British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs Liz Truss yesterday won the bitter race to succeed Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, and will take power with the country facing brutal economic headwinds that threaten to plunge millions of Britons into poverty this winter.
Truss, 47, emerged victorious after a two-month Conservative Party leadership contest that started with 11 candidates and concluded with a runoff against former chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak.
She defeated him by 81,326 votes to 60,399 in a ballot of party members — a somewhat narrower margin than polls had projected — and is to become Britain’s third female prime minister.
Photo: Reuters
Truss inherits a forbidding in-tray, with the UK facing surging inflation, a potential recession and a record squeeze on living standards spurred by soaring energy prices. Markets have been flashing red through last month, with the pound, gilts and corporate bonds seeing their biggest sell-offs in years.
Truss saw double-digit leads over Sunak in polls of Tory members. That meant a Truss win has been anticipated for weeks, with markets reacting to her promise to tackle the cost-of-living crisis through tax cuts, and foreign capitals bracing for her combative brand of diplomacy.
“I campaigned as a Conservative and I will govern as a Conservative,” Truss told party leaders in brief remarks after the announcement in London. “We need to show we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow the economy.”
Truss is to visit Queen Elizabeth II today at Balmoral Castle to be formally appointed, shortly after Johnson also meets with the monarch. Truss is then expected to return to No. 10 Downing Street to give a speech to the nation, before appointing members of her Cabinet.
Truss’ daunting challenges include fixing a National Health Service on its knees after the COVID-19 pandemic, overcoming industrial discontent and strikes in areas such as education and transport, and navigating a fraught relationship with the EU that could yet descend into a trade war.
In Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party is demanding an independence referendum that threatens to break up the UK.
Truss’ immediate priority is to flesh out plans to help struggling households cope with soaring domestic energy bills that this winter are set to be triple last year’s level.
She has pledged an emergency budget in her first month in office, probably before parliament breaks for recess on Sept. 22.
Truss has already vowed to help Britons by scrapping a 1.25 percentage point uplift in National Insurance, a payroll tax and slashing green levies from energy bills, saving an annual ￡150 (US$172) per household.
However, she has refused to give specifics on how she would help pensioners and the lowest earners, saying that would be for the new chancellor to announce.
It is likely to be Kwasi Kwarteng, the current business secretary who is ideologically aligned with Truss and is a longstanding ally.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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