Liz Truss must start a relentless war on waste in face of cost of living crisis if made PM

Liz must cut waste fearlessly to save us

LIZ Truss knows small business has always been this country’s lifeblood.

The favourite to be our next Prime Minister tells us she is determined to give ailing smaller firms a massive shot in the arm.

She is right to spur on our world-beating entrepreneurs to start the next Google or in our own backyard.

But optimism that tax incentives and red-tape bonfires can help avert a ruinous recession must be tempered with grim reality.

If a business-led economic rally is to succeed, it must go hand in hand with a relentless war on waste.

Ms Truss has pledged to push through Government plans to axe 91,000 pen-pushers from Whitehall.

This is a good first step as the already bloated civil service swelled beyond recognition during the pandemic.

But she must go further — by rigorously holding down state spending across the board.

She must fearlessly face down the vested interests who would throw taxpayer’s cash at every problem.

We had no option but to fork out during the exceptional emergency of Covid.

But in the face of the crippling cost of living crisis every penny needs to be accountable.

Seeing these proposals through will demand huge determination in the face of fierce opposition.

But if she gets the keys to Downing Street, Liz must show she has real steel.

Wrong prescription

RADICAL options to ease the cost of living crisis should always be considered.

But there is only one place to stick the idea that GPs should “prescribe” money-off vouchers for patients struggling with energy bills.

The waste-paper basket.

Doctors are not social workers. They should not be spending their valuable time handing out state benefits.

Besides, it is difficult enough getting a GP appointment as it is.
Imagine the stampede if surgeries were suddenly seen as magic money trees.

Your rules, Sir Graham

THE Tory leadership contest should have been done and dusted long ago.

Instead of desperately-needed political leadership, we have round after round of bad-tempered hustings.

Now the 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady, says even he would have preferred a shorter contest.

But he had a massive influence on the rules.

Why didn’t you spare us this tortuous summer of in-fighting when you had the chance, Sir Graham?