This week, Liz Truss will become the fourth Tory Prime Minister in 12 years, and what have we got to show for those 12 years? In Brighton & Hove and across the country, people are unable to pay their bills, they’re worried about the weekly shop, or filling up their car. Our public services are broken and on their knees, and wages have remained stagnant whilst the cost of living has escalated. Neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak provided any answers to these issues in the past weeks.

Why hasn’t the incoming Prime Minister pledged to enact Labour’s energy price freeze, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies? Why hasn’t Truss got a plan to cut ambulance response times and A&E waiting times? Where is her plan for addressing the climate crisis, the housing crisis, or the crisis in social care?

Liz Truss is taking over the reins of government at such a critical time, when the country faces extreme challenges that mean people will struggle to eat and heat their homes this coming winter. Unfortunately, she has said and done nothing to give Labour Councillors the confidence that she is up to the scale of that challenge, or has a plan for the various crises Britain faces today.

In fact, Truss has been on record blaming the country’s woes on British people not working hard enough. This is someone who has been elected with 47% of the vote of Tory members, meaning she would not have met the threshold that ministers set for union members voting on strike action. Truss, a former Shell employee, has spent more time talking about cutting corporation tax than the cost of living crisis. She is not on the side of workers and their families, who are working tirelessly to put food on the table and keep their homes warm, whilst prices soar and goal posts move.

Truss is not the answer to the mess that 12 years of Tory rule have put our city and our country in. She represents more of the same.

The change this country needs is not at the top of the Conservative Party, it’s a change of government. Only Labour can offer Britain the fresh start we all deserve.

Cllr Carmen Appich & Cllr John Allcock
Co-leaders of the Labour Opposition on Brighton & Hove City Council

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Image: Creative Commons