Margaret Thatcher - Central News Hub

Truss not happy at being compared to Thatcher

Before she entered the leadership contest, many knew her from a speech to the Tory Party Conference in 2014 where she enthusiastically promoted British cheese and pork…reports Asian Lite News

Liz Truss got “frustrated” after she was “compared to Margaret Thatcher”, the media reported.

When asked whether she models herself on the former Tory prime minister, she disagreed with the accusation, saying: “I don’t accept that, I am my own person”. Aged nine, she played Thatcher in a mock election at school, the BBC reported.

She apparently got “zero votes — I didn’t even vote for myself”.

Truss has worked for three former prime ministers. She was promoted by David Cameron to environment secretary and worked as justice secretary under Theresa May. She was eventually made foreign secretary by Boris Johnson in 2021.

Truss will become the third female Prime Minister of UK. All female prime ministers so far have been Conservative.

Truss is 47, married and has two daughters. After university she worked as an accountant for Shell, and Cable & Wireless, and married fellow accountant Hugh O’Leary in 2000. The family lives in Thetford, Norfolk, the BBC reported.

Before she entered the leadership contest, many knew her from a speech to the Tory Party Conference in 2014 where she enthusiastically promoted British cheese and pork.

Liz Truss has been named as the new Conservative leader on Monday — and will become UK PM on Tuesday, Daily Mail reported.

Truss takes the helm of a country in the grip of a cost-of-living crisis after seeing off the former chancellor’s challenge with support from 81,326 party members, compared to Sunak’s 60,399.

The 57 per cent to 43 per cent result – closer than some had expected – was announced by 1922 committee chair Sir Graham Brady in a glitzy ceremony at the QE2 Centre in Westminster, Daily Mail reported.

Truss said it was an ‘honour’ to be the new leader of the ‘greatest political party on Earth’. ‘I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people,’ she said.

“I campaigned as a Conservative and I will govern as a Conservative… I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy.”

She added: “We will deliver a great victory for the Conservative Party in 2024.”

Truss also paid tribute to Boris Johnson, who will formally hand over power to her tomorrow, saying he ‘got Brexit done, crushed Jeremy Corbyn, rolled out the vaccine, and stood up to Vladimir Putin’.

But the new premier faces one of the toughest in-trays in decades, with inflation fears mounting as gas prices soar again and the Pound slides further.

Speculation is growing that Truss will opt for a bold furlough-style move to freeze energy bills — possibly by loaning companies money to hold down costs.

Wholesale gas prices rocketed by around 30 per cent on Monday, following Russia’s decision to shut down a key gas pipeline, the Daily Mail reported.

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Changing these policies would “help millions realise the dream of home ownership”, Mr Johnson said…reports Asian Lite News

Prime Minister has pledged to “finish the right to own reforms” started by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. He said working people would be able to put housing benefits towards their first mortgage.

He told an audience in Blackpool that it would be easier for hard-working families to “put away a little every month” to save a deposit.

Mr Johnson said it was time to “turn benefits to bricks” in his speech as he aimed to rebuild his leadership after a confidence vote this week. But critics say the proposals are unworkable and would make the housing crisis worse, BBC reported.

In Monday’s confidence vote on Mr Johnson’s leadership, four in 10 Tory MPs backed getting rid of him, amid anger over widespread Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street during lockdown. There is also disquiet among Conservatives over the government’s decision to raise National Insurance, while the cost of living is soaring and the public finances have been battered by the expense of dealing with Covid.

Mr Johnson restated the government’s commitment to extending a home-buying scheme, known as right to buy, to housing association tenants. He said he wanted to extend it “within existing spending plans” and ensure a “one-for-one replacement” of each home sold.

The prime minister also said universal credit recipients would get to choose whether to spend their benefits on rent or put them towards a mortgage. The government will explore discounting Lifetime ISA and Help to Buy ISA savings from Universal Credit eligibility rules, Mr Johnson said. Currently, claimants are only eligible for universal credit if they have savings below £16,000, and Lifetime ISAs are included in this limit.

Changing these policies would “help millions realise the dream of home ownership”, Mr Johnson said.

Housing benefits, which help low-income or unemployed people pay their rent, cost the government around £30bn a year, much of which goes to private landlords. A person is not usually eligible for the payments if they have a mortgage.

There is already a shortage of social housing without selling properties – 1.1 million people are on waiting lists. The government has not revealed who will be able to take advantage of the scheme, how much it will cost and whether it will be capped

Commenting on plans to extend the right to buy scheme announced by the government, Tom Fyans, director of campaigns and policy at CPRE, the countryside charity, said: ‘Unfortunately, this is another example of a government rapidly losing touch with the realities of rural life. Extending right to buy will do nothing to address the rural affordable homes crisis because the problem is a lack of homes in the first place. There are 176,000 families in rural areas on social housing waiting lists. These are families that could be even further disadvantaged by housing associations being forced to sell their limited homes on the cheap.

‘The number one lesson of right to buy in a rural context is that it decimated rural social housing stocks. What low-income families need is hundreds of thousands more truly affordable homes to live in. Those living in the countryside are hampered by low wages and high house prices. That’s why the government needs to commit to building 145,000 social homes a year to fill the gap between supply and demand.

‘The demand for social housing is growing nearly six times faster than the rate of supply in rural areas. At current rates, the backlog of low-income families needing accommodation would take 121 years to clear. This is an utterly unsustainable situation and potentially selling off the few remaining housing association properties we do have will make a bad situation immeasurably worse.’

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