PM dresses up HS2 cancellation as fresh start as he attempts to portray himself as candidate for change
It was just over an hour long, and comprised more than 7,500 words, but what did Rishi Sunak’s conference speech actually contain? In some ways, quite a lot – but in others, remarkably little.
Continue reading...PM’s aim to gradually increase age at which people can buy cigarettes described as ‘incredibly positive step forward’
Banning growing numbers of people in England from buying cigarettes is a bold move that will save lives and create the country’s first “smokefree generation”, health charities have said.
The plan, first reported in the Guardian and which Rishi Sunak formally unveiled in his leader’s speech at the Conservative party’s annual conference, will also help relieve the strain on the NHS, experts said.
Continue reading...Prime minister says he will not make a ‘premature decision’ about where the high speed rail line will end
Nigel Farage has said that parts of the Conservative party are now like Ukip.
The former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party is attending the conference partly in his capacity as a GB News presenter. But he is also a popular figure with some Tories, and yesterday he was a prominent supporter in the audience as Liz Truss called for tax cuts at a rally.
I’ve been very consistent with the things that I’ve said over quite a long time. I’ve never really shifted from those views, whether it’s regards borders, increasing population, attitudes towards below small business, net zero, taxes. What’s interesting is there’s now a wing of the Conservative party that has woken up to these things and they’re now saying them.
Well, if you asked the delegates here, you might be surprised by the answer.
I think what people want from their prime ministers and their leaders is to do things that are going to make a difference to their lives.
I don’t think people are as interested in how much money is in my bank account. They’re interested in what I’m doing for them.
Continue reading...PM declines to reveal if Manchester to Birmingham line will be scrapped amid speculation over soaring costs
Rishi Sunak has insisted he is not going to be forced into a “premature decision” over the fate of the HS2 high-speed rail line as speculation about the multibillion pound project continued to overshadow the Conservative conference.
“I am not going to be forced into a premature decision because it is good for someone’s TV programme,” the prime minister told BBC Breakfast.
Continue reading...Tory mayor of West Midlands says PM in danger of ‘cancelling the future’ as bitter row threatens to derail conference
Rishi Sunak has become embroiled in a bitter row with regional politicians, the transport industry and members of his own party as he prepared to announce the cancellation of the multibillion high speed rail line to Manchester.
The prime minister is set to call an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, where ministers are expected to give their approval to the biggest infrastructure climbdown in a generation.
Continue reading...Civil liberty campaigners warn Chris Philp’s plans to integrate databases are an ‘Orwellian nightmare’
Britain’s passport database could be used to catch shoplifters, burglars and other criminals under urgent plans to curb crime, the policing minister has said.
Chris Philp said he planned to integrate data from the police national database (PND), the Passport Office and other national databases to help police find a match with the “click of one button”.
Continue reading...International development minister warns colleagues jostling for position not to be ‘self-indulgent’
Tory MPs should get over their “excess of doom and gloom” about their electoral prospects and “get behind” Rishi Sunak, a cabinet minister has said, with a veiled warning to colleagues jostling for position not to be “self-indulgent”.
The international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, suggested on Sunday that rival groups of Conservative MPs, who have been proposing an array of policy ideas at the party conference in Manchester, should be more disciplined before the election.
Continue reading...Prime minister says ‘the best tax cut we can give is to cut inflation’ after Michael Gove says taxes should be cut before general election
The BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is starting. As well as Rishi Sunak, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is also being interviewed.
Q: Do you still think we’ve had enough of experts?
Economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable.
Continue reading...Prime minister says investors are excited about Britain and that he instinctively understands what the public wants
Rishi Sunak has rejected criticism that recent U-turns mean the UK cannot be taken seriously, as he fought to maintain order before a Conservative conference set to be dominated by questions about tax cuts and rivals jostling to succeed him.
In the traditional pre-conference TV interview, the prime minister again refused to say whether HS2 would extend as far as Manchester, the host city for the conference, which begins on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...Former Spice Girl, who attended Tory conference, makes apparent online criticism of Conor Burns
Mel B has made an apparent criticism of sacked Tory minister Conor Burns’s behaviour during a conversation with her at the Conservative party conference.
Burns was asked to step down from his role as a minister of state in the trade department and had the Conservative whip withdrawn pending an investigation into an allegation of “serious misconduct” on Friday, Downing Street said. He later denied having ever met the former Spice Girl singer.
