FORMER Chancellor Rishi Sunak is the right Prime Minister to guide the country through tough economic times, according to MP Gillian Keegan.
The care and mental health minister gave her full backing to Mr Sunak, who is currently leading the Tory leadership race, during an interview on GB News this morning.
Asked why he is best suited, she said: “We need a serious person for serious times. We have to navigate very difficult economic challenges…we need to grow our economy and rebuild post the pandemic.
“I think Rishi has proven experience of doing that. Now, he didn’t have experience when he first became the chancellor, but as we saw, he was thoroughly tested.”
Asked if he was unpopular among the Tory grass roots for his role in toppling Prime Minister Boris Johnson, she said Mr Sunak would come out on top because he is a tax-cutter.
“The first thing about the taxes is he actually raised the threshold for National Insurance, so that did lower taxes,” she said.
“What he would do is, it goes in this order, tackle inflation, tackle the cost of living, grow the economy, and then cut taxes.
“If you do that the wrong way round, you cut taxes first, you actually potentially feed into rising inflation and therefore also rising interest rates, which will probably impact people even more.
“A lot of sound economists know this. So yes, absolutely, he wants to cut taxes and he will cut taxes, but we need to make sure we don’t feel inflation. We don’t fuel interest rates rises and we tackle the cost of living crisis first, that’s the biggest and first priority.”
She told GB News that people need not be alarmed that remainer Jeremy Hunt is on Mr Sunak’s team.
“Well, if you look at Rishi, he’s got people from all across the spectrum, north, south, Red Wall seats, shire seats, all different wings of the party, all different views on Brexit, different views on many different issues. He’s actually united quite a large coalition.
“He’s also had pretty much every former former chancellor who is Conservative chancellor who is still alive saying that is the right thing to do.”
Ms Keegan added: “In terms of Jeremy Hunt, Jeremy Hunt said something I thought was actually quite lovely. He said I’ve worked in politics with lots of people for a long time, and I’ve never met anybody with as much integrity, trust and honesty and decency as Rishi Sunak.
“That’s a lovely thing for anyone to say about you, but that is true, that’s what you do get with Rishi.
“He’s very open, he’s very transparent. He’s also really, really experienced and proven and actually really good. I’d be very proud if he was our Prime Minister.”
