Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak engaged in a bitter war of words over the cost of living crisis that is set to cripple households in the North East as they pleaded their cases to Tory members in the region.
The two contenders to become the next Prime Minister were pitted against each other in front of a crowd of Conservative voters in Darlington on Tuesday night, in the fifth of 12 leadership hustings around the country and the only one being held in our region. In one of the traditional Labour heartland constituencies that turned blue in 2019, the candidates pledged to deliver on levelling up promises made to the North East and once again were bitterly divided over how to help families cope with escalating bills.
After Mr Sunak committed to giving people some further cash payments to help ease the financial burden posed by the cost of living crisis, on the day it was predicted that energy bills could top £4,200 next year, Ms Truss accused him of “Gordon Brown economics”. The foreign secretary, who has promised swift tax cuts if she is chosen to succeed Boris Johnson, said she “fundamentally” disagrees with “putting up taxes and then also giving out benefits”.
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Asked about what she would do to deal with rising fuel prices, the frontrunner added: “I understand people are struggling with their bills on fuel and food but the first thing we should do as Conservatives is help people have more of their own money.
“What I don’t support is taking money off people in tax and then giving it back to them in handouts. That to me is Gordon Brown economics.”
Mr Sunak warned that tax cuts would not help people pay their bills this winter and suggested he would offer targeted grants to help the most vulnerable. The former chancellor added: “The only way to help them is with direct support because tax cuts alone are not much good if you’re a pensioner who is not earning any extra money.
“They are not much good if you are working hard on the national living wage, because Liz’s tax cut is worth about a quid a week for that person, it’s worth zero for a pensioner. That’s not right.”
Former Labour PM Gordon Brown issued a call this week for an emergency budget to combat the cost of living crisis. Asked if he would be happy to get in a room with Ms Truss and Boris Johnson to resolve the situation now, Mr Sunak said he would happily do so – if Ms Truss reversed her stance on tax cuts. Ms Truss told hustings host Tom Newton Dunn that she would not want to overrule a sitting government with a “made-up committee”.
Both candidates had arrived at the Darlington Hippodrome facing controversy. Mr Sunak triggered uproar last week when a video emerged of him boasting of stripping cash from "deprived urban areas" and pumping funds into leafy, wealthy areas – comments that he had doubled down on before Tuesday’s debate. Ms Truss, meanwhile, had provoked dismay over plans to cut the pay of public sector workers in poorer parts of the country before making a swift U-turn last week.
Both candidates talked up the Johnson government’s policies in the North East – including moving Treasury jobs to Darlington and creating a freeport in Teesside. Ms Truss pledged that she would "get the A1 dualled from top to bottom" if she becomes PM and to “sort out the broadband and mobile phone signal” in rural areas, having also set her sights on winning Labour seats in Wansbeck and Sunderland at the next general election, while Mr Sunak also promised to get the long-awaited A1 widening in Northumberland back on track.
Asked by one audience member what levelling up actually means, Mr Sunak replied that he wanted everyone in the UK to have “fantastic opportunities and pride in the place they call home” – specifically citing the freeport and investment in high streets in towns like Hartlepool as examples. But the questioner, a man from Stockton, seemed unimpressed – saying he still did not understand the policy and that government investment had not managed to clean up Stockton town centre or cut knife crime there.
Ahead of the hustings, anti-Tory protesters gathered outside the theatre brandishing posters accusing the party of failing the North of England. Campaigner Louise Brown, from Newcastle, said she had seen "no evidence" of levelling up in the North East. Fellow activist James Sheerin labelled the Tory leadership contest a "farce" and accused the two candidates of seeking to out-do each other with "outrageous" policies rather than tackle the cost of living crisis now.
Mr Sunak appeared to get a slightly more rapturous reception from the audience of party members in the North East, with one member telling the Local Democracy Reporting Service afterwards that he was backing the former Chancellor as Ms Truss "isn't good on the detail" and "keeps getting muddled up". But John Watts, chairman of the Newcastle Conservatives, said he disliked Mr Sunak's "anger" displayed during the debate and committed his support to the foreign secretary.
Tory member Nyla Osborne, from Thornaby, also backed Ms Truss to take over in Downing Street and branded Mr Sunak "hypocritical and egotistical". The 73-year-old was among the strong contingent in the crowd who continued to back Boris Johnson, claiming that his ousting from No 10 was "appalling" and that he "never got to finish" what he promised communities in the North.
Following a straw poll of the audience, host Tom Newton Dunn estimated 10-15% were now undecided between Truss and Sunak compared to 40% at the start of the night.
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