TRUSS IN NEW BOOST AS TORY VOTE BEGINS

MINISTER FOR LONDON TELLS STANDARD HE’S BACKING ‘BOLD AND AMBITIOUS’ VISION

- David Bond

LIZ TRUSS received a fresh boost today with the minister for London declaring for her campaign as Tory party members were set to start voting in the contest to choose Britain’s next Prime Minister.

Writing in the Evening Standard, Paul Scully said he was backing the Foreign Secretary over former chancellor Rishi Sunak because “her bold and ambitious economic plan is just the remedy that we need” and would be a “boon” for the capital.

In a swipe at Mr Sunak, who was coming under renewed fire today for “flip flopping” over tax cuts, Mr Scully added that Ms Truss “knows that we need to depart from the business as usual economic managerialism that has led to our sluggish economic growth”.

The Sutton and Cheam MP’s backing of Ms Truss comes after Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi became the latest senior Conservative to support her bid to be Prime Minister after the high-profile endorsements of Defence Secretary Ben Wallace last week and Foreign Affairs Committee chair Tom Tugendhat and former Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis over the weekend. Ms Truss has now won the support of 10 members of Boris Johnson’s former cabinet while Mr Sunak has picked up four former cabinet colleagues. Last night the leader of the One Nation group of Tory MPs, Damian Green, a former senior minister in Theresa May’s government, announced he was backing Mr Sunak.

They might provide a short-term sugar rush, but unfunded tax cuts only serve to make inflation worse