Truss is the candidate for change (original) (raw)

red box | alexander stafford

Tuesday August 02 2022, 12.01am BST, The Times

Conservative Party members like me are facing a big question this month: who do we want to lead our party and become prime minister? But within that one question are a multitude of smaller questions. Who do we believe can unite our party and country again? Who do we think is the best candidate to deliver for our constituents? With which of the two choices would we stand the best chance of delivering this government’s most important objectives?

Having carefully considered these questions and the issues that matter most to my constituents, I have concluded that Liz Truss is the candidate that will be getting my vote.

First and foremost, I trust Liz to deliver for my constituents. The people of Rother Valley put their trust in me and the Conservative Party for the first time in 2019 because they wanted someone to start delivering for them. They watched for years as London and the southeast grew and flourished, and they looked at the Labour Party and felt taken for granted. Our 2019 promise that we would level up and finally listen to the people who had been effectively ignored for years struck a chord, and with it delivered a historic majority for the Conservative Party. But it will all be for nothing if we cannot deliver on that promise.

Liz has a plan to level up that I can get behind. She has a vision for education that will drive better results for our children and improve skills provision for our economy. Liz will take on coasting schools and improve access to our best education institutions so that opportunities are not limited to those born in the right places.

Devolution is key, too: power is best utilised in the hands of the people that are affected by it. That’s why Liz is dedicated to pushing power downwards in key areas such as housing, where she will abolish Soviet top-down housing targets.

She also knows that we need to unlock business investment in our regions, and will do that through low tax, low regulation investment zones — attracting the businesses, jobs, and investment that areas like mine have been lacking in recent years.

Business, investment and innovation are the three key words not just to levelling up, but also to making progress on another of our key 2019 manifesto pledges – to decarbonise our economy. That won’t happen overnight, and it certainly won’t happen by switching off swathes of the economy. Instead, it will be facilitated by the ingenuity and drive of our private sector businesses. Liz understands the importance of reaching net zero and I am delighted that she has pledged to keep the 2050 target, and she knows that it will be business, not the government, that will get us there.

Not only does Liz have a long-term plan for our country that I can get behind, but she also will take action immediately to help the people of Rother Valley with the rising cost of living in a conservative fashion, by cutting their bills and raising their wages through tax cuts. She will not delay on this front, calling an emergency budget to implement the support that people need as soon as possible.

Liz Truss is not the business-as-usual candidate. She is the take-action-now choice. And she knows how to get things done. She has the experience, drive and ability to deliver, with an unmatched track record for delivery across government. I firmly believe few people would be better suited to taking the reins at 10 Downing Street in these trying times than her, to deliver for the people of Rother Valley for today and tomorrow. That’s why she has my vote.

Alexander Stafford is MP for Rother Valley