The Tories abandon fiscal conservatism at their peril

And then there were two. Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss now go to the membership. There’s much talk today about how brutal this contest will be. Penny Mordaunt’s supporters were arguing this morning that people should vote for her to avoid pitting these two against each other. But that would be false comfort. The argument between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak is one that the Tory party needs to have.

On one side stands Sunak, who I have known for many years. He cleaves to the old Thatcherite position that the first thing to do is to get inflation under control. He believes that you don’t get something for nothing: you can’t cut taxes unless you are controlling public spending. On the other side is Truss who wants £30 billion of tax cuts now, is promising no return to Osborne’s austerity, and wants defence spending up to 3 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade.