Category Archives: Economic policy

Tory leadership: Sunak frustrated government attempts to realise benefits of Brexit, Truss allies claim – UK politics live

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Latest updates: foreign secretary’s supporters accuse former chancellor of resisting changes to EU regulation as sixth hustings looms

Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, has used an article in today’s Guardian to propose that the government should halt the increases in the energy price cap planned for later this year and next year and, if necessary, take energy companies into public ownership to ensure that they keep prices down.

Alongside the Lib Dem plan, with which it has some similarities (they also want a price cap freeze, and more money raised through a windfall tax), it is the most radical and ambitious proposal on the table to tackle the energy bills crisis.

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Sunak accuses Truss of major U-turn after she says she will do ‘all I can to help struggling households’ with fuel bills – UK politics live

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Tory leadership contender says rival had previously dismissed direct support as ‘handouts’

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, is giving a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank on equalities and rights. There is a live feed here.

In a preview of the speech published in the Daily Telegraph, Braverman says she wants to clarify the law on trans rights as it applies in schools. She says:

When it comes to gender-questioning children, we should always have compassion. At the same time, our compassion should never blind us to the harm it is possible to do to children by misplaced affirmation. Many schools and teachers believe – incorrectly – that they are under an absolute legal obligation to treat children who are gender questioning according to the preference of the child. Many are scared of the consequences of not doing so.

I want to make it clear that it is possible, within the law, for schools to refuse to use the preferred opposite-sex pronouns of a child.

The UK and partners have condemned in the strongest terms China’s escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement.

I instructed officials to summon the Chinese ambassador to explain his country’s actions.

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Truss and Sunak accused of ‘living in parallel universe’ on bills crisis – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Lib Dem leader says Tory leadership hopefuls have no plan to help millions of families struggling with price rises

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a leading poverty charity, says, in the light of the latest forecast about how energy bills will rise (see 10.54am), the government needs to at least double the help already provided to help people through the cost of living crisis. This is from Peter Matejic, its chief analyst.

The latest projections of annual energy bills exceeding £4,200 from January is the latest in a series of terrifying warnings over the past week, from the Bank of England and others. Families on low incomes cannot afford these eye watering sums and as a nation we can’t afford to ignore an impending disaster.

Both candidates to be prime minister must now recognise the extraordinarily fast-changing situation and act to protect the hardest hit from the coming emergency.

Unite said the 4% increase for staff in middle pay bands announced by the government last month is a “massive pay cut” because of soaring inflation.

The union will now consult with its 100,000 health members across the NHS in both England and Wales on whether they accept the “imposed deal” or want to challenge it through industrial action, which could mean strikes this winter.

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Ed Davey calls for halt to energy price cap increase to avoid ‘catastrophe’

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Exclusive: Lib Dem leader says new PM should let government pay £36bn cost in new ‘energy furlough scheme’

Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak should cancel the £1,400 energy price cap increase in October in a new “energy furlough scheme” and government should absorb the £36bn cost of the hike, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has said.

Ed Davey said neither candidate appeared to have any policies that grasped the magnitude of what could happen this autumn. “We are facing a catastrophe this winter, a drop in living standards unlike anything we have seen in my lifetime,” he said.

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‘Zombie government’: more than half of departments delay key decisions

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As an economic crisis looms in the UK, legislation shelved and deadlines missed on energy, online safety and gambling laws

Mining along the west coast of Cumbria goes back to at least the 1600s, and this summer the local community awaited a crucial government decision on whether a new deep coalmine operation would be given the go-ahead.

While proponents of the £165m deep coalmine near Whitehaven say it would create jobs and help power the UK’s steel industry, environmental campaigners say it would undermine the government’s commitment to meeting climate targets.

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Private school polish and big dreams: how Rishi Sunak became a contender for PM

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Tory leadership candidate is praised as an earnest workaholic, but critics say politically he has a glass jaw and is naive

“Let me tell you a story,” Rishi Sunak says in his soft-voiced campaign launch video, highlighting his status as the grandson of hard-grafting Indian immigrants.

If he wins the race for No 10, the 42-year-old would be the first person of colour to be the UK prime minister, and the first practising Hindu, in a historic break with the past. Yet, in other ways, his story is as establishment as it comes: private school, PPE at Oxford, the City, the Tory party.

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Truss ‘irresponsible’ for threatening to review Bank of England remit

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Labour’s Rachel Reeves says Conservatives are ‘playing blame game’ for UK’s economic problems

Liz Truss has been accused of being “deeply irresponsible” for threatening to tinker with the Bank of England’s mandate on the brink of a recession.

The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, attacked the Tory leadership frontrunner after Truss and her allies repeatedly questioned the performance of the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, and said she would review the institution’s remit.

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Australia’s official interest rates expected to rise by half-percentage point, economists say

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Experts predict RBA will lift cash rate from to 1.85%, marking a 175-basis point increase since May

Australia’s official interest rates are all but certain to be lifted on Tuesday with the expected half-percentage point increase marking the Reserve Bank’s sharpest tightening phase since 1994.

A survey by Bloomberg News found 28 of 30 respondents predict the RBA board will lift the cash rate from 1.35% to 1.85% at its monthly meeting. That move would mark a 175-basis point increase in the rate since it began hiking in May.

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Guardian Essential poll: 40% of voters say Labor doing poor job tackling surging cost of living

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Half of voters surveyed say they can afford household bills but struggle to find anything extra or report feeling under financial pressure

Just one-quarter of voters think Labor is doing a good job of handling surging cost of living pressures, the latest Guardian Essential poll suggests, while a majority of respondents believe the Albanese government can influence the direction of inflation and interest rates.

