Former health secretary backs former chancellor for PM; Cop26 president backs ex-PM; leader of the Commons announces candidacy
Meanwhile, two out of five maternity units in England are providing substandard care to mothers and babies, the NHS watchdog has warned.
“The quality of maternity care is not good enough,” the Care Quality Commission (CQC) said in its annual assessment of how health and social care services are performing.
Continue reading...With budgets always tight some smaller football clubs are looking to offset their soaring power costs
Shrewsbury Town’s fans had long since filed out of the Montgomery Waters Meadow stadium after the defender Chey Dunkley had scored an injury-time winner against Exeter, when Brian Caldwell looked angrily skyward. The League One club’s chief executive was unimpressed to see the ground’s floodlights still burning bright.
Caldwell is among the football executives trying to limit the financial pain from huge energy bills. Faced with an even bigger surge in his annual costs, Caldwell was forced to settle for a £100,000 increase, to £180,000, when signing a new energy contract in April. “It’s a massive dent in our finances. Football clubs are not normal businesses, they’re set up to break even and put the money you can into the playing budget,” he said.
Continue reading...Number of publicly declared MPs is growing as three candidates emerge as favourites in the race
The number of publicly declared MPs who are backing potential candidates for the Conservative leadership is growing, with three key figures emerging: the former chancellor Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister Boris Johnson, and Penny Mordaunt, the current leader of the House of Commons. Each candidate will need at least 100 signatures to make it to the first round of voting on Monday.
As of 2:10pm on Sunday, Sunak was leading the field having received 135 public nominations.
Continue reading...The mood among backbench Conservatives after PM’s resignation seems to be overwhelmingly one of relief
There are countless indignities in becoming the briefest-serving UK prime minister of all time, and a new one arrived on Friday morning when a No 10 official was able to confirm that Liz Truss had moved into the Downing Street flat – but not whether she had had enough time to fully unpack.
Truss is spending the weekend at another prime ministerial residence, the country retreat of Chequers, where she will presumably reflect on the month and a half of chaos she visited on herself and the nation, a headily compressed incumbency that ended with Thursday’s 89-second resignation speech.
Continue reading...Paramedics in England missing 117,000 urgent calls each month, as CQC warns of ‘worrying new status quo’
Paramedics in England cannot respond to 117,000 urgent 999 calls every month because they are stuck outside hospitals looking after patients, figures show.
The amount of time ambulance crews had to wait outside A&E units meant they were unavailable to attend almost one in six incidents.
673 patients had to wait 10 hours or more to be handed over to A&E staff – NHS guidelines say no one should wait more than 15 minutes.
45,000 patients were delayed for at least an hour and 21,000 for at least two hours – just under the highest numbers ever seen.
While crews spent 558,000 hours attending incidents, they were unable to complete another 117,000 “job cycles”, which equates to 21% of total ambulance capacity – huge rises on the 45,000 job cycles or 7% of capacity in October 2019.
Continue reading...Companies including EDF, Centrica and Octopus express ‘alarm’ over bill allowing ministers to overrule Ofgem
The UK’s big energy suppliers have urged the government to reverse part of its energy prices bill, saying it grants “extensive” new powers to ministers and puts billions of pounds worth of investment in jeopardy.
The bill, which is making its way through parliament, was introduced as part of efforts to reduce household costs and address the broader energy crisis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Privilege Style causes problem for Home Office as it bows to pressure from campaigners
A charter airline hired to remove people seeking refuge in the UK to Rwanda has pulled out of the scheme after pressure from campaigners.
A plane operated by Privilege Style first attempted to fly asylum seekers to the east African country in June but was grounded by an 11th hour ruling by the European court of human rights.
Continue reading...As Starmer calls for general election, candidates scrabble to win nominations from at least 100 MPs to join race
Liz Truss announced on Thursday she was quitting No 10 after a calamitous 45 days in office, triggering a Tory leadership contest, with Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Boris Johnson battling it out to become Britain’s next prime minister.
At a lectern outside Downing Street during another tumultuous day, Truss admitted that she could not deliver the radical economic mandate on which she was elected by Conservative members.
