Category Archives: Conservatives

Truss suffers setback as criticism of civil service pay plan brings U-turn

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Foreign secretary forced to abandon policy amid widespread criticism from within Conservative party

Liz Truss suffered a humiliating setback in her bid to become the next prime minister on Tuesday, as she was forced into a U-turn on civil service pay after a backlash from within her own party.

The foreign secretary swiftly abandoned the cornerstone of her plan for a “war on Whitehall waste” when it was revealed it could lead to pay cuts for millions of teachers, nurses and police officers.

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Righter than right: Tories’ hardline drift may lose the public

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Polls suggest leadership race may be going further than even Conservatives might want on immigration, economy and climate

It is a thread running through the Conservative leadership campaign, as shown through the apparent desire to be toughest on asylum seekers, the biggest advocate of tax cuts, sceptical about net zero measures: this is a party that feels like it has shifted decisively to the right.

Some argue the arms race of populist policies from Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak exemplifies a new Conservatism, one fundamentally altered by Brexit and Boris Johnson, which has gradually absorbed the priorities of those who used to support Ukip.

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Overhaul campaign before it’s too late, Sunak told

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His team told his general-election style campaign too slick and unfocused as time runs out to sway electors

Rishi Sunak’s team is being urged to overhaul his “general election-style” campaign in favour of a grassroots effort speaking directly to Tory members in a last-ditch attempt to beat Liz Truss to the Conservative leadership.

With some supporters of the former chancellor in despair over the apparent grip Truss has assumed over the contest to replace Boris Johnson, allies have warned that there has been too much focus on polished social media content, TV appearances and visits to swing voters that have not won over Tory members.

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Keir Starmer urged not to abandon pledge to abolish House of Lords

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Exclusive: Gordon Brown warns plans to flood upper chamber with dozens of Tory peers proves urgent need for reform

Keir Starmer has been urged not to abandon a key leadership pledge of abolishing the House of Lords, with Gordon Brown warning that plans to “gerrymander” parliament’s upper chamber by flooding it with dozens of Tory peers proved the need for drastic reform.

Alarm was raised by the former Labour prime minister over a proposal drawn up by a political lobbying group for Boris Johnson to appoint up to 50 new Conservatives to ram contentious legislation through given a series of embarrassing defeats by peers.

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Sam Tarry says it would have been ‘dereliction of duty’ not to stand on picket line after accusing Starmer of ‘car crash’ – live

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Sacked Labour frontbencher says rail workers had the right to expect Labour to stand with them

Boris Johnson’s reluctance to leave Downing Street in the face of opposition from ministers and Tory MPs seemed a bit “let’s storm the Capitol, chaps”, according to a former senior No 10 aide, likening it to the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC.

The comparison was made by Cleo Watson, a former special adviser to Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings in an article for Tatler magazine.

These workers are being forced to take industrial action. I’m a Labour MP so I’m a member of the Labour trade union. When the call comes out from CWU for solidarity to join the picket lines, of course I respond positively.

The actions of the Labour leadership is disgraceful. We will have to deal with that. I think what will happen is that people will see through Labour unless they change their position because it seems to me that Labour want to win an election without any principles or any policies and people won’t accept that.

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Brexit realism? The NHS? Some of the key issues ignored by Sunak and Truss

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Tory leadership candidates have clashed bitterly but many pressing matters have been overlooked

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have clashed vehemently over tax and spending, immigration and the UK’s stance on China in their acrimonious battle to become prime minister – but have had little to say about many other pressing issues. Here are some largely overlooked key issues of the contest so far.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss facing Tory members in Leeds for first official leadership hustings – UK politics live

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Leadership rivals bid to win members’ support in foreign secretary’s home town

Drug-related deaths in Scotland fell by nine in 2021, according to the latest figures released by National Records of Scotland, the first decrease since 2013 but falling well short of the significant reduction that campaigners are calling for.

The latest figure of 1,330 is still the second highest annual total on record, and Scotland continues to have by far the highest drug death rate recorded by any country in Europe and five times the rate in England.

We’ve had a raft of reports, policies and strategies that say what needs to change, and families are more likely to be included round the table, but it’s much harder to track their influence on the ground. We don’t understand what’s getting in the way of good words becoming good deeds.

1,330 of our fellow Scots have died entirely preventable deaths and we should not be celebrating this as an achievement ... The solutions are no secret. We need action, not reports with recommendations that are never implemented.

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Truss vows to outlaw street harassment as Sunak pledges ban on ‘downblousing’

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Tory leadership hopefuls set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, as Labour’s Stella Creasy welcomes Truss U-turn

Liz Truss has vowed to make street harassment a crime months after a similar move was blocked by Boris Johnson, while Rishi Sunak pledged to outlaw “downblousing” – taking a photo down a woman’s top without consent.

Both Tory leadership candidates set out plans to tackle violence against women and girls, which has been the focus of a longstanding campaign by opposition MPs and feminist activists, especially after the killings of women including Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena.

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‘She’s delusional’: Roundhay voters on Tory leadership contender Liz Truss

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As Leeds prepares to host hustings, residents of leafy suburb where Truss grew up take issue with her claims about the area

As Leeds prepared to host the first of the Conservative leadership regional hustings on Thursday evening, people who grew up alongside candidate Liz Truss have found much to disagree with her on.

Truss went to Roundhay school, an Ofsted “outstanding” comprehensive in the leafy suburb in the north of the city. She caused outrage and indignation among local leaders with her comments about her former school, which she said “let down” children.

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Labour would fix ‘broken’ water and energy markets through regulation not nationalisation, says Starmer – UK politics live

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Labour would, however, stick to plans to nationalise the railways if it won the next election, Starmer says

Polling from YouGov suggests that Liz Truss was perceived by Tory members to have outperformed Sunak on every issue covered in last night’s debate.

