Category Archives: Politics

Truss and Sunak clash on energy costs at penultimate Tory hustings

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Truss remained loath to ‘bung money’ at those struggling to afford spiralling bills, Sunak said millions may be forced into destitution

Liz Truss has doubled down on her reluctance to “bung more money” at those who will struggle to afford spiralling energy costs this winter while Rishi Sunak said millions may be forced into destitution without extra support, as the pair clashed at the penultimate hustings of the Conservative leadership race.

With energy regulator Ofgem expected to raise the price cap to £3,500 a year from October for the average dual-fuel tariff, Truss warned the issue of spiralling fuel costs was not a short-term one. “If people think this problem is going to be over in six months they are not right. This is a long term problem,” she told the audience in Norfolk.

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Truss and Sunak face Tory hustings after both say Covid lockdown went too far – as it happened

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Latest updates: Tory leadership frontrunner reacts to Sunak comments, saying school closures went too far; pair meet Tory members in Norwich

Lee Cain, who was director of communications in Downing Street during the early phase of the Covid crisis, says Rishi Sunak’s comments about the lockdown policy (see 9.22am and 9.47am) are “simply wrong”.

But Sunak is not saying lockdown should not have happened, as Cain suggests. He is just saying that it was implemented too rigidly, and perhaps for too long, and that more consideration should have been given to the downsides.

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Sunak accused of ‘rewriting history’ by saying No 10 ignored lockdown harms

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Tory leadership hopeful says he was prevented from raising negative effects of Covid measures

Rishi Sunak has been accused of trying to “rewrite history” after he claimed the harms of lockdown were ignored, meaning curbs on people’s freedoms may have gone on too long and been overly strict.

The Conservative leadership hopeful was criticised for his account of the discussions at the heart of government when he was chancellor amid frantic attempts to curb the spread of the virus and avoid the NHS becoming overwhelmed.

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Home Office planning new deportation flight to Rwanda

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Some asylum seekers have received letters saying government intends to remove them, the Guardian has learned

The Home Office is planning a new deportation flight to Rwanda, the Guardian has learned.

Some newly arrived asylum seekers in hotels have received letters from the department telling them their asylum claims are deemed inadmissible for consideration in the UK.

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Philip Hammond’s consultancy firm made almost £1m in profit

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Filings cover period ex-chancellor worked for controversial clients including Saudi government

The former chancellor Philip Hammond’s private consultancy has generated almost £1m in profits while working for controversial clients including the government of Saudi Arabia, company filings suggest.

Accounts filed this month suggest the Conservative peer has built a lucrative business since leaving government in 2019 providing “advisory services” to an array of private sector and foreign government clients.

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Economists demand urgent action on energy bills to avert ‘catastrophe’

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Millions of vulnerable people will be harmed without radical policies to ease cost of living crisis, say experts

Physical and financial harm will be caused to millions of vulnerable families unless the government takes action to avert a winter catastrophe by cutting energy bills, leading economists have warned.

In the run-up to the announcement of the new energy price cap tomorrow the Resolution Foundation thinktank said radical policies such as price freezes, solidarity taxes or lower social tariffs were needed to prevent the cost of living crisis worsening.

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Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic

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Ex-chancellor admits being furious about school closures, adding trade-offs of lockdowns were not properly considered by experts

Rishi Sunak has claimed that it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the coronavirus pandemic and that his opposition to closing schools was met with silence during one meeting.

The Conservative leadership candidate believes one of the major errors was allowing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much influence on decision making such as closing nurseries, schools and colleges in March 2020.

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Sacked Labour MP Sam Tarry faces reselection battle before party conference

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Supporters of former shadow transport minister who joined RMT picket lines says process fast-tracked out of ‘revenge’

The Labour MP Sam Tarry is facing an imminent reselection battle before the party conference, with his supporters accusing figures close to the leadership of fast-tracking the process out of “revenge”.

The Ilford South MP was sacked as a shadow transport minister in July after attending a picket line in support of RMT workers, but Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, later said the reason he was removed from his role was for making up policy “on the hoof” in television interviews.

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Workers’ anger at cost of living as strong as time of poll tax riots, union boss says

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Sharon Graham, head of Unite, on picket line with Felixstowe dock strikers, says people could rise up again as they did in the 1990s

British workers are at breaking point, with anger over the cost of living crisis reaching a level not seen since the poll tax riots of the 1990s, the head of one of the UK’s most powerful trade unions has said.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said frustration at pay failing to keep pace with soaring inflation was spilling over into a wave of strike action that would extend from a summer of discontent into the winter.

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Tories offer access to new chancellor for £3,000

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Business day at party’s autumn conference will give lobbyists and CEOs access to senior ministers, raising ethics concerns

The Tories are selling access to the new chancellor and senior ministers ​at almost £3,000 a ticket for corporate leaders and lobbyists at their autumn conference, saying it will help firms “take your business to the next level”.

The party is advertising spaces for its “prestigious” annual business day at £2,990 a head, saying it will give attenders the chance to interact with “key decision makers in the party”.

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Putin to blame for UK’s high energy bills, says Johnson on surprise visit to Kyiv

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Prime minister says while Britons face higher costs, Ukrainians are ‘paying in their blood’ for Russia’s aggression

Vladimir Putin is to blame for British people being hit by high energy bills while Ukrainian people are “paying in their blood”, Boris Johnson has said as he made a final visit to Kyiv as prime minister.