Continue reading...Despite the departure of her home secretary, the PM could probably have clung on, but then came the extraordinary unforced errors
The final moments of a convoluted and chaotic 24 hours of political drama that culminated in Liz Truss’s downfall began at about 11.40am on Thursday, when Sir Graham Brady slipped into Downing Street via a back entrance.
The official No 10 narrative was that Truss had instigated the meeting with Brady, the shop steward for backbench Conservative MPs. Few believe that, and even if it was the case, the power balance was much like a bankrupt calling in the administrator as the inevitable loomed.
Continue reading...Weekly newspaper describes Britaly as ‘country of political instability, low growth and subordination to markets’
Italy’s ambassador to the UK has criticised the Economist for rehashing old stereotypes after featuring Liz Truss dressed as a centurion and holding a fork of spaghetti under the headline “Welcome to Britaly” on the cover of its latest edition, which focuses on Britain’s political mayhem.
Truss, who resigned as prime minister on Thursday after just 45 days in office, is also holding a pizza-shaped shield, with a union jack design and one slice eaten.
Continue reading...Threshold to reach ballot is support of 100 Tory MPs, however, and there are doubts he has sufficient backing
Boris Johnson is considering running again to be UK prime minister after Liz Truss’s dramatic resignation, with rightwing Conservative MPs and party donors already backing his nascent campaign.
The former PM, who quit in disgrace in July following a series of scandals that left his personal integrity in tatters, was expected to fly back from the Caribbean where he has been on holiday with his family.
Continue reading...Lawyers criticise ‘loopholes’ in call for mandatory reporting in England and Wales
Managing the seven-year inquiry into child sexual abuse to a set of conclusions will itself be seen as a triumph for Prof Alexis Jay. Its findings, however, have not gone far enough for many victims.
Lady Jay took over in November 2016 amid concerns the inquiry would have to be abandoned. She joined after three high-profile resignations of previous chairs over a three-year period.
Continue reading...Outgoing PM won Tory leadership after weeks of supportive stories in the Daily Mail and other outlets
Liz Truss’s hopes of becoming prime minister looked thin in early July. The then-foreign secretary was running a distant third in the Conservative leadership election, with Rishi Sunak and a surging Penny Mordaunt on track to make the final ballot that would be sent to Tory party members.
Supporters of Boris Johnson were not happy. They believed this outcome would pave the way for the coronation of Sunak, the same man who had dethroned Johnson by resigning as chancellor. Interested parties included Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor who had been promised a peerage by Johnson, which he is still hoping to secure.
Continue reading...UK government facing growing criticism for ‘weak’ response to attack on democracy campaigner
British ministers have been urged immediately to expel a senior Chinese diplomat who admitted being involved in violence against protesters in Manchester, as the government faced growing criticism over its “weak and supine” response.
Zheng Xiyuan, the Chinese consul general, said it was his “duty” to grab the hair of a pro-democracy campaigner who was badly injured after being dragged inside the consulate grounds on Sunday.
Continue reading...Nominations for next Tory leader will close at 2pm on Monday before next prime minister is confirmed on 28 October
• Liz Truss to quit as prime minister – full story
Attempting to steady the ship is Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale, who has told PA news agency that the chaos over the fracking vote had been a “storm in a teacup”, and that the appointment of Shapps could strengthen Truss’s position.
“The [Suella] Braverman issue is rather more fundamental, but I think on balance it’s possible the prime minister might come out of it actually stronger rather than weaker,” he is quoted as saying. “We need people in the government who are grown-up and experienced and understand real politics.”
Continue reading...MPs face potentially losing whip after No 10 confirms chaotic vote is being treated as confidence issue
Dozens of Conservative MPs are facing potential disciplinary action or losing the party whip after Downing Street announced that a chaotic vote on fracking was being treated as a confidence issue.
It was widely reported that Liz Truss’s chief whip, Wendy Morton, and the deputy chief whip, Craig Whittaker, had stepped down after disorderly scenes, with MPs alleging ministers physically pulled some wavering Tories into the voting lobbies.
Continue reading...Economic and Social Research Institute analysis found ‘substantial reduction in number of products traded’
Trade from the UK to the EU is down 16% on the levels anticipated had Brexit not happened, a new report has found.
Meanwhile trade from the EU to the UK has dropped even further, by 20%, relative to a scenario in which Brexit had not occurred, according to research published on Wednesday by the Economic and Social Research Institute.
Continue reading...Producer says trial asked questions about boundaries between privacy and celebrity and what it is to be a Wag
A play about the “Wagatha Christie” trial is to be staged in the West End by the producers behind Agatha Christie’s seminal drama Witness for the Prosecution.
Vardy v Rooney: the Wagatha Christie Trial, adapted from the original high court transcripts by Liv Hennessy and directed by Lisa Spirling, brings the legal battle between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney to life for one night only this autumn.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Trussell Trust to distribute 1.3m emergency food parcels to help soaring numbers of households in need
The UK’s biggest food bank network is preparing to spend millions of pounds topping up charity food parcels this winter as it offers help to record numbers of families at risk of going hungry as a result of the cost of living crisis.
The Trussell Trust said the expenditure was needed to ensure food banks had adequate food reserves because its customary main source of food supplies – donations from the public – was failing to keep pace with rapidly increasing demand.
Continue reading...Truss, who became Britain’s PM last month but has already overseen two major departures from her cabinet and several policy u-turns, is facing calls to resign
The British government appears at risk of collapse after home secretary Suella Braverman launched a stinging attack on the prime minister, Liz Truss, after being forced to resign.
Braverman’s resignation letter included a pointed rebuke of Truss. Braverman said she resigned because she sent an official government document to an MP and this was “a technical infringement of the rules”. However, her letter also contained sharp comments about Truss’s leadership, saying: “I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have had serious concerns about this government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments …” In a cursory reply, Truss told Braverman: “I accept your resignation and respect the decision you have made.”
Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, said the Tory party was “imploding” after a day of chaos in Westminster. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the government was “falling apart at the seams”.
Truss appointed a new home secretary, Grant Shapps, on Thursday afternoon, to replace Braverman. Shapps is seen as more of a moderate. He was sacked as transport secretary by Truss after she reportedly told him there was “no room at the inn” for him after she became PM. He backed Truss’s rival, Rishi Sunak, after dropping his own run for the party leadership.
With a tenure of 43 days, Braverman is the shortest-serving home secretary since the Duke of Wellington who lasted just a month in 1834. Her exit comes just days after Kwasi Kwarteng was replaced as chancellor by Jeremy Hunt, anther Conservative moderate.
The chorus of voices demanding Truss resign after a series of policy u-turns and departures from her cabinet is growing. Lord David Frost, who was Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator, has written in the Telegraph calling on Truss to resign. “Truss just can’t stay in office for one very obvious reason: she campaigned against the policies she is now implementing.”
Sir Charles Walker, a veteran Tory backbencher, said on Wednesday night that he expected Truss to resign “very soon”, and that he was “really pleased” at Braverman’s resignation. He told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight: “I expect the prime minister to resign very soon because she’s not up to her job either … I will shed no tears for either of them.” Earlier in the Commons he spoke of his anger at the scenes in Westminster, calling them a “pitiful reflection of the Conservative parliamentary party at every level”.
William Wragg, a Conservative MP, said he has written a letter to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, calling for a vote of no confidence in Truss.
The Conservative chief and deputy chief whip “remain in post”, Downing Street said, after earlier reports suggesting Wendy Morton and Craig Whittaker had quit after chaotic scenes in parliament over a vote on fracking.
Labour’s Chris Bryant said he saw Tory MPs being “physically manhandled” and “bullied” in the voting lobbies during the vote, which the government ultimately won. Bryant told Sky News: “There was a bunch of Conservative members who were completely uncertain about whether they were allowed to vote with the Labour motion because of what had been said in the chamber about whether it’s a free vote or a confidence vote. There was a group – including several cabinet ministers – who were basically shouting at them. At least one member was physically pulled through the door into the voting lobby.”
You can see how the other UK papers reported on the tumultuous day at Westminster here.
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