Frontrunner to become the next prime minister, Liz Truss (Jacob King/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)We face serious challenges in the aftermath of Covid and Putin’s awful war. But I know Britain has the strength, ingenuity and enterprise to come through the economic storm stronger. Nowhere is that clearer than in London.
This is the greatest capital city on earth. But Londoners have been continually failed by the leadership of Sadiq Khan. We can see the cost of this failure in the epidemic of knife crime, the militant trade unions grinding London to a halt and the shocking violence against women and girls.
London has long been the engine of our economy. When Londoners thrive, the rest of our United Kingdom thrives too. I know some of the most deprived areas in the country are found in the capital. So I will take bold action to get London’s economy firing on all cylinders through tax cuts, bold reform and removing regulation that stifles business.
I’m on the side of people who work hard, strive and do the right thing. As Prime Minister, I would focus relentlessly on the real concerns Londoners have. This starts with making our streets safe again.
I would set tough targets to get the police cracking down hard on crime and take tough action on violence against women and girls. I care about this deeply as a mother of two teenage girls myself. We cannot afford to have London’s economy derailed by strike action, which costs billions of pounds and causes chaos for hard-working Londoners.
Despite Sadiq Khan’s promise that there would be “zero days of strikes” under his mayoralty, militant trade unionists have disrupted the capital almost 100 times since 2016. I will deliver where Sadiq has failed.
I will take tough action to do so by legislating for minimum service levels to keep our vital transport networks running. We need to unleash the full potential of the City of London, which is why I will go further to liberate this financial powerhouse from pointless Brussels-inspired bureaucracy.
I will remove any European Union rules that don’t work for us by the end of 2023. And I will reform Solvency II and MiFID to unleash billions in investment into our infrastructure and the industries of the future, to get our economy growing again.
As a councillor in London, I sat on planning committees and saw that our housing system does not work for London. If elected I will abolish Soviet top-down housing targets so that we can put control back in the hands of local people and get the right housing in the right places.
As Prime Minister, I will be London’s strongest champion. We need it to succeed, which is why I will not let it be consigned to decline under Mayor Khan’s watch. At this critical time, Londoners can trust me to deliver.
