LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Liz Truss was heard on a leaked audio recording saying that British workers required “more graft” and didn’t have the “skill and application” of their international competitors.
Five years ago when the discussion with officials was recorded, the front-runner for the Tory leadership position was the chief secretary to the Treasury.
Ms. Truss claimed in the video, which was released to The Guardian, that people who lived outside of London were less inclined to be hard workers.
She argued that all British workers lacked the “skill and application” of international competitors, particularly those in China.
There seemed no motivation to modify the working culture so that the UK might achieve greater prosperity, according to Ms. Truss, who claimed it was “partly a mindset or attitude thing.”
She said that a paragraph from Britannia Unchained, a book she co-authored in 2012, had been “mischaracterised.”
She stated last month that she had not written that chapter and placed the responsibility on co author and current deputy prime minister Dominic Raab. The text claimed that British workers were among the “worst idlers in the world.”
A source within her team told Sky News in response to the audio leak that those comments were from half a decade ago and lacked context, but one thing that was as evident today as it had ever been was the need to increase productivity, which resulted in higher salaries and a better standard of living for workers across the UK.
Liz would deliver a high wage, high growth, and low tax economy as prime minister, they said.
At a hustings in Scotland on Tuesday night, Ms. Truss was questioned about the leaked audio. She avoided addressing her words but stated that they needed greater productivity and increased economic growth and that she wanted to “unleash the opportunities” that were voted for in the year 2019.
She was forced to take a U-turn earlier this month on proposals to reduce civil service pay outside the capital, so her harsh remarks in the recording that was leaked will garner more criticism from those outside London.
She then abandoned plans for regional pay boards for civil servants or other employees of the public sector, although claiming at the time that there had been a “wilful misrepresentation” of her programme.
Despite her campaign providing specific details, this was the case.
The recording surfaced just before she and her opponent, Rishi Sunak, spoke at a hustings in Scotland. In an effort to win their support, she informed the Scottish Tory members in the crowd that she was a “child of the Union.”
The leaked audio heard her saying that the productivity was very very different in London from the rest of the country. But, that had essentially been a historical truth for many years.
Essentially, she believed that it had to do with thinking and attitude. In essence, it was a working culture which was different from China.
There was a core issue with the working culture in Britain. In essence, that needed to change if they wanted to become a richer and more prosperous nation. She, however, doubted that many people were eager to change that. There was a slight tendency in Britain to seek out simple solutions.
That summed up her thoughts on the election, what had been happening before that and the referendum. They said that all of Europe was to blame for the grave issues, as well as all of the immigrants. However, what was ultimately required is more, more graft. That was not a popular message.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow work and pensions secretary for Labour, called Ms. Truss’ remarks “grossly offensive.”
He claimed that Liz Truss said earlier this month that workers outside of London should have their wages lowered.
Now it had been made public that she believed people outside of London lacked the right attitude or culture.
It was highly offensive of Liz Truss to effectively label British workers as lazy when salaries were shrinking as a result of the Tories’ failure to control inflation and years of subpar growth.
He continued saying that he had assumed she had gone past the “Britannia Unchained” debacle, but it looked like that was the blueprint for her future administration.