In his third visit to the country since Russia invaded in the spring, Johnson urged the international community to “stay the course” in its support for Ukraine. The outgoing prime minister also told the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that Ukraine “can and will win the war”.

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Next PM could face £23bn autumn spend to cover £900 rise in energy bills

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Energy prices have soared above prediction and subsidies will require significant further spending

Ministers could face an additional £23bn price tag for covering extra household energy costs of £900 this autumn, rising to £90bn next year, a new paper by the Institute for Government has found.

The paper, looking at the options for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak in No 10, also warned the government should plan for prolonged rises in energy bills by going a lot further in making public appeals to use less gas – for example by informing consumers about the cost savings from turning down thermostats – and in committing to building more energy efficient homes to help protect consumers.

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Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

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Move opens new policy gap between unions and Labour party, which is reluctant to commit to specific figure under Keir Starmer

The minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible to help millions of low-paid workers struggling amid the cost of living crisis, the TUC has said.

In a move that opens a fresh policy gap between unions and Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the TUC has thrown its weight behind calls for a more ambitious legal floor on pay rates. The union body said the government needed to draw up plans to get wages rising as workers suffer the biggest hit to living standards on record.

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TUC picks opportune moment to call for rise in minimum wage

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Analysis: £15 an hour is ‘logical next step’ amid cost of living crisis but neither Labour or Tories likely to back campaign

• Minimum wage should be increased to £15 an hour as soon as possible, says TUC

The TUC has chosen its moment well. With Britain gripped by a cost of living crisis, the umbrella body for trade unions has called for the minimum wage to be raised from £9.50 to £15 an hour as soon as possible, and by 2030 at the latest.

It is an ambitious target, as the TUC openly accepts. The minimum wage is now 64% of median earnings. A £15-an-hour minimum wage by 2030 would be 75% of median earnings, the highest of any of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development group of rich countries.

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Liz Truss refuses to commit to appointing ethics adviser

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Tory leadership hopeful says there is no need for independent body as she has ‘always acted with integrity’

Liz Truss has refused to commit to appointing an ethics adviser if she became prime minister, saying she has “always acted with integrity”.

At the Conservative leadership hustings in Birmingham on Tuesday night, Truss declined to directly answer whether she would appoint someone to the role, instead saying she would “ensure the correct apparatus is in place so that people are able to whistle-blow”.

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Tory leadership hustings – Birmingham: Liz Truss confirms she will allow new grammar schools – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read our latest story on the leadership contest here:

The cross-party Commons Treasury committee has expressed concerns about reports that Liz Truss, the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest, may hold an emergency budget in September without asking the Office for Budget Responsibility to update its fiscal and economic forecast.

The OBR usually publishes a new forecast alongside a budget, and it provides an independent assessment of what impact the budget measures will have. The system was put in place by George Osborne to discourage the Treasury from making dubious claims about what its tax and spending announcements might be able to achieve.

OBR forecasts provide transparency and reassurance to the markets on the health of the nation’s finances. As a committee, we expect the Treasury to be supporting and enabling the OBR to publish an independent forecast at the time of any significant fiscal event, especially where, unlike other recent fiscal interventions, this might include significant permanent tax cuts.

Whether such an event is actually called a budget or not is immaterial. The reassurance of independent forecasting is vital in these economically turbulent times. To bring in significant tax cuts without a forecast would be ill advised. It is effectively ‘flying blind’.

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6m disabled people in UK to get £150 cost of living payment in September

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Government says one-off sum for those on certain benefits will be paid automatically from late next month

About 6 million disabled people across the UK will receive a £150 cost of living payment from the end of next month, the government has said.

The one-off payment, announced in May, will be paid automatically to people who receive certain disability benefits from 20 September, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

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Priti Patel urges Meta to give up on end-to-end encryption plans

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UK home secretary hits out at Facebook’s owner over move that could hinder child abuse investigations

Priti Patel has hit out at Facebook’s plans to encrypt direct messages, even as the company is facing criticism in the US for failing to protect the privacy of women seeking abortions.

The UK home secretary has urged Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as WhatsApp, to give up on its intentions to apply “end-to-end encryption” to direct messages sent from Messenger and Instagram.

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Tory big beasts put careers on line with aggressive criticism of Truss

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Analysis: Strength of attacks suggests they come from strong belief that frontrunner’s policies are wrong

There has been no shortage of cabinet big beasts willing to place their careers on the line for the failing Tory leadership campaign of Rishi Sunak. Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock – not to mention Sunak himself – have not held back in their aggressive criticism of Liz Truss.

Traditionally, in the dying days of a leadership contest, some of the animosity dissipates as the likely losing candidate assesses their prospects of a job in a new administration. However, Sunak and his supporters have been vehement in their attacks on Truss’s economic policies, with the strength of their criticism increasing in recent days.

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Liz Truss’s arrival in No 10 ‘could deliver Tories a big bounce in polls’

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Exclusive: leaked Labour analysis says foreign secretary could revive party’s fortunes – but effect may be short-lived

Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss could give the government a double-figure bounce in the polls once she is installed in No 10, according to internal Labour analysis.

A memo drawn up by Keir Starmer’s director of strategy, Deborah Mattinson, claimed the foreign secretary could dramatically improve Conservative fortunes.

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