Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak?

Truss and Sunak are polls apart on the economy. Truss wants to stimulate the economy by leaving more money in peoples pockets. Cutting taxes is risky, as it could increase inflation. But, it could also keep a recession at bay. In my opinion it’s a risk worth taking. The last thing the country needs is a recession, with high inflation, rising unemployment, higher taxes and high interest rates. That is the alternative in Sunak.

Taxing everyone to death to pay down the UK's enormous debts will never work. There's only so far you can raise them. It will strangle the UK economy and make the looming recession even worse. Liz Truss has it right, in my view, that the focus should be on tax cuts and improving productivity to stimulate economic growth. In the current environment, I don't believe tax cuts will be inflationary. Too much money is being taken out of people's pockets elsewhere.

Economically speaking it’s a roll of the dice whichever candiate the Conservative party members install as the next Prime Minister. Ideologically speaking paying down the UKs enormous debts is a traditional conservative approach, but with already growing inflation, a wavering GDP and a clear recession on the cards I don’t think it’s the right time to pursue this approach - the average UK earner simply has no surplus income to tax and is likely in high levels of personal debt too. Liz Truss has a more radical, but also more proven approach during a recession focussing on tax cuts and improving productivity to turbo-boost economic growth, grow the GDP and increase the flow of money in the economy to sustain sectors like hospitality, retail and social care. We are already heading full steam ahead into a recession with high inflation; the UK need to get back to our roots and outrun it with enterprise, business first and supporting those with entrepreneurial spirit to create new opportunities and grow the economy.

As tempting as a tax cut from Liz Truss sounds, I think Rishi Sunak makes the more logical argument about fiscal discipline. Our national debt is shockingly high and if the base rate increases further so will the cost of servicing that debt. Also, I believe Rishi did a good job navigating us through the economic difficulties of Covid, with little precedent to go by. Now with inflation soaring, I believe Rishi is the person we need to guide us through the next few years.