PENNY Mordaunt has backed calls for a “New Deal” for Britain amid a growing economic crisis and the rise of poverty across Britain.
The Tidy Tory MP and commons leader said she is “unapologetic” about the need to focus more on cutting taxes and boosting the nation’s housing stock and less on issues that do not “move the country forward”, such as the culture wars.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, and senior Tory MP Sir John Redwood have also urged the Prime Minister to lay out tax-cutting proposals to bring the party together after Boris Johnson dramatically quit as an MP.
Their calls on Sunday echoed demands by Politicalite and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in his resignation statement for Mr Sunak to “cut business and personal taxes rather than endlessly putting them up”.
Speaking at the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Opportunity held by the Centre for Policy Studies on Monday, Ms Mordaunt said it “amazes” her that “the top guy is always the focus” in both UK and US politics, even though it is a “failed model of leadership”.
“I said to the Prime Minister, your team is the nation and we have to reframe our story in those terms, and that’s why the culture wars and all of that doesn’t help, because we’re here for everyone,” she said.
“And unless we can pool the nation’s talents together, unless we can get people focused on some national missions, and I started writing about national missions way before Keir Starmer decided to write about them, but these things are important – social care, housing, it requires all of us.
“And that’s why I am unapologetic about talking about building more and taxing less and not talking about culture wars, because it doesn’t move the country forward.”
‘We have to be strong’
Ms Mordaunt also appeared to take a veiled swipe at Mr Johnson himself, as she said “we have to be really strong” when it comes to calling out people who are “attacking the House for carrying out its work”.
I’m going to go from you to the House of Commons, there’s going to be a debate on the floor of the House on standards, all sorts of things I’m sure that have been in the news recently will come up,” she said.
She also called out censorship and attacks on the British press that represents the British people: “We have to be really strong about calling out people who are attacking institutions, people who are attacking the House for carrying out its work, people who are attacking the media.”
“People are attacking decent journalism.
“We have to stand up for these things because the price of not doing so is going to be very grave indeed.”
More follows.
