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Liz Truss's Conservative party conference speech: 6 key moments

Liz Truss's Conservative party conference speech: 6 key moments
'I’m not interested in how many two-for-one offers you buy at the …
Indy

Liz Truss today spoke at the Conservative Party conference - her first (and maybe last?) as the party's leader.

The prime minister didn't mention cheese as she did in 2014, but instead attacked a nebulous "anti-growth coalition" and vowed to deliver on Brexit, protect Ukraine, and make the country generally amazing.

She was also interrupted by Greenpeace hecklers and walked out to a song that awkwardly was originally performed by the mother of a Labour councillor.

Didn't watch it? We can't blame you.

Here's what you missed:

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1. Awkward song choice

Truss walked on to the stage with 'Moving On Up' playing as her intro music – a song by the mother of a Labour councillor.

Heather Small, a member of the 90s music group M People, is the mother of James Small-Edwards, who was elected as a member of the City of Westminster council in May. The 25-year-old claimed victory in the Bayswater ward, one of three Labour candidates to take a seat in the area.

The founder of M People wasn't impressed:

Previously, people had joked she should walk on to songs like Firestarter and Common People.


2. Obesity plan

Then Truss kicked her speech off by ditching her predecessor Boris Johnson's obesity strategy by signalling she will drop plans to ban 2-for-1 junk food offers.

"I'm not interested in how many 2-for-1 offers you buy at the supermarket or how you spend your time or virtue signalling," she said.

She said people know how to spend their money better than the government.


3. Dodgy school claims

While going on about how great she is, Truss claimed she is the first British prime minister to have attended a comprehensive school.

“I stand here as the first prime minister of our country to have gone to a comprehensive school,” the PM said, pausing for applause.

But there's just a few problems with the claim. Theresa May attended Holton Park Girls' Grammar School, which was a state school that became new Wheatley Park Comprehensive School while she was a pupil.

Meanwhile, John Major, David Lloyd George, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, and Margaret Thatcher all went to non-fee paying schools.


4. Greenpeace protest

That was a bit of a clanger but things went from bad to worse. As the PM was speaking, two protesters appeared holding a sign saying "who voted for this". They were led away by security.

"Later on in my speech I'm going to talk about the anti-growth coalition, but I think they arrived in the hall a bit too early," the prime minister said.


5. The "anti-growth coalition"

Truss then reached a crescendo and attacked the "anti-growth coalition" which she seemed to think is just about everyone who disagrees with her.

"We will not allow anti-growth coalition to hold us back," she said, going on to list the group as "Labour, Lib Dems & SNP, militant unions, vested interests dressed up as think tanks, the talking heads, the Brexit deniers and Extinction Rebellion".

She copied Johnson's odd fixation with North London by claiming people "taxi from North London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo."

She also accused her opponents as being obsessed with “more taxes, more regulation and more meddling, also calling them “enemies of enterprise” and saying: “Wrong, wrong, wrong."

To her, Labour leader Keir Starmer only has a "sticking plaster solution" to economic issues and she also stressed it is important to keep taxes low.



6. "Growth, growth, growth"

However she can't think he's all bad as she appeared to copy Starmer's 'growth, growth, growth' slogan during her speech.

"I have three priorities for our economy: Growth, growth, growth," she said.

In a campaign video from July, Keir Starmer could be heard saying: "There is no task more central to my ambitions for Britain than making the country and its people better off.

"We will build a new Britain for a new era," she concluded.

It will be a new era for sure. Whether it will be a good era though....

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