Continue reading...PM facing fresh battle with MPs as she declines to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation
Liz Truss has refused to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation, amid a fresh battle with MPs over cuts to spending including concern from among her cabinet.
The prime minister said pensions would rise in line with inflation, having committed to the pensions “triple lock” during the leadership campaign. But she said people on welfare benefits were in a “different situation” and said they were more able to look for more work.
Continue reading...Chancellor expected to give changed address after confirming plan to axe top rate of income tax has been scrapped
Q: Where does this leave your credibility?
Kwarteng says he has been in parliament for 12 years. He says ministers do sometimes change their minds.
I decided, along with the the prime minister, not to proceed [with the policy].
Continue reading...Frank Luntz tells Tory conference meeting weaponising such issues is likely to ‘win an election but lose the country’
A US pollster who advised Boris Johnson has delivered an impassioned plea for Tories to stop weaponising culture war issues, warning them they would “win an election but lose the country”.
“It guarantees divisions for generations and it can get you elected but you will hate the result,” Frank Luntz told a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, which was packed out with Tory activists and elected officials eager to hear his advice on language and campaigning.
Continue reading...Former Tory ‘big beast’ says PM needs to ‘appoint ministers who know what the heck they’re doing’
Liz Truss packed her cabinet with “cronies off the backbenches” rather than competent ministers with a range of views, and appeared to have no coherent plan behind her mini-budget, Michael Heseltine has said.
The ex-deputy prime minister and former senior Conservative, who sits in the Lords as an unaffiliated peer after being suspended from the party in 2019, also predicted that Truss’s chances of winning the next election were “looking pretty bleak”.
Continue reading...Party conference overshadowed by fears that refusing to do a U-turn on tax and spending cuts will kill off election chances
Liz Truss is struggling to persuade Conservative MPs to back her controversial mini-budget, with some even threatening all-out rebellion amid fears that they will once again become known as the “nasty party”.
The prime minister faces with a rising drumbeat of discontent that is overshadowing the Tory conference after she insisted she would “stand by” her plans to cut the top rate of income tax and ram through public spending cuts.
Continue reading...Singer tells event societal change is required if the lives of women are to be freed from threat of abuse
The former Spice Girl Melanie Brown has told an event at the Conservative party conference of her fears that the “massive issue of domestic abuse” will slip down the agenda during “these times of absolute economic chaos”.
The singer, known to millions as Mel B or “Scary Spice”, was speaking at a meeting organised by the Sun and Women’s Aid, which she became a patron of in 2018 after leaving what she described as an abusive relationship.
Continue reading...Influential former minister hints he will not vote for mini-budget measures, in blow to PM
Michael Gove said Liz Truss’s programme of tax cuts was deeply concerning and “not Conservative”, and hinted he would not vote for them, in a major blow to the prime minister’s authority.
Gove, who was removed as levelling up secretary before Boris Johnson left No 10 but remains a hugely influential Tory MP, said he could not back Truss’s abolition of the top 45p rate of tax, or the removal of the cap on bankers’ bonuses.
Continue reading...Latest updates: PM vows to press ahead with mini-budget plans and dismisses objections to top rate of tax being axed
Q: Are you absolutely committed to getting rid of the 45% rate of tax?
Yes, says Truss.
Continue reading...PM says she accepts ‘we should have laid ground better’ after mini-budget sparked economic turmoil
Liz Truss has refused to rule out public spending cuts and a real-terms drop in benefits to help pay for the mini-budget, as she sought to quell fury over her handling of the economy by admitting she should have “laid the ground better”.
The prime minister offered a sliver of remorse for the way last Friday’s mini-budget was received. There was a temporary collapse in the value of sterling against the dollar, a rebuke from the International Monetary Fund and warnings that interest rates could be hiked again.
Continue reading...Tax cuts for the rich have not gone down well in Ladywood, the city constituency due to host the Conservatives’ annual gathering
Only the most bullish Conservative party strategist would have dared forecast the centre of Britain’s second-biggest city turning Tory anytime soon.
Yet as the real-life implications of the government’s mini-budget continued to crystallise on Saturday, anyone even contemplating a Conservative victory in central Birmingham should now be judged beyond delusional.
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