove said last week that Trudeau’s tax proposals suggested she had taken a “holiday from reality”. Photo: Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images In his interview, Clarke predicts a severe recession that will be exacerbated by misguided tax policies and suggests that under Truss the country could find itself in dire economic straits at the next election. “I have felt for some time that we are going to have a very serious recession. And if we are not careful, it will be combined with very bad inflation, which does damage both socially and economically. Living standards generally will fall for the first time in a long time, and the main short-term measures should be to stop us seeing any increase in the number of people becoming destitute in this country. The government should not be asking themselves, what will the Daily Mail say tomorrow, but what will the economy be like in a few years’ time when we have an election?’ The Sunak campaign believes polls suggesting Truss is home and dry in the leadership race are wrong and is convinced the former chancellor still has a chance and is making up ground. Opinium found that 62% of people support Labour’s policy of freezing energy bills. Around 40% of respondents said they would not be able to afford the cap increase to be announced by energy regulator Ofgem this week without falling behind on other essential bills.
