Climate and cost of living campaigners converged in London protests
Thousands of supporters of Just Stop Oil have blocked four bridges across the Thames.
Protesters blocked Waterloo Bridge, Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge with sit-down protests after marching from 25 points around the centre of London.
Continue reading...Russia is suspected to have carried out explosions to put pressure on western energy supplies
Liz Truss has said a series of explosions that severely damaged Russia’s undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines were an act of sabotage.
In a joint report delivered to the United Nations last week, the Danish and Swedish governments have claimed that the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which can carry gas to Germany, were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.
Continue reading...£1bn scheme is latest to scramble to raise cash after chancellor’s tax-cutting mini-budget sparks turmoil
The pension scheme trustees at the government contractor Serco have been forced to tap the company for £60m of emergency support after the UK’s financial markets meltdown this week.
Serco’s £1bn pensions scheme is the latest to scramble to raise cash after a plunge in the pound and a meltdown in UK bond prices triggered calls on fund managers to provide collateral for niche financial products they had taken out to hedge against swings in the value of their investments.
Continue reading...Huge policy changes are needed to get UK back on track – so early publication would give an incomplete picture
The message the government wanted to get out was clear. After less than a month as prime minister, Liz Truss had converted from vocal scourge of Treasury orthodoxy to an active supporter.
Given the fallout in financial markets after the not-so-mini-budget, Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, laid on a heavily stage-managed meeting on Friday with officials from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury’s independent economic forecaster, to try to smooth over the mess.
Continue reading...Ian Russell’s campaigning after his daughter’s death has made case for online safety bill unavoidable, says peer
The online safety bill’s progress through parliament has been paused, but it is hard to see that delay lasting much longer after the conclusion of the Molly Russell inquest.
The regulatory landscape for the online world is undergoing significant change in the UK and Molly Russell’s family have contributed to that shift after becoming prominent campaigners for improved internet safety.
Continue reading...Budget watchdog to give assessment of fiscal plans next week but public will have to wait until chancellor’s November statement
Following a meeting with the prime minister, Liz Truss, and the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed it will deliver an initial forecast on 7 October.
A spokesperson for the OBR said:
[The forecast] will, as always, be based on our independent judgment about economic and fiscal prospects and the impact of the government’s policies.
We discussed the economic and fiscal outlook, and the forecast we are preparing for the chancellor’s medium-term fiscal plan.
We will deliver the first iteration of that forecast to the chancellor on Friday 7 October, and will set out the full timetable up to 23 November next week.
Continue reading...Rumours rife as farmers fear PM plans U-turn on financial subsidy measures to improve environment
The chaos in the English countryside began with the click of a civil servant’s mouse. At the end of last week, farmers who had been working with the government on environmental subsidy schemes saw that their regular meetings about it had been removed from their online diaries without warning.
This appeared to hint at what had been feared – that the new post-Brexit farming subsidy scheme was in danger of being scrapped.
Continue reading...PM and chancellor say they will not publish projections until late November despite them being ready next week
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will refuse to release forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) until more than six weeks after receiving them, despite calls for them to be published as soon as possible.
The prime minister and chancellor said they would only publish the independent forecasts on 23 November alongside a fiscal statement, despite them being ready on 7 October.
Continue reading...Private letter says ‘illegal’ plan could jeopardise free trade deal between UK and Gulf Cooperation Council
Arab ambassadors in London are urging Liz Truss not to go ahead with “an illegal and ill-judged” plan to move the British embassy to Jerusalem.
Some Arab diplomats have even said the plan could jeopardise talks on a highly prized free trade deal between the UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council due to be completed this year.
Continue reading...Watchdog said it was ready to supply information, but was not asked to do so by Kwasi Kwarteng
Q: Can you reassure listeners that your judgment is better than that of people like the IMF and the Bank of England, who have criticised the mini-budget?
Truss says:
I have to do what I believe is right for the country and what is going to help move our country forward.
