Cometh the hour, cometh the woman...

No PM since Maggie has faced a tougher in-tray than Liz Truss. Now she plans a ‘shock and awe’ strategy on energy bills, tax and the NHS to stamp her mark on Britain

LIZ Truss will freeze energy bills, slash taxes and shake up the NHS in a ‘shock and awe’ bid to stamp her authority on government.

The new Tory leader, who succeeds Boris Johnson as Prime Minister today, will launch a policy blitz aimed at uniting her warring party and decisively dealing with the cost of living crisis.

her ministers were last night locked in talks with energy bosses to thrash out details of a ‘freeze’ in bills that could last two years and cost £100billion. Miss Truss was confirmed as leader of the Conservative Party yesterday after defeating Rishi Sunak 57:43 in a vote by members.

In her acceptance speech she vowed to ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’. She added: ‘I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis dealing with people’s energy bills, but

also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply. And I will deliver on the National Health Service.’

The new Government will set out details of the energy freeze within a week, possibly as soon as Thursday.

Kwasi Kwarteng, who will be appointed as chancellor today, will then hold an emergency budget in the next fortnight to deliver on Miss Truss’s campaign pledges to reverse the rise in national insurance and cancel a planned hike in corporation tax.

Yesterday Mr Kwarteng signalled an end to decades of Treasury orthodoxy, saying he was willing to borrow billions more pounds in order to protect households and boost growth.

Miss Truss is planning a major shakeup of the NHS in the coming weeks aimed at cutting costs and tackling waiting lists. Therese Coffey, who is set to be appointed as health secretary, has been ordered to come up with a plan for slashing NHS red tape and delivering on Miss Truss’s pledge to transfer billions from the health budget to social care to fix the bed-blocking crisis crippling hospitals.

A campaign insider said: ‘Liz will move fast on energy bills, on the economy and the NHS. It is going to be shock and awe.’ The moves came as:

■ Mr Johnson led calls for the party to unite behind Miss Truss;

■ She will fly to Balmoral to be formally appointed as prime minister by the Queen this lunchtime;

■ Home Secretary Priti Patel announced she would return to the backbenches with Attorney General Suella Braverman set to replace her;

■ Today’s reshuffle is expected to leave no white men in any of the four ‘great offices of state’ for the first time, with James Cleverly tipped to succeed Miss Truss as foreign secretary;

■ Miss Truss appeared to rule out an early election, pledging to deliver a ‘great victory’ over Labour in 2024;

■ Labour called for a snap general election, saying that Miss Truss needed a ‘fresh mandate’;

■ Jake Berry, head of the Northern Research Group of MPs, was in talks about becoming Tory chairman – a sign of Miss Truss’s determination to hold on to one-time Red Wall seats;

■ Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it would be ‘over’ for the Conservatives unless they now united behind Miss Truss;

■ Amid rumours he is considering a comeback Mr Johnson was installed as favourite to succeed her if she falters;

■ Miss Truss was preparing to lift the ban on fracking as early as this week;

■ Mr Sunak signalled he would not take a job in Miss Truss’s new Cabinet but insisted he would not make trouble from the backbenches;

■ Tory grandees called for a shake-up of the leadership rules to prevent a repeat of the drawn-out contest.

In her speech yesterday, Miss Truss pledged to hold to the 2019 manifesto pledges that helped Mr Johnson secure an election landslide. ‘During this leadership campaign, I campaigned as a Conservative and I will govern as a Conservative,’ she said. ‘We need to show that we will deliver over the next two years.’

She paid tribute to her predecessor – claiming he was ‘admired from Kyiv to Carlisle’ – and celebrated her win at a victory lunch with husband Hugh O’Leary and senior aides ahead of their move to No 10 today.

She has spent the past fortnight at her country retreat, Chevening, drawing up a detailed plan for her first month in office.

Penny Mordaunt, who is expected to join the Cabinet today, told Channel 4 News: ‘She’s very humbled. She wants to get cracking straight away. She is one of the best prepared new prime ministers we have ever had.’

In the early stages of the leadership contest Miss Truss had set her face against ‘handouts’ to deal with the cost of living crisis. Sources said she had since been convinced that the scale of the energy emergency is so great it requires major government action.

Miss Truss is expected to brief her Cabinet on the plans tomorrow ahead of an announcement on Thursday, although aides said the timetable could slip to the beginning of next week.

Mr Kwarteng said he was ready to ditch the ‘economic managerialism’ that had left the UK with ‘a stagnating economy and anaemic growth’.

But former Tory chancellor Lord Hammond warned that Treasury orthodoxy amounted to ‘the economic facts of life’ and could not be ignored.

Miss Truss’s margin of victory was tighter than polls had suggested and narrower than the 2:1 result Mr Johnson secured over Jeremy Hunt in 2019.

One Sunak-supporting MP warned she could quickly run into trouble at Westminster if she failed to reach out to her Tory opponents.

The source said the incoming PM – who is expected to shun most of Mr Sunak’s supporters in today’s reshuffle – appeared to have underestimated ‘the power of the parliamentary party to take away very quickly the prize that she has just won’.

Labour’s health spokesman Wes Streeting called for an immediate election, comparing the Tories to a ‘gang of arsonists saying to the country, “Trust me to put out the fire”.’