Truss and Sunak go to battle on economic ‘handouts’

The dire economic warnings from the Bank of England of a 15-month recession with inflation hitting more than 13 per cent look set to dominate the Tory leadership contest. With four weeks left of the campaign (but with ballots already out), the focus has returned to the differences between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss’s approaches to the economy. It’s the territory that Sunak feels the most confident on and where his campaign hope to make up lost ground.

The Sunak camp have been quick to go on the attack over an interview the Foreign Secretary, who is the frontrunner in the race, gave to the Financial Times over the weekend in which she would tackle cost of living in a conservative way of tax cuts over ‘handouts’. Supporters of Sunak read this as Truss ruling out emergency relief packages in the autumn (something Sunak has said he will do) just as the energy price cap rises further.