Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak make final pitches to Conservative voters in London

While Mr. Sunak received loud applause and cheers from the London audience, Ms. Truss is leading overall across the country

As the window closes for Conservative Party members to vote for their new leader and the country’s Prime Minister, the candidates, former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, made their final pitches to voting members at a packed Wembley Arena in London on Wednesday.

While 42-year-old- Mr. Sunak received loud applause and cheers from the London audience, the 47-year-old Ms. Truss is leading overall across the country, according to polls from earlier this month. She is also the favourite as per bookmakers’ odds. Party members have until 5 p.m. local time to vote on Friday – and have the option of changing previously cast votes.

Mr. Sunak’s flagship policy is to immediately tackle inflation, and on Friday he claimed inflation, which is over 10% now, would decrease faster under his plan than under any of the alternatives. He has opposed more borrowing to cut taxes, saying the idea is not “conservative” , and investors should not lose confidence in the U.K.

Ms. Truss promised she would not introduce new taxes, would simplify the tax code and would reverse the Johnson administration’s national insurance hike and place a moratorium on ‘green levies ‘ on energy bills.  She also said she would focus on the supply side of energy (including suggesting the use of more nuclear power, fracking in areas that support it, more oil and gas from the North Sea).  

Truss says U.S. Closest Ally of U.K.

Quizzed on foreign policy on Wednesday, including about the U.K.-U.S. relationship, Ms. Truss declined to say whether former U.S. President Donald Trump was a “friend or foe”. Last week, she had said that the “jury’s out” on whether Emmanuel Macron, president of France, one of the U.K.’s closest partners, was a friend or foe. “That’s not commenting, as far as I can say,” she said on Wednesday, defending her remark about Mr. Macron.

However, Ms. Truss said the U.S. was the  U.K.’s “closest ally” and that she had met both Mr. Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden.