Liz Truss says UK workers lack ‘skill and application’ in leaked audio

The Tory leadership favourite Liz Truss has come under fire for suggesting British workers are lazy, in comments she made in a leaked audio recording.

In the recording, obtained by The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar, Truss suggests British citizens lack the “skill and application” of foreign nationals and need “more graft”.

Truss’s inflammatory comments, which were made when she was the chief secretary to the Treasury, also include a suggestion that the disparity between British and overseas workers was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.

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‘Half a decade old’

When asked about the remarks at a hustings event last night, Truss said: “I don’t know what you are quoting there.” However, just hours earlier, sources in her own campaign team implied her comments were genuine, describing them as “half a decade old”.

The news has been seized upon by Labour, which described the foreign secretary’s comments as “offensive”, saying they “effectively brand British workers as lazy”.

HuffPost described the Tory leadership frontrunner’s remarks as being in “stark contrast” to her pledge at a hustings event in Darlington last week to not “talk our country down”.

At the event, Truss told those present that “I believe in Britain, unlike some of the media who choose to talk our country down.” Just 48 hours later, at another hustings in Cheltenham, she said that as PM she would “challenge those who try to talk our country down”.

‘Worst idlers in the world’

Sky News pointed out that in 2012, Truss co-authored a book called Britannia Unchained, which included a passage that described British workers as among the “worst idlers in the world”.

Truss has claimed to have not written that chapter and said fellow author and current deputy PM Dominic Raab was responsible for the section in question.

Raab later claimed that the authors, who also included home secretary Priti Patel, had taken “collective responsibility” for the book, adding: “It’s up to Liz to explain why she’s changed her view.”