Truss u-turns on regional pay

The sound of screeching gears could be heard across Westminster this morning as Team Truss executed a dramatic U-turn from their headquarters in Lord North Street. A midday press statement confirmed that the Foreign Secretary has now dropped her policy adopted, er, just last night, to introduce regional pay boards. The move would have seen salary reductions for public sector workers – including teachers and nurses –  outside of London and the South East on future contracts.

Naturally this went down like a cup of cold sick in every area except London and the South East, with MPs queuing up from Cornwall to County Durham to lambast the move. Team Sunak were delighted at their first break in this leadership race and certainly made the most of it, sending a smorgasbord of MPs over the top to castigate the Truss campaign for abandoning ‘levelling up.’ One of those was Simon Hart, the former Welsh secretary, who claimed that had such proposals been adopted then ‘Wales is worst hit, with 430,000 workers facing a near £3000 pay cut.’