In particular, she led on Ukraine, cost of living and levelling up, although her lead was weaker on Brexit, the environment and taxation.

There are some lines on PA from Robert Buckland, the Wales secretary who is supporting Rishi Sunak for the Tory leadership, defending last night’s fierce TV showdown as “robust debate”.

There’s this balance to be struck between having a vigorous debate and being sort of almost too polite to each other.

I think it’s inevitable that you’re going to have candidates disagreeing, and frankly, we need to hear what the arguments are.

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Boris Johnson says 2018 Lebedev visit was in line with security protocols

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PM says no government business was discussed ‘as far as I am aware’ and officials knew of his trip in advance

Boris Johnson has told MPs that no government business was discussed “as far as I am aware” when he met the former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev at an Italian palazzo without officials present when he was foreign secretary.

The prime minister admitted this month that he met the businessman in April 2018 after making a trip to a restored castle in Perugia owned by Evgeny Lebedev, Alexander’s son, for a weekend-long party after attending a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels that discussed the security situation with Russia.

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Why Sunak may have to change his brand to Rishi the risk taker

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Analysis: Poor strategy in Tory leadership race has allowed former chancellor to be painted as timid, fear supporters

Monday’s debate was supposed to be a turning point for Rishi Sunak, a moment billed as his chance to change his fortunes after polling suggested he was trailing Liz Truss in the Tory leadership contest.

Her awkwardness, her less fluent grasp of detail could be shown up in the head-to-head – similarly to how poorly she performed in the last two debates. “The more they see of her, the more they like him,” was the refrain from Sunak supporters.

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Truss and Sunak trade blows in acrimonious first TV debate

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Leadership candidates ignored calls from fellow Conservatives not to ‘tarnish the brand’ as they wrangled over tax cuts, inflation and relations with China

The battle to become the UK’s next prime minister descended into fierce clashes on Monday night as Rishi Sunak launched repeated attacks on the economic policies of the favourite Liz Truss in their first head-to-head TV debate.

The two Conservative leadership hopefuls traded blows over tax cuts, China and inflation, with the former chancellor Sunak accusing the foreign secretary of seeking “a short-term sugar rush” by cutting national insurance.

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Liz Truss pledges crackdown on unions but is accused of ‘Tory fantasy’

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Labour dismisses Conservative leadership hopeful’s plan for minimum service levels as unworkable

Liz Truss has promised a further crackdown on trade unions, widening restrictions to a significant new number of industries, but her proposals were immediately criticised as the “biggest attack on civil rights” since the 19th century.

Truss said she would legislate for minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure in the first 30 days of government under her leadership. The pledge would go further than the Tories’ 2019 policy, which promised a minimum service should operate during transport strikes.

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Sunak ruse aims to outmanoeuvre Truss over China

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Analysis: claims by ex-chancellor about Foreign Office weakness towards Beijing look like an attempt to head off a similar attack on him

Rishi Sunak’s pre-emptive strike attacking Liz Truss over alleged Foreign Office pusillanimity towards China looks to have been a daring attempt to fend off an imminent assault from his Tory leadership rival.

But it locks the contestants into a potentially uncontrollable dogfight as they seek to prove their credentials as the truer enemy of authoritarianism.

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Tory leadership: Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak clash in heated BBC debate – as it happened

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Latest updates: final two candidates exchange blows over plans for cost of living, levelling up and China

Starmer says Labour’s approach to levelling up will be based on a practical plan, unlike the government’s.

And he says he was impressed by the approach of Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, whom he met in Berlin recently. Starmer suggests Britain could learn from the way new battery factories are located in poor regions in Germany.

There will be no magic money tree economics with us.

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Beijing urges British politicians not to ‘hype the China threat’

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Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson asks for restraint after Rishi Sunak labels country UK’s ‘biggest long-term threat’

Beijing has urged British politicians to exercise restraint in their comments on China, saying “hyping the China threat” would not help solve the UK’s own problems.

Asked about Rishi Sunak’s comments, where he labelled China as Britain’s biggest long-term threat and pledged to close all UK-based Confucius Institutes, Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, declined to offer specific comments, saying the election of the next Tory leader is the UK’s internal affair.

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Sunak to promise curbs on China as UK’s ‘biggest long-term threat’

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Leadership contender says he will close 30 Mandarin teaching programmes to restrain Beijing’s soft power

China is the biggest long-term threat to Britain, Rishi Sunak will say on Monday as he unveils plans to curb the country’s soft power by closing all of its 30 Confucius Institutes, which promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture, in the UK.

He will take on Liz Truss, his rival in the Conservative leadership race, by effectively accusing the foreign secretary and western leaders of having “turned a blind eye to China’s nefarious activity and ambitions” and call for a new Nato-alliance to be set up to counter it.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss accused of cruelty over Rwanda-style deal promises

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Amnesty International leads criticism of immigration plans announced by Tory leadership candidates

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have been accused of “cruelty and immorality” for promising more Rwanda-style deals to remove asylum seekers from the UK, as charities claimed the pair were pandering to party members’ hardline views.

Amnesty International led criticism of immigration plans announced over the weekend by the Tory leadership candidates, saying the “dreadful” pledges would come at “great human and financial cost”.

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Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss serve up ‘red meat’ policies to tempt Tory members

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Analysis: Leadership contenders compete on hardline approach to Rwanda immigration policy in appeal to the right of the party

It’s not just barbecues that red meat is being tossed on to in the sweltering summer temperatures.

As the Tory leadership contest hots up, a platter of hardline policies is being offered to party members by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, in a bid to whet appetites and boost support in the race to become Britain’s prime minister.

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