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Media begins to side between Sunak and Truss following leadership debate

5 August 2022351 views0

In a Sky News special broadcast Thursday, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak once again faced questions in the latest Tory leadership debate.

Sunak continued to emphasise his economic experience and maintained his stance as the best candidate for the leading the country through a potential recession. Truss pitched her foreign policy experience and tax cuts, rebuking Sunak’s economic viewpoint by saying that a recession was not “inevitable” if her economic plan were to be followed instead.

Here are some of the key issues from the debate, and where the two contenders stand:

Taxes

Sunak: cutting basic rate from 20 to 16%; scrap VAT on energy bills for one year; investment tax cuts
Truss: reverse National insurance hike; scrapping corporation tax rise; £30 billion tax cuts

Net Zero

Sunak: committed to Britain’s carbon neutral by 2050 target; make the UK energy self-sufficient by 2045
Truss: reach net zero “in a way that doesn’t harm business or consumers”; implied a ban on fracking subject to local permission

Brexit

Sunak: voted Leave; promised to reform or remove remaining EU rules within the UK’s statute
Truss: notably U-turned from Remain to Leave; supports overriding the NI Protocol

NHS

Sunak: introduce a £10 fine for missed appointments in an attempt to ease the strain of Covid-19 backlog in the system
Truss: unclear

Housing

Sunak: speed up city infrastructure development; implied saling back government funding for affordable housing
Truss: pledged to make it easier for developers to build on ‘brownfield land’

Immigration

Sunak: supports the Rwanda policy; “three strikes and you’re out” system for deporting foreign criminals
Truss: agrees with the Rwanda policy; considering further reforms “to make sure we can really stop illegal immigration”

In the lead up to and following the debate, left-leaning media outlets ran headlines that are beginning to clarify which side they are more supportive of. It would be reasonable to assume these sides may change over the coming weeks. Of course, the more extreme left-leaning publications are siding with neither. Perhaps nearer the time, they may express a bias towards the candidate of lesser agitation. Right-leaning publications continue to be focused on the core standpoints of each candidate, running commentaries on the positives of both.