The results from the latest survey of 1,082 respondents comes ahead of Wednesday’s inflation data which is expected to show consumer prices are running at their highest level since the 1990s.

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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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Rishi Sunak says he is underdog in PM race as ‘forces that be’ want Truss

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Former chancellor suggests Tory party powers hope leadership contest will be ‘a coronation’ for his rival

Rishi Sunak has positioned himself as the underdog in the Conservative leadership race, claiming the “forces that be” want Liz Truss to be the next prime minister.

Addressing a crowd in Grantham on Saturday, the Lincolnshire home town of Margaret Thatcher, Sunak declared “have no doubt, I am the underdog” and suggested that Conservative party powers want the race to be “a coronation” for Truss.

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Tory leadership race: Rishi Sunak calls himself ‘common sense’ Thatcherite – as it happened

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Former chancellor says UK ‘needs to control borders’ and again references Margaret Thatcher

In an interview with GB News, Liz Truss was asked if she would keep the expensive wallpaper in the Downing Street flat, installed as part of Boris Johnson’s controversial refurbishment, if she became PM. In what is being seen by some as a dig at Johnson, she replied:

I’m not going to have the time to be thinking about the wallpaper in No 10, because we’ve only got two years until the general election – we need to hit the ground running.

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Rishi Sunak steps up attack on Truss tax cuts as poll puts his rival well ahead

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Former chancellor says opponent’s economic policies risk stoking inflation and pushing up interest rates

Rishi Sunak has launched his strongest attack yet on his rival Liz Truss’s economic policies, claiming her £30bn plans for unfunded tax cuts risk stoking inflation and pushing up interest rates.

His attack came as a new poll of Tory party members gave Truss a commanding lead in the race to become prime minister.

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Liz Truss’s tax and spending plans sow consternation among economists

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Analysis: experts are lining up to warn that her policies will increase inflation and leave the UK with higher debt

Liz Truss claims her economic agenda of tax cuts and public spending will revitalise the UK economy, but it is not just her rival prime ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak arguing that the measures will be self-defeating.

Economists have lined up to warn that her £30bn package – including the reversal of this year’s national insurance rise, the suspension of green levies on power bills, and the cancellation of a sharp rise in corporation tax in 2023 – will increase inflation and leave the government with higher debt bills.

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Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calls for windfall profits tax in Australia

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Tax is a ‘no-brainer’ after companies’ huge profits during Covid but corporate influence makes it ‘politically difficult’, Stiglitz says

The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has called for a windfall profits tax, arguing the idea is a “no-brainer” that has been taken off the table due to the influence of big companies.

Stiglitz made the comments to reporters during a tour of Australia after personally lobbying the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, to introduce the tax and warning that excessive interest rate rises could push Europe, the US, and then Australia into recession.

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‘Travelling circus’: Starmer says Tory hopefuls have lost economic credibility

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Exclusive: Labour leader, speaking after meeting German chancellor, condemns candidates’ ‘fanciful’ spending plans

Keir Starmer has dismissed the acrimonious Conservative leadership race as a “travelling circus”, in which the candidates have demolished their party’s economic credibility by promising billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts.

Speaking on a visit to Berlin where he held talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Labour leader highlighted the “fanciful” spending pledges made by the five contenders battling it out to succeed Boris Johnson.

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Eight MPs make it on to first Tory leadership ballot as Sajid Javid pulls out of the race – live

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Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi garner enough support

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, and Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, have just told Sky News that they are backing Liz Truss for the Tory leadership.

Rees-Mogg says Truss had been his strongest supporter in cabinet in terms of seeking Brexit opportunities. He went on:

When we discussed taxation, Liz was always opposed to Rishi’s higher taxes. That again is proper Conservatism. And I think she’s got the character to lead the party and the nation.

Liz Truss is the best candidate. She’s a proper Eurosceptic. She will deliver for the voters. She’ll deliver for the voters. She believes in low taxation.

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Sunak will vow to tackle inflation and then lower taxes if he becomes PM

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Ex-chancellor to kick off his Tory leadership campaign as speculation grows over who could back him

Rishi Sunak will kick off his leadership campaign on Tuesday with a promise to grip inflation and lower taxes, as speculation mounted over which candidates could swing in behind the former chancellor.

Sunak will promise “a return to traditional Conservative economic values – and that means honesty and responsibility, not fairytales.”

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Boris Johnson has left the UK economy in a parlous state

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Analysis: If Johnsonomics stands for anything, it is a lack of plan or vision to address Britain’s economic woes

Boris Johnson entered Downing Street in July 2019 with a promise. The doubters, doomsters and gloomsters were going to get it wrong again: his leadership would make Brexit a success, re-igniting an economy stalled by the divisions over Europe.

Three years later, almost to the day, he prepares to leave with the country reeling from a political implosion of his own making, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.

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Nadhim Zahawi: is new chancellor going to change direction on economy?

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Analysis: Rishi Sunak’s successor treading tightrope between spending to keep PM in power and dealing with economic crisis

Should he remain in the job for longer than some political commentators expect, Nadhim Zahawi faces a balancing act as chancellor. He must walk the line between doing what it takes to prevent the political implosion of Boris Johnson’s government, and dealing with the worst succession of economic shocks to hit Britain since at least the 1970s.

As the fourth Conservative chancellor in as many years, parachuted in after Rishi Sunak resigned with a stinging critique of Johnson’s devil-may-care attitude towards tax and spending, Zahawi is expected to face heavy pressure from the prime minister to cut taxes to revive the economy.

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