Hart warns Truss camp against premature victory celebrations as leadership race nears its end
Former Secretary of State for Wales, Simon Hart has rejected claims that Liz Truss has the Tory leadership contest “in the bag”, and accused those of making the claim of looking “a bit smug”.
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Hart, who is backing the the Foreign Secretary’s rival Rishi Sunak to be the next Prime Minister, suggested the triumphalism of the Truss camp was premature.
“… every politician and sporting team in the world knows never celebrate too early,” he said.
“I think if people (are) going round now … patting each other on the back and saying who’s won, well, I can tell you that is a really dangerous thing to do in (politics).
“I mean, look at the 2019 general election, the polls were out by miles; look at the Brexit referendum, polls were out by miles
“Boris Johnson’s own leadership election was out by 20 points. These things (are) really unreliable.
“I just think, as I say, if I was in Liz Truss’s camp, I would be really nervous at the moment about my supporters going round saying ‘it’s in the bag and I’ve got a job in the Cabinet’, and all that kind of stuff.
“I think it looks a bit smug. I think she would be worried about that.”
Irresponsible
The Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP also defended Mr Sunak, for not revealing details of his strategy to deal with the cost-of-living-crisis.
Mr Sunak has said he will provide additional support targeted at the most vulnerable but neither of the leadership contenders have offered concrete details of the measures they would introduce to shield people from spiralling prices.
Mr Hart acknowledged the current situation is “frustrating” for people.
Asked exactly what Mr Sunak is planning to do about the problem, he told Sky News: “It’s incredibly frustrating because I think everybody wants to be able to say ‘This is precisely what’s going to be announced should our particular candidate win’.
“To be able to do that now, to speculate now about what the extent of the challenge would be and then come up with a solution is, I think, slightly unreasonable.
“Is there going to be a specific number? Are we going to say ‘We are going to give you this amount of money on September 7’? No, I think that would be irresponsible to do that.
“What we can say is – like the Prime Minister has – there is a package on its way.”
Decisive action
Ms Truss has promised “decisive action” to deliver “immediate support” if she wins the contest.
But she has so far been vague about what form this assistance might take apart from slashing green levies on energy bills and reversing the controversial National Insurance hike.
She has argued it is not “right” to announce her full plan before the contest is over or she has seen all the analysis being prepared in Whitehall.
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The irrelevant former Secretary of State for keeping Wales down commenting a the race to appoint Beavis or Butthead as PM. Is all this worthless waste talk flushable or should it go into a bag for landfill?
On the race I mean.
Dyn sy’n ymwybodol bod ei geffyl wedi cwympio.
Pa werth yw unryw geffyl sydd heb ei bedair coes ? Both Truss and Sunak are major defectives, which shows that at heart the Tories are gearing up for eviction at the next GE and have put up their 2 biggest duds ( their view not necessarily mine)so that someone a bit better (if such a person exists in the party) can be elected leader post GE !
The more one looks at it the more it seems that neither horse has legs !
Any other profession and she would not even have got an interview…high office should have an even higher bar…weed out the crazies, the psychopaths and the serial killers at least!
We will see next week if this is a shrewd comment or a press release that has aged very badly.