Truss Speech ‘Bought Her Some Time,’ Prof Says After PM Vows to Get UK Moving

In a keynote speech on Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss pledged to get the country through "stormy days" as she set out her plan to bolster the British economy in the midst of market turmoil.

“Liz Truss' speech to the Conservative Party Conference has bought her some time” in the face of political turmoil, argued Alistair Jones, associate professor of politics at De Montfort University in the UK. Truss’ speech came following the UK government unveiling an emergency tax­-cutting mini-budget late last month.

Jones told Sputnik that during Wednesday’s speech, the British prime minister made it clear that “she wants to lower the tax burden, […] to have more fiscal responsibility,” as well as to reform “parts of the economy” and develop “investment zones”.

He asserted that “there are a lot of contradictions in what she is wanting,” adding, “she wants hard work to be rewarded; but at the same time, anybody threatening to go on strike because they've worked hard but not received a fair amount of pay, she is going to be castigating them as strikers and therefore part of the Anti-Growth Coalition”.

The professor argued that in the short term, the PM “will have probably smoothed over some of the divisions” in the Conservative Party, admitting that “the reality is they're still there”.

He warned that if the UK’s economic growth “doesn't appear or if the winter is far worse than expected and we see deaths due to cold, or we see pipes being cracked because of them freezing and then melting and there not being any heating in the housing to actually keep the water flowing, then there is going to be blame thrown” at Truss.

Jones was partly echoed by Roslyn Fuller, director of the non-profit think tank Solonian Democracy Institute and author of the book Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Purpose. For her part, Fuller told Sputnik that during the speech, Truss “claimed to have three priorities” related to lowering taxes, keeping “an iron grip” on the nation's finances and driving economic reforms.

The expert noted that Truss “reiterated many of the things they [government ministers] already committed to, such as keeping corporation tax to 19%.” Jones also recalled that the PM “believes in a lean state and empathizes with those noticing how much the taxman has taken from one's paycheque.”

The director of the non-profit think tank further pointed to Truss’ pledge that the government “will create new investment zones, which will 'level up the country' and make regulation pro-business”.

“Healthy, working-age people might (keyword: might) do well, eventually under this plan, but there isn't much provision for all of those people who are less attractive to venture capitalists - disabled people, older people, people who are unable to get a quality education. So, essentially this speech was about turning Britain into Texas, presumably without the guns,” Jones argued.

Referring to Truss’ speech, the expert claimed that “it was like watching someone audition for a group of venture capitalists to invest in them, not like someone running a country”.

Truss Gov't 'Doesn't Care if It Stays in Power'

On the issue of the UK’s budget, Jones argued that “it seems to follow an ultra-libertarian logic of creating a tax-free lifestyle for the wealthy and for corporate interests under the idea that they will then stay in the UK and 'create jobs'”.

According to him, Truss’ cabinet “simply doesn't care if it stays in power - after such giveaways, perhaps its members feel confident that they can walk into better jobs following their political career”.

Jones warned that the consequences of the current budget would “either be a change in government (with or without social unrest and/or strikes) or a fast slide towards even more severe (almost Victorian era level) economic inequality in Britain.”

“This is a government that almost sank its own economy within weeks of taking office, so everyone - even very establishment publications like The Financial Times and The Economist - is feeling panicked by them. No one seems to fully understand what they are doing or why they are doing it, and markets hate uncertainty,” the expert claimed.

At the same time, Truss’ government “achieved the impossible in a short period of time - making [former UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson look sensible and [Labour leader] Keir Starmer look like the only viable next prime minister,” Jones concluded.

Truss Speech Highlights

Addressing the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Truss

· stressed that she has “three priorities for the economy: growth, growth and growth”

· pointed out: “We need an economically sound and secure United Kingdom”

· promised that her government would “always be fiscally responsible”

· pledged the government would “keep an iron grip on the nation's finances”

· claimed Tories “will always be the party of low taxes”

· said that she was “determined to get Britain moving and get us through the tempest and put us on a stronger footing as a nation”

· promised to uphold the UK’s economic plans, saying that she “refused to consign our great country to decline”

· pledged to “level up our country in a Conservative way so everyone can get on”

· said that the government is “determined to shield people from astronomically high bills”

· emphasized that the government’s response to the energy crisis was the biggest part of the mini-Budget”

· argued that the UK Conservative Party is “the only party with a clear plan to get Britain moving”

· vowed to tackle “separatists”

· hailed Home Secretary Suella Braverman who will be “bringing forward legislation to make sure no European judge can overrule us”

· Killed off plans to ban buy-one-get-one-free junk food deals, saying. “I'm not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the supermarket”

· praised late Queen Elizabeth II as “the rock on which modern Britain was built”