Liz Truss feels “ready” to launch Trident nuclear weapons, the frontrunner for Conservative leadership declared at Tuesday’s hustings in Birmingham, confirming that making such a decision was an “important duty of the prime minister.”
The foreign secretary did not elaborate on which country the UK might be persuaded to use nuclear weapons against. She has delivered plenty of hawkish rhetoric along the campaign trail, primarily targeting Russia, and is an avid booster of the Ukrainian cause.
Truss also pledged to raise military spending by 3% of GDP by the end of the decade.
Both candidates have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the dismal state of the British economy, plagued by high inflation, high gas prices and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living, widely seen as resulting from unilateral restrictions imposed by London and its allies.
Truss and Sunak have also taken issue with Putin’s planned attendance at the upcoming G20 summit in Indonesia, though Sunak wants to see him barred entirely and Truss said she would prefer to personally confront him at the event.
As of Tuesday, Truss is 26 points ahead her rival and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, according to Politico. Whoever wins will replace Boris Johnson as the British prime minister.
While Sunak was among the first to quit his post in Johnson’s cabinet, Truss was among the handful of high-ranking officials who refused to do so despite the mounting scandals, citing loyalty as her reason.
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