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Listen: Liz Truss lays into ‘Miliband-esque’ Tory policies

There’s been no short of soul-searching in Birmingham this week, as Conservatives wonder how they can challenge an increasingly threatening looking Labour party. In a speech at an Institute for Economic Affairs bash last night, Treasury minister Liz Truss thought she was able to identify the problem:

‘There are some people in Britain who say we can’t change the political weather. That Britain has become a more tax and spend country, that somehow we have to accept the inevitability of becoming a Miliband-esque, Jeremy Corbyn-esque fudge of a party, and I don’t believe in that for one minute.’

https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/audio-2018-10-01-07-12-04

But who could Truss have possibly had in mind, as she rallied against the Conservative’s slow descent into Milibandism? Mr S thinks he may have the answer. After all, who was responsible for the following policies nicked from Labour:

  • A plan to cap energy prices, raided from Ed Miliband’s 2015 manifesto.
  • A pledge to raise the minimum wage to the highest in Europe.
  • A proposal to put workers on boards, since scrapped, and then re-adopted by Jeremy Corbyn.
  • The idea to cap executive’s pay, which was run past a horrified Conservative cabinet.
  • A ban on letting agent fees.
  • Means-testing the Winter Fuel Allowance.

Who else of course, but Truss’s own boss, the Prime Minister.

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Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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