Liz Truss slammed by ex-Tory boss for claims public sector pay pledge was misrepresented
Former Tory leader Mark Harper, a supporter of Rishi Sunak, said Liz Truss should “stop blaming journalists” after a spokesman for the Tory leadership hopeful said there had been a “deliberate misrepresentation of our campaign” .
Stop Blaming Journalists: Reporting What a Press Release Says Is Not ‘Deliberate Misrepresentation’
So this turnaround has wiped out £8.8 billion in savings. Where will these come from now?
An economic policy that cannot be paid for is unconservative. Mrs Thatcher would be livid https://t.co/MPMFRUrZJP
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) August 2, 2022
Updated at 1.42pm BST
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Former health secretary Matt Hancock has branded Liz Truss’ plan to cut civil service or public sector pay a “bad idea”.
Mr Hancock, who is backing Rishi Sunak’s leadership bid, said the cut in public sector pay for workers outside London was “flattening, not rising”.
A thread about regional payment:
Cutting public sector pay outside of London is a bad idea
In places like Suffolk, it’s hard enough to recruit nurses, teachers and police without cutting their pay compared to London.
This is leveling down, not leveling up.
1/4
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) August 2, 2022
Added:
We need to support public servants – including civil servants – who work hard for us all.
What if this kind of basic mistake was made during an election campaign? 2017 again.
Poor judgement, lack of detail and a gift for workers.
I hope we see a complete turnaround and this policy abandoned.
4/4
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) August 2, 2022
Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley who previously said he was “dumbfounded” by Liz Truss’ plan to cut public sector wages in the least expensive parts of the country, has branded the leadership hopeful’s proposal conservative as “horribly bad”.
Houchen, who is backing Rishi Sunak in the leadership contest, told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme:
It’s just a huge misstep and I’m glad he realized that and backed off and decided that this isn’t going to happen.
Added:
It’s a moment, I’m not entirely sure, it could be that we look back four or five weeks from now and this could be Liz’s “dementia tax” moment. It could very easily be, but it remains to be seen.
Updated at 2.26pm BST
Heather Stewart
Jeremy Corbyn has urged Western countries to stop arming Ukraine and claimed he was criticized for anti-Semitism because of his stance on Palestine, in a TV interview likely to underline Keir Starmer’s determination not to readmit him to the party laborer
Corbyn said:
Dumping the weapons will not solve it, it will only prolong and exaggerate this war. We could be in for years and years of a war in Ukraine.
Corbyn granted the interview to Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based television channel that has carried pro-Russian reporting since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read the full article by my colleague, Heather Stewart:
Mike Clancy, the general secretary of the Prospect union, has hit back at Liz Truss’s pushback on her flagship policy of introducing regional pay boards for public sector workers.
If Liz Truss believes that public sector workers are at the grassroots of society, she needs to suspend the attack dogs from her side and start working with unions and others to give the public the support and services that we need.
The British public is in a fragile place trying to cope with endless waves of price rises and falling wages.
It is time for ministers to put the national interest ahead of their own leadership ambition.
Updated at 14.08 BST
Shawl Rajeev
The numbers crossing the Channel to seek asylum in the UK hit a record high for the year on Monday, as Border Force staff prepared for thousands more arrivals this summer.
The Ministry of Defense said 696 made the journey on 14 small boats on Monday. It followed 460 arrivals on Saturday and 247 on Friday, with more than 1,000 people crossing last week.
In July, 3,683 people crossed from France. This year’s total is believed to be more than 17,000.
The figures came amid reports of growing concern over plans to curb the number of boats carrying asylum seekers across the Channel.
Updated at 1.54pm BST
A source has told Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s senior politics reporter, that Liz Truss had previously asked for lower pay outside the South East.
More Labor leaders are ridiculing Liz Truss’ now-abandoned policy of cutting public sector pay outside London.
Anneliese Dodds MP tweeted the following:
Two years ago, Liz Truss was applauding key workers. now?
⚠️ Forced to abandon the plan to reduce their salary outside the southeast.
⚠️He wants to get rid of the people who promote diversity and inclusion in the public sector.
⚠️Hope to break workers’ rights and the right to strike. https://t.co/FFEMLWCfNU
— Anneliese Dodds 💙 (@AnnelieseDodds) August 2, 2022
Updated at 1.35pm BST
Labour’s shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, has tweeted this about Liz Truss’s U-turn on her flagship policy of cutting public sector pay outside of London.
Having spent 18 months following Liz Truss, the idea that she doesn’t realize what she’s signed up to isn’t exactly new: the free ports fiasco, the shipbuilding blunder, the list goes on. After all, this is the minister who writes TL;DRs with dead eye emojis in policy presentations…
— Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) August 2, 2022
Updated at 1.49pm BST
Liz Truss slammed by ex-Tory boss for claims public sector pay pledge was misrepresented
Former Tory leader Mark Harper, a supporter of Rishi Sunak, said Liz Truss should “stop blaming journalists” after a spokesman for the Tory leadership hopeful said there had been a “deliberate misrepresentation of our campaign” .
Stop Blaming Journalists: Reporting What a Press Release Says Is Not ‘Deliberate Misrepresentation’
So this turnaround has wiped out £8.8 billion in savings. Where will these come from now?
An economic policy that cannot be paid for is unconservative. Mrs Thatcher would be livid https://t.co/MPMFRUrZJP
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) August 2, 2022
Updated at 1.42pm BST
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has accused Liz Truss of running her leadership campaign “incompetently” after the Tory leadership hopeful was forced to reverse plans to cut civil service pay outside London .
Davey said:
Changing a multi-billion pound policy five weeks before even taking office has to be a new record.
We cannot let Liz Truss run the country with the same incompetence she is running her leadership campaign. The British people must have their say in the general election.
Today Davey described Truss’ plan for regional pay boards as “insensitive, incompetent and ridiculous”.
Threatening to cut hundreds of pounds from nurses and teachers in the middle of a cost of living crisis is insensitive, incompetent and ridiculous. Nasty Politics of Nasty Party.
— Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) August 2, 2022
Updated at 13.11 BST
Sources in Rishi Sunak’s leadership camp say Liz Truss has been pushing for a public sector pay cut since 2018, following her decision to quit politics following an angry outcry from Tory MPs and the mayor from Tees Valley.
Truss has suggested in the past that public sector workers outside London and the South East should receive lower pay rises.
From my colleague Aubrey Allegretti:
After Truss U-turns on regional pay boards, the Sunak team source says she pushed for a cap on public sector pay in 2018, adding: “The lady is about to turn.”
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) August 2, 2022
Updated at 1.12pm BST