Rishi Sunak rejects claim he has ‘doomster’ attitude to economy

theguardian.com:

The Tory leadership candidate Rishi Sunak has rejected accusations from his successor as chancellor of being a “doomster” on the economy, as he pushed his plan to cut income tax by 20% by the end of the decade.

“As chancellor I was very keen to make sure that I started cutting taxes,” Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “What I’ve announced today builds on that, and that’s because I believe in rewarding work and the best way for the government to signal that is to cut people’s income tax.”

The current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, announcing his support for Sunak’s rival, Liz Truss, in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, said: “Liz understands that the status quo isn’t an option in times of crisis.

“To quote the excellent economist Sam Bowman, we need a ‘booster’ attitude to the economy, not a ‘doomster’ one, in order to address cost of living woes and the challenges on the world stage. Liz will overturn the stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a Conservative way.”

When asked to respond to Zahawi’s remarks, Sunak laughed and said: “As you can tell, I find it rather amusing.” He pointed to his pro-Brexit credentials and economic assistance package during the Covid pandemic, adding: “It’s my opponent in this contest who wants to stick with the failed orthodoxy of having these ultra-low corporation tax rates and, you know what, they don’t work in increasing business investment in this country – we’ve tried it for a decade.

“It’s entirely different to doing things right now that would make the situation far worse and endanger people’s mortgages,” Sunak said, in an attack on Truss’s ambitions to cut taxes immediately.

Sunak is under pressure to make inroads into the lead opinion polls suggest Truss enjoys among the Tory