Continue reading...Inaugural summit of EU initiative that aims to unite Europe on issues such as security and energy to take place in Prague
Liz Truss will attend the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC) next week, an initiative by the EU aimed at uniting the continent to work together on security and other common projects.
The prime minister plans to attend the first EPC summit in Prague on 6 October, a No 10 source told the Guardian, despite her scepticism about the EU-led initiative.
Continue reading...Finance minister announces €200bn fund to protect citizens from rising gas prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine
Germany’s finance minister has vowed that he will not follow the UK “down the path of an expansionary fiscal policy” as his government announced a €200bn (£177bn) fund designed to protect consumers and businesses from rising gas prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Europe’s largest economy will reactivate an economic stabilising fund previously used during the global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, said the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at a joint press conference with the finance minister, Christian Lindner, and the economic minister, Robert Habeck, on Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading...Tory chair Mel Stride says watchdog needs to hear how chancellor will boost growth, and suggests one option might be via immigration
Kwasi Kwarteng will be called before parliament’s Treasury watchdog and asked to hand over independent growth forecasts, as its chairman said there is “not a very broad path” out of the current economic situation.
Mel Stride, a Conservative MP and chair of the Treasury committee, said Kwarteng was “very, very unlikely to reverse” the £45bn of unfunded permanent tax cuts he announced last Friday, even though that is an option. The alternative, he said, was to act quickly to “demonstrate to the markets that growth is realistic”. The third option would be deep cuts to public spending, but that would be difficult given the current pressure of inflation, Stride said.
Continue reading...Services such as debt advice and hardship funds under threat amid £400m bill caused by inflation
A network of councils in England is warning support services for families hit hardest by the cost of living crisis face being axed amid an unexpected £400m bill caused by soaring inflation.
Services that district councils have no legal obligation to provide – such as debt and benefits advice, hardship funds for families, homelessness prevention projects and help hubs for people facing poverty – are under threat.
Continue reading...King’s College London finds 65% believe campuses places of ‘robust debate’ – but growing number disagrees
Most UK students say their universities are places of free speech and debate – although a growing number are aware of free speech being restricted on campus, a study published by King’s College London has found.
The analysis, by KCL’s Policy Institute, found that 65% of students agreed that “free speech and robust debate are well protected in my university”, a higher proportion than the 63% who felt that way in a survey three years ago.
Continue reading...Bank of England left with no action but to intervene after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget
The Bank of England has been forced into emergency action to halt a run on Britain’s pension funds after the impact of Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-received mini budget prompted fears of a 2008-style financial crisis.
Threadneedle Street said the fallout from a dramatic rise in government borrowing costs since the chancellor’s statement had left it with no choice but to intervene to protect the UK’s financial system.
Continue reading...Additional requirements would be time-consuming and threaten capacity, Dover port boss says
Post-Brexit Channel border delays could multiply from next May, with a five-person vehicle being held for up to 10 minutes if the EU goes ahead with a planned biometric entry system, the Port of Dover has said.
The entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc.
Continue reading...No 10 says PM has faith in chancellor, as Treasury minister says tax cuts are the ‘right plan’. This blog is now closed
Q: When would you get debt falling as a proprotion of GDP?
Starmer says Labour does want to get that down.
Continue reading...While there are questions about the pace of Labour’s proposals, criticism in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark
Labour’s ambitious plan for zero-carbon power by 2030 raises legitimate questions – which we’ll come to shortly – but the commentary in rightwing newspapers is bizarrely wide of the mark.
Perhaps the strangest was a Daily Telegraph editorial that claimed Labour’s plan “would make the country more dependent on imported gas, not less”. As should be obvious, the opposite is true.
Continue reading...Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson to announce plan to fund breakfast clubs in every primary school
Labour will rebuild a new childcare system to ease the pressure on parents from the “end of parental leave right through to the end of primary school”, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said, starting with a pledge on free breakfast clubs.
Phillipson will announce on Wednesday that fully funded breakfast clubs for every primary school in England would be funded by the revenues raised by restoring the top rate of income tax to 45p, if Labour were elected.
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