Category Archives: Conservatives

Economic watchdog confirms it could scrutinise Truss’s cost of living plans

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MPs say it is vital tax and spending measures proposed by potential new prime minister are examined by OBR

Liz Truss has been challenged to open up her prospective emergency tax cuts and spending plans to scrutiny if she becomes prime minister and makes immediate moves to tackle the cost of living crisis.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which produces independent forecasts based on major fiscal announcements by the government, revealed preparatory work had been under way for about a month to publish fresh economic forecasts in September.

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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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Emily Maitlis says ‘active Tory party agent’ shaping BBC news output

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Former Newsnight presenter says former No 10 communications chief Sir Robbie Gibb on board acting as ‘arbiter of impartiality’

Emily Maitlis has said a BBC board member is an “active agent of the Conservative party” who is shaping the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”.

The former Newsnight presenter highlighted the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, who previously worked as Theresa May’s director of communications and helped to found the rightwing GB News channel.

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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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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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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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Labour surges as Tory fears grow over Truss’s tax cut agenda

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Likely PM’s policies will mean ‘big trouble’, say critics, as Starmer’s energy price initiative boosts him in polls

Senior Tories have warned that their party will suffer dire electoral consequences under a Liz Truss premiership that fails to address the cost of living crisis, as Labour enjoys a poll bounce suggesting Keir Starmer could be on course for No 10.

Amid signs of mounting panic among high-ranking Conservatives about Truss’s economic policies, several former cabinet ministers told the Observer on Saturday the party would suffer devastating losses in blue and red wall seats unless Truss changes tack, if and when she enters No 10.

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Glum Sunak supporters hold out for gamechanging gaffe from Truss

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With Tory members seeming to tolerate a series of missteps, the frontrunner is on course for No 10 – barring a ‘spectacular foul-up’

Rishi Sunak’s supporters are understandably glum, but one thing alone means they have not totally given up hope of defeating Liz Truss. “We’re crossing our fingers for a gamechanging gaffe,” says one Conservative MP who has ended up supporting Sunak after initially backing another candidate.

John Curtice, the polling expert from Strathclyde University, this week put Sunak’s chances of victory at just 5%, saying Truss was almost sure to win unless she “fouls up in some spectacular fashion” in the final stages of the Tory leadership contest.

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Gove backs Sunak and says Truss is ‘taking holiday from reality’

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Former cabinet minister says he does not expect to return to frontbench politics as he backs underdog in race to be PM

Michael Gove has thrown his support behind Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership contest, warning that Liz Truss’s refusal to offer more support over rising energy bills and to just focus on tax cuts marked a “holiday from reality”.

In a sometimes hard-hitting article in the Times, Gove said he did not expect to be made a minister again and that many people expected Truss to win, but he believes Sunak “makes the right arguments”.

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Revealed: Liz Truss personally supported cuts to NHS and doctors’ pay

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Article by Tory hopeful arguing NHS ‘cannot be put on pedestal’ shows she fully backed 2009 cost-cutting pamphlet

Liz Truss personally supported cuts to the NHS, arguing the service “cannot be put on a pedestal” in an article in which she also criticised the “inexorable” rise in doctors’ pay.

The newly emerged opinion piece was written by Truss to support a thinktank report she co-authored that called for patients to be charged for GP appointments and doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10%.

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Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals

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PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit

Liz Truss called for patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% in a pamphlet she co-authored in 2009, the unearthed document has revealed.

The Tory leadership frontrunner also wanted to see the universal child benefit abolished in the report, which she co-wrote with six other people when she was deputy director of the Reform thinktank.

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No 10 denies ministers seeking political fight with rail unions

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Denial comes as language toughens on both sides and head of RMT again warns of de facto general strike

Downing Street has denied that ministers are deliberately seeking a political fight with rail unions, as both sides toughened their language further and the head of the RMT warned the impasse could continue “indefinitely”.

Just 20% of rail services ran on Thursday, in a sixth day of strike action since June involving the RMT and TSSA unions, with further disruption taking place on Saturday, which is likely to affect trains throughout the weekend.

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UK’s 10% inflation casts doubt on Truss and Sunak’s tax cut promises

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Soaring cost of living is forcing up government spending on benefits, pensions and debt leaving no spare cash to lower taxes

Britain’s first double-digit inflation in more than four decades has cast doubts on the plausibility of the tax cuts being promised by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak during their leadership battle, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has said.

Following news that the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to July, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said higher inflation would mean extra spending on welfare benefits, state pensions and on debt interest.

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Liz Truss’s plan for cost of living crisis would lead to ‘moral failure’, says Rishi Sunak – UK politics live

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Former chancellor says foreign secretary’s tax cut plan would provide no support for pensioners or other vulnerable groups

London’s mayor has warned of a rise in shootings and stabbings amid concerns that the increasing cost of living could lead to more violence and make it easier for gangs to lure vulnerable young people.

Sadiq Khan said millions of pounds more were being put into schemes to turn people away from violence. The Labour mayor has been criticised by some for his record on crime.

I am concerned about a potential increase in violence this summer as the cost of living crisis deepens and threatens to reverse the progress we have made in tackling violent crime. Violence, like poverty, is not inevitable and the government must now do much more to show it shares my commitment to building a fairer, safer London for all.

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Liz Truss faces Rishi Sunak in leadership hustings after comments about British workers leaked – as it happened

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Latest updates: leaked audio reveals favourite to be next PM said British workers lacked the ‘graft’ of their foreign rivals

Keir Starmer said the biggest cause of division in Scotland was the Conservative party.

The Labour leader said:

The single biggest driver of division in Scotland is the Tory party in Westminster.

I want to hold our UK together, I want to make a positive case for the UK as we go forward.

I think that this assumption that most people can afford these massive hikes in their energy bills is completely wrong.

I think the government in making that argument is completely out of touch.

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Sunak and Truss rule out freezing energy prices at leadership hustings

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Rival candidates questioned in Perth after frontrunner Truss makes belligerent remarks about Sturgeon

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have ruled out freezing energy prices by claiming it would be an expensive, short-term fix that would fail to solve the underlying problem with soaring energy costs.

The Conservative leadership contenders were questioned on whether they would back Labour’s new strategy to fix the domestic energy cap during a leadership hustings at Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday night.

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