{"id":3050,"date":"2022-08-01T11:53:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T05:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/?p=3050"},"modified":"2022-08-01T11:53:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T05:53:37","slug":"voting-set-to-begin-in-race-to-become-uk-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/national\/2022\/08\/01\/news\/3050\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting set to begin in race to become UK prime minister"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss take part in the BBC Conservative party leadership debate at Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Britain, July 25, 2022. (REUTERS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON, Broadcasting News Corporation : The bruising race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to become Britain\u2019s next prime minister steps up a gear on Monday with the mailing out of ballots to Conservative party members. With voting set to begin to find Boris Johnson\u2019s replacement, bookmakers have Foreign Secretary Truss as heavy favorite ahead of former finance minister Sunak. The pair have already spent a fractious two weeks on the campaign trail, where they have clashed repeatedly, particularly over their economic plans. Truss has promised to slash taxes in an attempt to revive Britain\u2019s spluttering economy and ease the burden of spiralling prices. Sunak, who steered the UK economy through the pandemic, said Truss\u2019s plans were \u201cfantasy economics\u201d that would fuel inflation and heap further strain on public finances struggling to recover from the pandemic.
\nBut trailing in polls with the all-important party members, Sunak last week performed a significant U-turn by announcing a plan to scrap VAT on energy bills. And on Sunday he promised to cut the basic rate of income tax by 20 percent before the end of the next parliament, which would be December 2029, at the latest. He promised grassroot Tories over the weekend that he would stop \u201cwoke nonsense\u201d and \u201cend the brainwashing\u201d if he becomes prime minister, although added he has \u201czero interest in fighting a so-called culture war.\u201d The 42-year-old also unveiled plans to revive the country\u2019s ailing town centers. \u201cI want to slash the number of empty shops by 2025 and make sure that they are turned into thriving local assets,\u201d he said. \u201cI will also crack down on anti-social behavior, graffiti and littering \u2014 through extended police powers and increased fines.\u201d The pair faced their first grilling in front of members on Thursday, the first of 12 nationwide events before Johnson\u2019s successor is announced on September 5. Truss received a boost on Friday when Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, well regarded among party members for his handling of the Ukraine crisis, pledged his support, saying she was the \u201conly candidate who has both the breadth and depth of experience needed.\u201d Her tax pledges also helped her secure the support of former leadership contender Tom Tugendhat, who holds sway among the party\u2019s centrists. Despite the high-level endorsements, Truss insisted it remained a \u201cvery, very close race.\u201d Sunak, whose resignation from Johnson\u2019s scandal-hit government played a key role in bringing about the prime minister\u2019s downfall, has admitted that he is the \u201cunderdog\u201d in the contest. The pair\u2019s two televised head-to-head debates have both been combative, and the race has often turned personal. Wealthy former financier Sunak hit back at caustic attacks from the Truss camp about his expensive tastes in fashion, which purportedly show that he is out of touch with the ordinary public in hard times. \u201cThis is not about what shoes I wear or what suit I\u2019m wearing. \u201cThis is about what I\u2019m going to do for the country,\u201d Sunak told members, earning applause, although he was also accused by one questioner of \u201cstabbing Boris Johnson in the back.\u201d Sunak\u2019s campaign has also complained of dirty tricks, calling for \u201cfull and proper investigations\u201d into the \u201ccontinued and deliberate leaking of government documents\u201d that have dogged his bis bid. Truss meanwhile was reminded at the hustings of her opposition to Brexit in 2016, and her student leadership of the Liberal Democrats at the University of Oxford, when she called for the abolition of the monarchy. \u201cAlmost as soon as I made the (monarchy) speech, I regretted it,\u201d she said. \u201cI was a bit of a teenage controversialist.\u201d News collected from ARAB NEWS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON, Broadcasting News Corporation : The bruising race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to become Britain\u2019s next prime minister steps up a gear on Monday with the mailing out of ballots to Conservative party members. With voting set to begin to find Boris Johnson\u2019s replacement, bookmakers have Foreign Secretary Truss as heavy favorite ahead …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3052,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3050\/revisions\/3052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}