Category Archives: Politics

No 10 warns of ‘difficult decisions’ on public spending despite Truss’s vow to avoid cuts – UK politics live

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Statement from No 10 comes straight after PM told MPs she was ‘absolutely’ committed to avoiding public spending cuts

Sajid Javid, the former Tory chancellor, has been speaking at an event organised by the Legatum Institute thinktank this morning. As Chris Smyth from the Times reports, Javid said the turmoil in the markets was caused by the fact that the tax cuts in the mini-budget went “way beyond” what Liz Truss promised during the leadership campaign, and by the fact that her energy bills bailout was also much bigger than expected.

The government has drawn up a plan to cap the unit cost of gas and electricity for two years. Labour proposed its own plan to freeze energy bills, but it only proposed a commitment for six months.

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Only UK parliament can approve a Scottish independence poll, court told

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All four nations would have interest in referendum so Westminster has authority, UK government lawyer tells supreme court

Judges sitting in the UK’s highest court have been told Westminster is the ultimate authority on Scotland’s future because Scottish independence is of “critical importance” to the future of the UK.

Sir James Eadie KC, a senior lawyer acting for the UK government, said the union between Scotland and England was “the constitutional foundation of the modern British state”, and mattered to everyone in the UK.

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Liz Truss insists tax cuts will go ahead despite public spending promise

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PM suggests borrowing will rise as she surprises MPs by saying she has no plans to cut public spending

Liz Truss has said the Conservatives will push ahead with tax cuts without cutting public spending, instead allowing borrowing to rise over the next few years.

Senior economists had warned on Wednesday that such a strategy, if set out by Kwasi Kwarteng in the chancellor’s fiscal plan at the end of this month, would be likely to spook investors, creating renewed market turmoil.

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One in five families in Liz Truss’s seat would lose out under real-term benefit cuts

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Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows impact of increasing benefits in line with earnings, not inflation

At least one in five working-age families in most UK constituencies – including in Liz Truss’s seat – would lose out by hundreds of pounds on average if real-terms benefit cuts go ahead, a study has found.

The scale of the impact of a below-inflation rise on already struggling households and by extension, local shops and businesses, is revealed in a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It would amount to the biggest-ever real terms cut to benefits in a single year.

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UK trade regulators struggling to cope due to poor Brexit planning, MPs say

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Commons committee warns there are still shortages of staff to deal with UK’s new status as a third country

UK regulators are struggling to cope with the post-Brexit trading environment because of “poor preparation and planning”, a House of Commons committee investigation has found.

Almost two years after the UK quit the EU, there are still shortages of vets, toxicologists, lawyers and economists to deal with the UK’s new status as a “third country”, found the public accounts committee report, Regulating After EU Exit.

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Power giants to face windfall tax after all as Liz Truss delivers U-turn

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Prime minister accused of ‘another screeching U-turn’ having previously rejected calls to impose levy

Renewable power companies will have their revenues capped in England and Wales, after the government bowed to pressure to clamp down on runaway profits.

The announcement late on Tuesday night provoked immediate accusations that Downing Street had performed “another screeching U-turn” – having previously rejected calls to impose a windfall tax on power giants.

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The Bank of England’s lifeboat is in choppy waters with its bond buying

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Pensions hedging crisis shows how the City never seems equipped to handle the next big financial hazard

Pension funds have found themselves embroiled in a byzantine world of exotic financial trading that many of them appear to have badly misunderstood.

On Tuesday, a third rescue mission in little more than a fortnight was announced by the Bank of England, which is reprising its role in the 2008 financial crisis as the City’s lifeboat.

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Pound falls sharply against dollar after Bank confirms bond-buying end date

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Sterling falls more than a cent to below $1.10 after Andrew Bailey tells pension firms they have ‘got to get this done’

The pound has fallen sharply against the dollar after Andrew Bailey warned the Bank of England would not extend its emergency intervention in financial markets beyond this week, after the turmoil sparked by the government’s mini-budget.

Sterling skidded by more than a cent against the dollar to below $1.10 after the Bank’s governor insisted the £65bn scheme to purchase UK government bonds would not be continued beyond the deadline on Friday.

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Starmer’s chief of staff to leave job as Labour leader unveils major party shake-up – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Labour leader hoping to put party on war footing ahead of next election

In the supreme court Dorothy Bain KC, the lord advocate, the Scottish government’s most senior law officer, is now setting out her case.

Here is the 50-page submission to the court setting our her case that was released in July.

Despite the political context of this reference, the questions the court has to decide are limited to technical questions of law. The court will decide them by applying legal principles.

The court will require time after the hearing to prepare its judgement. The hearing is the tip of the iceberg. We also have more than 8000 pages of written material to consider.

Therefore, as usual, is likely to be some months before we get our judgement.

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Keir Starmer axes chief of staff to put Labour on ‘election footing’

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Restructuring includes departure of Sam White, as party leader seeks to capitalise on slump in Tory support

Keir Starmer has announced a major shake-up of his political team, including the departure of his chief of staff, Sam White, saying Labour was being put on an immediate election footing.

