- Wednesday, March 12, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
BRITISH prime ministerial frontrunner Liz Truss on Monday (1) had an awkward slip-up while speaking about her foreign policy visions in front of Tory members at the second Conservative Party hustings at Exeter against opponent Rishi Sunak.
The British foreign secretary, while speaking to TalkTV hustings, said, “I will also continue to stand up for Vladimir Putin”.
The 46-year-old leader, who is leading the race against Sunak and has shown her tough image on questions on countries such as Russia and China, corrected herself in a flash, saying, “to Vladimir Putin”. She then said, “Now I put in place the toughest sanctions regime on Russia”.
“I also worked with my colleagues to make sure we were the first European country supplying weapons to Ukraine.
“But we can’t rest on our laurels.”
“We need to make sure that our defence spending is inline with the threat which has increased, so I will raise defence spending to three percent of GDP,” she said.
Britain and Russia have seen a low in their relationships in recent times over Moscow’s war in Ukraine and supply of energy to Europe. The arrest of some Britons in Ukraine by the Russian forces have made things worse.
Last month, Truss was roasted by the social media over a Twitter post she made where she wrote that she would hit the ground from Day 1 if she became the prime minister. She later deleted the post after the Twitterati hit back saying it should have been “hit the ground running”.
However, Truss received a major boost on Monday when she received the backing of junior trade minister Penny Mordaunt, who she narrowly defeated in the race to 10 Downing to make it to the final two candidates seeking to succeed outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson. Truss defeated Mordaunt by just eight votes.
The Tory members will decide whether Truss or Sunak, former finance minister, is fit to become the next British premier.
