Will Britain's Next Prime Minister Champion Free Markets?
Liz Truss promises a tax-cutting, deregulatory model for Britain.
The race to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and British prime minister has narrowed to two candidates. So it's now up to ordinary Conservative Party members to decide who will lead their party and assume the role of prime minister on September 5.
The favorite among a plurality of Conservative members of Parliament is Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the exchequer who resigned from Johnson's government. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Sunak was responsible for a raft of spending policies which temporarily made him the most popular politician in the country. Sunak was elected to Parliament in 2015 and has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of British politics. In his maiden speech addressing Parliament, Sunak, a former hedge fund manager and employee of Goldman Sachs, stressed the importance of controlling the deficit and of the government functioning within its means. Sunak campaigned for Brexit and backed Johnson for prime minister but is now seen as one of the key figures who brought down the blond bombshell.
Sunak's opponent, Liz Truss, was elected to Parliament in 2010. She's held a number of top jobs, most recently foreign secretary. Although she campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union, she has embraced the possibilities Brexit has offered in terms of striking free trade deals around the world and scrapping E.U. regulations. Truss has a reputation as one of the leading advocates for free enterprise within the Conservative Party. A regular speaker on the free market think tank circuit, Truss authored a book with several colleagues in 2012 called Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity. The book is a clarion call for economic growth and a change in Britain's economy from one which the authors see as overtaxed and overregulated with an overly large public sector. For now, Truss is the firm favorite among Conservative members, leading Sunak in several opinion polls.
Truss and Sunak have two distinct visions of what Britain's economic policy should be. Sunak is pitching himself as the candidate for fiscal conservatism, insisting that tax cuts have to wait until public finances are in better shape after the splurge of spending that accompanied the pandemic. Truss takes the opposite view, saying she will reverse a planned hike in corporation tax, reverse an increase in national insurance tax, introduce a temporary moratorium on green energy levies, and increase the marriage tax allowance. Truss has also pledged to increase defense spending while reducing the overall size of government. Like the U.S., Britain is suffering from high inflation, and Truss has said she would like to review the Bank of England's mandate to ensure it's sufficient to tackle the problem.
The candidates have exchanged fierce fire on their policy proposals. In a televised debate, Sunak claimed that Truss' proposed tax cuts are unfunded, "socialist," and worse for inflation. Echoing George H.W. Bush's criticism of Ronald Reagan, Sunak called Truss' plans "fantasy economics." Truss hit back, arguing Sunak's tax hikes would choke off growth and highlighting his role in raising Britain's tax burden to its highest in 70 years.
"Both candidates would consider themselves free-marketeers, but Truss is more committed to them ideologically than Sunak," says the Cato Institute's Ryan Bourne, who has held positions at free market think tanks in the United Kingdom and is a weekly Times Business columnist. "Under her, tax rates would be lower, short-term borrowing somewhat higher, but I suspect she'd take a firmer grip on spending growth than Sunak after the next election. Her instincts are more market-oriented where regulation is concerned, so I'd expect sensible deregulation in important sectors to living costs, such as childcare, and an easing up on the anti-big tech crusades."
But Bourne sees a fly in Truss' ointment for free marketeers. "The two areas where she might potentially be very modestly less libertarian than Sunak are on housing and immigration. Not because she's restrictionist on either, but because of the composition of her Parliamentary support base." Of the two, Truss more clearly believes free market reforms are essential to raising Britain's productivity, growth rate, and living standards and not just red meat to throw at the conservative base.
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Although she campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union
She was against Brexit before she was for it.
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She’s no far-right Latina.
Those really are the worst. White-supremacist minorities are truly awful.
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An incredibly petulant, entitled, identarian article on the Maryland Governers election because the primary voters had the poor taste to not nominate a woman to the top spot.
“It’s not Larryland or Harryland. It’s Maryland.
But the state named for a queen is not going to elevate a woman to its highest office anytime soon.
From Harriet Tubman to Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D), Maryland’s women have shaped our nation. On Tuesday, its voters once again stubbornly denied women the power to lead us into the future. “I always said that though I was the first, I wanted to be the first of many,” Mikulski said in a 2010 interview, when she recalled her 1986 fundraiser, “Bebop for Barb.”
Maryland let her down.”
– Petula Dvorek, Washington Post
So after they pumped millions of dollars to get their guy the nomination, they’re now complaining about it?
In fact, a better headline:
Democrat Megadonors Spend Millions Keeping Women Out Of Gubernatorial Race In Maryland
Once again, women have failed the state of Maryland. Previously leading the nation with its members Harriet Tubman and Barbara Mikulski, recently they have shirked their patriotic duty, leaving to men the dirty work of entering politics.
Shouldn’t that be Harriet Tubman (R)?
What about sandwiches?
No.
And the people who think “maybe” cannot read the room.
The UK is not founded on anything remotely resembling libertarian policies.
Theresa May 2.0
She’s also a World Economic Forum acolyte.
https://www.weforum.org/people/liz-truss
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1355469447662874625
Exactly the kind of politician Reason would simp for.
But don’t bother supporting her main challenger, either. He’s World Economic Forum too.
