Category Archives: Conservatives

Jeremy Hunt says difficult decisions ahead after Truss ‘mistakes’

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New chancellor vows to be ‘completely honest with country’ amid rumours PM has only weeks left in role

The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has spoken of “mistakes” made by the Liz Truss administration and predicted “difficult decisions ahead”.

Appearing on Sky News on Saturday, in his first interview since replacing Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, the former health secretary signalled he would have a “clean slate” when it came to the budget, and vowed to be “completely honest with the country” amid rumours that Truss has only weeks left as prime minister.

Hunt, who was parachuted into No 11 in an attempt to restore order to Truss’s ailing government, also suggested that some taxes could rise, as he promised to bring stability to the UK in the wake of the disastrous mini-budget.

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Keir Starmer criticises ‘grotesque chaos’ under Liz Truss government

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Labour leader says UK is ‘crying out for clear leadership’ and his party ‘must provide it’

Keir Starmer has criticised the “grotesque chaos” of recent weeks and said the government “no longer has a mandate from the British people”.

The Labour leader said there were no historical precedents for the ongoing economic turmoil and that the prime minister, Liz Truss, would not be able to “fix the mess she has created”.

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Tobias Ellwood has Tory whip restored after being suspended in July

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Chair of Commons defence committee had whip withdrawn for failing to turn up for a confidence vote

A senior Conservative MP has had the whip restored after being suspended from the party for missing a confidence vote in the summer.

Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Commons defence select committee, had the whip withdrawn after failing to vote for Boris Johnson’s government in a confidence vote in July.

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Truss premiership ‘hanging by thread’ after Kwarteng sacking and latest U-turn

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PM’s move to replace chancellor and commit to raising corporation tax fails to placate markets or Tory MPs

Liz Truss is desperately clinging to her premiership after she sacked her chancellor and ripped up the mini-budget but failed to calm the financial markets or furious Conservative MPs.

In a humiliating reversal, the prime minister backed down on plans to scrap an £18bn rise in corporation tax and replaced Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor with Jeremy Hunt.

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Kwasi Kwarteng reportedly believes Liz Truss ‘only has a few weeks’ – as it happened

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Source close to sacked chancellor briefs Times that ‘wagons are still going to circle’ around embattled prime minsiter

The Conservative peer, Ed Vaizey, said he disagreed with the international trade secretary, Greg Hands, who earlier said Kwasi Kwarteng’s early return is not unusual. “It is quite unusual for this to happen,” he said.

Speaking to Sky News, Vaizey said the chancellor cutting his trip to the US short is “not a good sign”. He said:

I’m afraid the chancellor coming back a day early doesn’t fill one with confidence.

The fact that people were speculating about the prime minister’s leadership this early in her premiership is not ideal, but I think he’s just got to bite the bullet. He’s got to try to give the markets confidence in the British economy.

If he can do that then perhaps he can say: ‘Well, I had to do some difficult choices, slightly humiliating choices, but the result is stabilisation and I can move forward.’

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Kwasi Kwarteng was logical choice as chancellor but hubris was his downfall

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Truss ally has experienced a dramatic reversal of fortune after five weeks and three days in the job

When Kwasi Kwarteng became chancellor on 6 September it seemed a logical career progression. Deemed a politician imbued with economic doctrine, even his critics conceded he was determined and intellectually imposing. Five weeks and three days later, he is gone.

The newly restored backbench MP for Spelthorne in Surrey is not the shortest-serving chancellor of modern times, but only because the holder of that unwelcome title, Iain Macleod, died from a heart attack a month into his tenure in 1970.

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Liz Truss appoints Jeremy Hunt as chancellor after sacking Kwarteng

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Former foreign secretary and leadership contender is back in cabinet, in stunning reversal of fortune

Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as Liz Truss’s new chancellor, in a stunning reversal of political fortune and a sign that the beleaguered prime minister wants to reach out to other sections of the Conservative party.

Hunt, the former foreign secretary and health secretary, has twice tried unsuccessfully to become Conservative leader.

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Kwasi Kwarteng says ‘let’s see’ when asked about potential U-turn on corporation tax – UK politics live

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Chancellor does not rule out increasing corporation tax when asked about whether government will perform U-turn

The Home Office has taken the modern slavery brief away from the minister responsible for safeguarding and classed it as an “illegal immigration and asylum” issue, updated online ministerial profiles show.

The move is seen as a clear sign that the department is doubling down on Suella Braverman’s suggestion that people are “gaming” the modern slavery system and that victims of the crime are no longer being prioritised.

The largest single group of modern slavery victims under the referral system last year were British children – including those who were exploited through county lines. The evidence shows the majority of exploitation takes place in the UK rather than across borders.

The government should be treating this as an enforcement and safeguarding issue and taking stronger action against the crime of modern slavery wherever it takes place.

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Liz Truss bows to pressure with corporation tax U-turn ‘on the table’

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Speculation that reversal on leadership campaign pledge risks split with her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng

Liz Truss has bowed to intense pressure from Conservative MPs and the markets by agreeing to redraw her mini-budget, paving the way for a major U-turn on her signature corporation tax cut.

In another serious blow to her authority as prime minister, government sources told the Guardian that a climbdown on the plan to scrap the rise in corporation tax was now “on the table”.

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‘Let’s see’: pressure builds for No 10 U-turn on corporation tax

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Reversing key plank of her leadership pitch would be much bigger humiliation for Liz Truss than 45p rate U-turn

The clamour among Conservative MPs for a third U-turn by Liz Truss started the same as the others: one MP begins as an outrider, backed by some party veterans or ex-cabinet ministers, and the question catches alight across broadcasters who ask every MP they see. Soon enough, it is received wisdom.

Most MPs who are squeamish about deposing their third prime minister had hoped that they would see change in the markets and contrition from No 10 and 11 after the U-turn on the 45p rate. Over the course of the past week, it has been clear to them that will not happen.

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Liz Truss on collision course with Jacob Rees-Mogg over solar power ban

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PM wants to prevent panels on 58% of farmland but business secretary says renewables need to be boosted

Liz Truss is facing a rebellion from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business department over plans to ban solar power from most of England’s farmland.

The prime minister and her environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena, want to ban solar from about 41% of the land area of England, or about 58% of agricultural land, the Guardian revealed earlier this week.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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