Boosted by turmoil in the Conservative party and a string of hefty leads in opinion polls, Starmer said the party needed to move into the next phase of election readiness.

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Supreme court urged to authorise fresh Scottish independence referendum

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UK’s highest court asked to allow Scottish parliament to resolve ‘festering issue’ without Westminster approval

The UK’s highest court has been told the question of Scotland’s independence is a “live and significant one”, and has been urged to authorise a fresh referendum next year.

Dorothy Bain KC, the lord advocate and Scotland’s top law officer, told the supreme court on Tuesday morning that Scottish voters had consistently elected MPs and MSPs who backed independence.

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No signs Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapon, says GCHQ boss

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UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats

The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin.

Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.

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Kwasi Kwarteng’s secret meetings with Saudi oil firms revealed

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Exclusive: Meetings while in Saudi Arabia undisclosed due to ‘administrative oversight’, says business department

The chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was the business secretary, documents acquired by the Guardian show.

The meetings occurred in January, when Kwarteng visited the kingdom for a two-day trip under his previous ministerial role.

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Truss overrules Kwarteng Treasury pick in bid to calm markets

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Veteran official gets permanent secretary role instead of reformer as fiscal plan is brought forward by three weeks

Liz Truss has overruled Kwasi Kwarteng’s top appointment at the Treasury and handed the role to a veteran Treasury official, one of a series of moves designed to calm markets and backbenchers.

It was also announced that the chancellor will set out plans to shore up the public finances three weeks earlier than planned and publish long-awaited forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility at the same time.

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Profumo spy had weakness for women and drink, archives reveal

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Files on Russian intelligence officer and ‘lady-killer’ Eugene Ivanov littered with reports of drunkenness

Eugene Ivanov, the Russian spy at the centre of the 1963 Profumo scandal, was a philandering alcoholic whose weakness for women and drink M15 hoped to exploit to get him to defect, but who ended up toppling the Macmillan government by chance, according to newly released intelligence files.

He arrived at the Russian embassy in London as assistant naval attache in 1960 but M15 suspected he was an intelligence officer, partly because he didn’t seem to know much about ships and also he carried an umbrella.

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Unfunded tax cuts mean UK ‘will need £60bn spending cuts’

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IFS says Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget will leave ministers making serious reductions in public services

Kwasi Kwarteng will need to find £60bn of savings by 2026 to fill the gap left by unfunded tax cuts and the costs of extra borrowing triggered by a panicked reaction on international money markets to the chancellor’s “mini-budget”, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The UK will also struggle to hit the chancellor’s 2.5% growth target, with economic forecasts by the investment bank Citigroup that the IFS uses to underpin its analysis showing the UK will struggle to grow at more than 0.8% on average over the next five years.

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Liz Truss on verge of major U-turn on real-terms benefits cut

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Exclusive: Tory MPs warn PM she would lose vote on increasing benefits only in line with earnings rather than inflation

Liz Truss is teetering on the edge of performing another big U-turn as Tory MPs warned she would lose a vote on delivering a real-terms cut to benefits while new research showed the move could push an extra 450,000 people into poverty.

Despite desperate pleas for party unity from senior ministers after weeks of bitter infighting, the row over welfare threatened to overshadow the prime minister’s attempt to reassert her authority when the Commons returns from recess on Tuesday.

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Liz Truss travel bill in last months as foreign secretary hit nearly £2m

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Exclusive: Lib Dems accuse PM of ‘taking taxpayer for a ride’ with expense of 20 overseas trips between January and June this year

Liz Truss racked up a bill of almost £2m on overseas visits during her final months as foreign secretary, according to new analysis that the Liberal Democrats said showed she had “quite literally been taking the taxpayer for a ride”.

In 20 trips during the first six months of the year, a total of £1.8m was spent, despite the now prime minister’s call for prudence with public money and government departments being told to find “efficiency savings”.

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Truss and Kwarteng will face fury of Tory MPs in week of crisis meetings

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The PM and chancellor will try to stop panic spreading through the party after their high-risk economic plan threatens a ‘death spiral’

The prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, will face the wrath of Tory MPs at a succession of crisis meetings in parliament this week as their high-risk economic policies hit their poll ratings and spread panic in all wings of the party.

After a turbulent first five weeks at No 10 and an ill-disciplined, chaotic annual conference in Birmingham last week, Truss is expected to address the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers on Wednesday evening after taking on Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions.

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Conor Burns sacked after being seen ‘touching young man’s thigh’, witness says

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Tory minister, who denies any wrongdoing, reported for incident in hotel bar during party’s conference

The trade minister Conor Burns was sacked from the government and suspended as a Conservative MP after he was seen touching a young man’s thigh in a Tory conference hotel bar, it has been claimed.

According to the BBC on Saturday, an eyewitness said the former minister was seen with the man in the early hours of Tuesday in the Hyatt Regency hotel bar in Birmingham, which was a popular venue for conference attenders. Burns has denied any wrongdoing.

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