Here he is announcing the WEF’s Framework for Financing a Whole-of-Economy Transition, Green Horizon Summit 2020. Creepier than hell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoCYYVmDbMU&t=5547s
Going to vote Labour instead? Well, Labour opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is a member of the WEF’s Trilateral Commission.
https://www.trilateral.org/download/files/TC-MEMBERSHIP-LIST-JANUARY-2020.pdf
Imagine being a socialist and a member of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission.
What economic system featured socialist government’s working through corporate partners again?
The British deep state is the head of the cancer
Amway?
And this is why i hate it when this rag tries to understand international politics.
They truly do argue from ignorance.
That can be said of almost any issue they choose to write about.
No, I think they come from a place of utter dishonesty about many issues where they do marginally know better. But invitations to beltway cocktail parties don’t send themselves.
Ah, so that’s why Reason is pumping her up.
This shitrag is so predictable.
Maybe Great Britain would be better off with Harold Saxon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERd_EnQqtKE
….. or at least a Prime Minister Baldrick. He would at least have some kind of cunning plan to fix things.
Only actual, outright, hitler-saluting Nazis think an entirely uncontroversial body like the WEF is somehow bad. Yes, every single mainstream, borderline mainstream, and not-complete-crank politician supports it. That’s because it’s an open international body aimed at promoting the wellbeing of ordinary people which has no secrets and has never harmed a fly. All it does is suggest global economic policies that are appropriate to existing conditions.
Yes because doing good for other people would never lead to something like maybe the Wuhan Institute of Virology accidentally releasing a virus that ends uncountable human lives. Something something paved with good intentions.
You seem to agree with me that the WEF is not the forum through which the Jews run the world, unlike the raving nutjobs in this thread.
The WEF really doesn’t do a lot. It tries to persuade governments to adopt a fairly mainstream set of economic policies. Some people can see conspiracies everywhere, of course. But the reality is that every mainstream, near mainstream, alt-stream, and not-absolutely-loony-stream politician has no problem with it, because there’s just nothing problematic there. You can disagree with something without imagining crazy conspiracies.
Only actual, outright, hitler-saluting Nazis would pretend to think think the WEF is somehow uncontroversial.
Agenda 2030 didn’t spring out of the fevered dreams of redneck militia members. The WEF openly boasts about it. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/how-life-could-change-2030/
https://www.un.org/humansecurity/agenda-2030/
If you think that’s mainstream, then you grew up in Oceania.
Also, I know you’re paid to push this shit, Shrike, but for fuck’s sake come up with a better counter-argument than “That’s raaaacist”.
And quit sockpuppeting.
“the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasizes a “world free of poverty, hunger, disease and want … free of fear and violence … with equitable and universal access to quality education, health care and social protection … to safe drinking water and sanitation … where food is sufficient, safe, affordable and nutritious … where habits are safe, resilient and sustainable … and where there is universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy.””
Yes, so _obviously_ objectionable. How could anyone describe such things as mainstream?
You’re an overt Nazi, not even a neo-Nazi, so no surprise you’d lie about this. But normally even you lot aren’t so dim. The proof you’re lying is in the first paragraph of what you lied about.
“The two areas where she might potentially be very modestly less libertarian than Sunak are on housing and immigration. Not because she’s restrictionist on either, but because of the composition of her Parliamentary support base.”
Britain has had an influx of immigrants, and nowhere to put them. They are actually filling up resort hotels with them at government expense. This is limiting their ability to be used as vacation spots for tourists, which is affecting the economy of the resort areas. Not to mention, they have a severe housing shortage resulting from high immigration.
The UK has some genuine problems here that may elude the trite, easy answers of Reasons writers.
They’ve had more immigrants in the last 30 years than they’d had in the 1000 previous years.
Who wouldn’t want to move from the poorest countries in the world to the United Kingdom? To say the UK has a housing problem is an understatement.
“Britain has had an influx of immigrants”
Nope. Just not true. No boost in immigration. Another far right fantasy. Peak immigration to the UK was during the heyday of the British empire. The Empire vanished within a generation of the introduction of immigration controls, go figure. Bit like US global influence after Ellis Island shut…
The UK has housing problems because the existing population has migrated from the north of the UK to the south over the last century, while government regulations have prevented houses being built to meet the demand.
Either way it will be a WEF puppet like we have in Biden.
Biden is WEF? He’s probably older than its founder that Blofeld-type guy.
she campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union,
So she’s a Quisling.
-jcr
The point of free trade with impoverished nations is to drag down wages in first world countries.
Somebody hasn’t read a word of history and is proving themselves to be an ignoramus.
Suggest you STFU and get an education.
Why not, trusses support lots of things.
Both candidates are terrible. There are no decent choices available.
Every single MP in Westminster is a crook, a weirdo, and a scumbag. That’s just the nature of modern politics.
Out of the two crooked weirdos running for this particular post, one is the only Tory the electorate knows the name of, and whose name has at least some positive connotations. The other is almost entirely unknown except to politics geeks, and where she is known, is known for being utterly despicable in every way.
Whilst it might not be great for the country either way, for the Tories there is only one sane choice.
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Truss to be the next PM? Get a grip. Even the Tories aren’t daft enough to elect anyone but Sunak.