On 5th September 2022, Liz Truss was announced as the next leader of the Conservative Party and she will become Prime Minister on 6th September 2022 after visiting with HM The Queen in Balmoral.
In her speech to Conservative Party members accepting the leadership, Ms Truss praised the work of outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson. She was also backed by a large number of Boris Johnson’s closest allies in her leadership bid suggesting a certain amount of continuity with the outgoing Prime Minister’s regime.
After months of dithering, the Conservative Party finally threw an out of touch Prime Minister out of office. That Prime Minister broke the law, flip flopped from one position to another, and had no answer to the looming cost of living crisis. And who have they replaced her with? Liz Truss, who was Boris Johnson’s foreign secretary and stood by him every step of the way.
The Government will try to tell you that this a big change for them and that things will get better. There’s very little evidence that that is the case. Where Liz Truss has consistently stuck to a position throughout the contest, we have seen alarming evidence that things are going to get worse for Oldhamers. In the analysis that I’m releasing today, I’ve shown that in 5 particular areas – workers rights, the economy, cost of living, housing, and crime and anti-social behaviour- there are tangible downsides for Oldhamers to her policies.
You can see what each party cares about by comparing Labour and Conservative policies. Labour’s policy to freeze energy bills at the existing cap of £1971 would save people around £1000 a year and bring down inflation. Meanwhile Liz Truss is promising a tax cut that gives top earners a benefit of more than 250 times the amount that most working people will receive. Oldhamers need a government that is genuinely on their side and prioritises what they need in the upcoming cost of living crisis and only a Labour Government will do that.
Five ways in which Oldham will be worse off under a Liz Truss Government
After months of squabbling between each other the Tories have finally made their mind up and have chosen Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister. While there is no longer any excuse to ignore all the urgent issues we have at hand in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis for decades Prime Minister Truss is bad news for the people of Oldham and here’s why:
- Liz Truss is not on the side of working people. As the cost-of-living crisis spirals for working people all over the country now more than ever do we need a Prime Minister willing and able to stand up for people. However, Truss has shown that she would rather attack working people saying that they lack “graft, skill & application.” The people of Oldham have demonstrated these qualities for generations and continue to do so to this day. This is typical of a Conservative Party who have consistently shown a lack of respect and support for working people. Instead, they are on the side of big businesses like the energy firms who have been counting record profits at a time when millions across the country are worrying about paying their bills.
She has also threatened a ‘bonfire on worker’s rights’ at a time when they are so crucial. Instead of providing extra support for workers to help them in a time of crisis she is looking at plans to allow bosses to force workers into extra hours and fewer breaks.
2. The Tories’ economic plans do not add up. We have now had 12 years of Tory government and all we have to show for it is low wages, high prices and a Tory cost of living crisis. During the leadership campaign Liz Truss had more to say on cutting tax for huge corporations than she did on supporting working people. This shows that we are in for more of the same failed Tory economics. After years of serving in Tory cabinets Liz Truss has failed to discover any new answers to the problems, we as a country face and yet again the Tory party have resorted to offering unrealistic and unfunded promises. Labour has come forward with new plans and ideas and always makes sure all policy is fully funded- Tory economics is anything but. The people of Oldham and places just like it around the country need more than just a change of who has the reins at Number 10, what they really need is a change of government that is on their side to bring new ideas that will really make an impact to their lives.
3. She has no clear plan for how to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Throughout the leadership contest both candidates showed an unwillingness to confront and tackle the cost-of-living crisis at a time when it is getting worse by the day. At the beginning of the campaign she suggested she was not planning to step in to now insisting there are plans to step in (albeit with no details on what sort of support this will mean in reality) it is clear that we should expect another Prime Minister defined by U-turns and indecisiveness. Friends of the Earth research has shown that Oldham West & Royton has an unusually high number of energy crisis hotspots showing just how hard this crisis is hitting in the local area. The Labour Party were calling for a windfall tax on the energy companies for months before the government finally decided to back the policy and this is no way to go about tackling an urgent and critical national crisis.
4. Liz Truss is opposed to building much needed new housing. Oldham is a borough desperately in need of housing. The average house in Oldham is around £183,000 and have increased by 11.3% over the last year, vastly outstripping average wages which are the second lowest in the borough. In the last 12 years of Tory government we have seen a housebuilding drop to unprecedently low levels and this has inevitably led to a generational housing crisis. Demand for housing is consistently outstripping supply across Oldham with some Oldhamers spending years on waiting lists and far too many people suffering from homelessness and rough sleeping. In quarter one of 2022, there are 88 fewer properties available and 668 new applications for homelessness in the month of June alone. It’s clear we need more homes for our residents and yet Liz Truss has planned to scrap housing targets describing them as ‘Stalinist.’ Everyone deserves to have a roof over their heads and building new homes is an essential part to making this a reality as the current shortage means that there is no option other than to prioritise applications based on their need. Once again, this issue is an example of the Tory government failing to put the interests of working people first. Building new homes could have a transformative effect on millions of families across the country.
5. Liz Truss is on the side of criminals – Oldham has the third highest rate of crime in Greater Manchester. I believe strongly that if someone breaks the law, they should be caught, tried and convicted. However, this has become increasingly difficult in the 12 years that the Conservatives have been in power. I’ve been arguing since I was elected that the County Court and Magistrates Court should not be closed yet the Tory Government took the decision to close both courts during Liz Truss’s time as Justice Secretary. The Criminal Bar Association recently stated that the backlog for cases in the Crown Court could reach 70,000 cases. The longer a trial is postponed, the more chance there is of prosecution witnesses giving up hope or forgetting their evidence and the harder it is to secure a conviction. This means there is more chance that guilty people will get away scot-free. Even when offenders are found guilty, we don’t have a single custody suite in the entire borough of 225,000 people. Liz Truss is uniquely badly placed to do anything about this crisis. When she was Justice Secretary, she took no action to defend judges from accusations that they are enemies of the people. Most recently, the former Conservative Lord Chancellor, Lord McKay said that Ms Truss had ‘no idea’ about legal aid and pointed to the fallout between the new Prime Minister and the legal profession during her time as Justice Secretary. This does not give high hopes to those who need justice to be done.
12 years of Tory government has already been far too long for working people across the country. Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister signals that the era of dithering, indecisiveness and U-turns is set to continue. Her past record in government and during the campaign shows that she is not on the side of working people and only serves to highlight that what we really need to tackle this unprecedented cost-of-living crisis is a Labour government that would decisively be on your side.
Jim McMahon OBE MP 