Category Archives: Liz Truss

Tory leadership rivals clash over trust and ‘fairytale’ economic plans

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Head-to-head sees open arguments over tax and identity politics, with no candidate willing to say Boris Johnson is honest

The Conservative leadership race has exploded into acrimony and recrimination after the first televised debate saw open arguments over tax and identity politics with also none of the five candidates willing to say Boris Johnson is honest.

Coming hours after Liz Truss sought to reinvigorate her faltering campaign with a sudden announcement of new tax cuts costing more than £20bn a year, Rishi Sunak the ex-chancellor, openly ridiculed his former colleague’s plans during the Channel 4 broadcast on Friday evening.

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Liz Truss bids to save Tory leadership campaign with new tax cut pledges

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Foreign secretary announces tax cut proposals worth billions of pounds during online leadership debate

Liz Truss has sought to breathe new life into her faltering Conservative leadership campaign with a flurry of uncosted tax cut promises worth billions of pounds, as the five remaining candidates took part in their first mass debate.

Truss, who has the third highest number of Tory MPs’ votes – behind Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, promised to scrap a planned rise in corporation tax and suspend green energy levies, costing more than £20bn a year overall.

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Suella Braverman out of Tory leadership race as Rishi Sunak leads with 101 votes – live

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Latest updates: 1922 committee announce latest vote tally

Q: Lord Frost says Penny Mordaunt is not up to the job. You have worked with her. Do you agree with him?

Truss says she will not be making any disparaging comments about her opponents. The contest shows a broad range of talent. And the party did not get there through identity politics.

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Braverman out of Tory leadership race as Mordaunt pulls away from Truss

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Field narrows to five candidates as Sunak wins highest number of votes with Mordaunt consolidating second place

Penny Mordaunt was handed another key boost in the race to make the final two of the Conservative leadership race, with votes putting her in pole position to take on frontrunner Rishi Sunak, at the latest voting round which eliminated Suella Braverman.

Sunak, the former chancellor, is still the frontrunner and added 13 new supporters but Mordaunt pulled away from the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who added fewer MPs to her tally despite a high-profile launch on Thursday.

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Liz Truss under pressure as rivals steal march in Tory leadership race

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Foreign secretary forced to regroup after trailing behind Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt after first round ballot

Tory leadership: live updates

Liz Truss will seek to reinvigorate her campaign to be the next prime minister by promising an “aspiration nation” on Thursday, after she was unexpectedly beaten into third place by Penny Mordaunt in the first round of voting.

Long seen as one of the favourites to be the next Tory party leader, the foreign secretary has the backing of Boris Johnson super-loyalists Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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Liz Truss criticised for saying her Leeds school ‘let down’ children

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Local MP and councillor angered by comments about Roundhay school, rated ‘satisfactory’ when foreign secretary attended

Tory leadership candidate Liz Truss has been criticised for comments about the quality of education at her Leeds school, which she claims caused children to be “let down”.

Speaking at the launch of her economic plan, the foreign secretary is expected to describe seeing “children who failed and were let down by low expectations” during her time at Roundhay school in the 1990s.

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Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at first PMQs since resignation – UK politics live

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Latest updates: prime minister takes penultimate PMQs as Conservatives wrangle over who will replace him as leader

Mordaunt says she is committed to the manifesto commitments on defence spending, and meeting the Nato defence pledge.

But she would also take some tasks away from the defence forces, she says. She says she wants to set up a civil defence force to deal with civil defence matters.

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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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Boris Johnson accused of trying to derail Rishi Sunak’s bid to be next PM

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Senior Tories say the former chancellor is the main focus of the ousted leader’s anger as bitter infighting breaks out

Senior Tories accused Boris Johnson of trying to torpedo Rishi Sunak’s bid to succeed him as prime minister – and of refusing to leave No 10 with good grace – as the leadership race descended into bitter infighting.

As a trio of cabinet ministers entered the contest last night, senior MPs said the battle now risked inflicting even more damage on the party than the fall of Margaret Thatcher more than three decades ago.

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Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi and Grant Shapps join race to be next Tory leader

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Cabinet trio add names to increasingly crowded field of candidates to replace Boris Johnson

A trio of cabinet ministers declared they were running for the Tory leadership on Saturday night, amid calls to alter party rules to thin out the increasingly crowded field of candidates.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss, chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and transport secretary Grant Shapps all threw their hats into the ring.

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Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid become latest Tories to declare leadership bids – UK politics live

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String of candidates announced on Saturday including Kemi Badenoch, Liz Truss, Grant Shapps and Nadhim Zahawi

Tory MP Rehman Chishti has confirmed he is “actively considering” running for leader.

The newly appointed Foreign Office minister retweeted quotes attributed to him by the BBC, stating: “We need leaders who best reflect modern Britain and can provide solutions to the challenges our nation is facing now.”

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Rishi Sunak launches bid to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative leader – live

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Former chancellor says it it time to restore trust, rebuild the economy and reunite the country

More now from the 1922 Committee’s Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who says that while in an “ideal world” deputy PM Dominic Raab would have been made caretaker prime minister after Johnson’s speech yesterday, “that ship has sailed”.

I think in an ideal world, Dominic Raab, as deputy prime minister, should have been the caretaker prime minister, but that ship I think has sailed and we must we must now live with the fact that Boris Johnson will be prime minister until a successor can be voted on.

[Johnson] has said very clearly that he won’t be making any major changes during that period. And I think that is a good thing.

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Race to replace Boris Johnson slow to take shape amid resignation chaos

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Analysis: Suella Braverman is lone frontbencher to voice leadership plan as Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid and others hang back

Even before Boris Johnson delivered his ill-tempered exit speech, Conservative MPs’ focus had already switched to who might succeed him – and unlike in 2019, when he had been the prince across the water for months, this time there is no obvious successor.

Rishi Sunak, who walked out of the Treasury on Tuesday within minutes of Sajid Javid quitting, had been widely seen as the frontrunner until a series of missteps, including the botched spring statement.

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Sunak and Javid in pole position if race for Johnson’s job begins

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A number of senior Tory MPs are preparing leadership bids as Johnson’s hold on power weakens

Leadership jostling kicked off among leading Conservative MPs as Boris Johnson clung to power, with departing cabinet ministers Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid the favourites, and Eurosceptic Steve Baker publicly saying he would “reflect seriously on whether to run”.

Baker, a former chair of the European Research Group who was one of the “Spartan” holdouts against Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was the second to go on the record with leadership ambitions, saying it was “accurate” that he was thinking about a bid.

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Family of activist jailed in Egypt urge Liz Truss to pressure counterpart

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Family of Alaa Abd El Fattah join wife of Karim Ennarah, under travel ban, in demanding more action from foreign secretary

The family of a British national jailed in Egypt and the British wife of an Egyptian rights defender under a travel ban are demanding that Liz Truss do more to pressure her Egyptian counterpart when they meet this week.

The foreign secretary is expected to meet Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, in London after telling parliament in June that she would seek a meeting with him and raise the case of detained British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah. “We’re working very hard to secure his release,” she said.

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Xi Jinping hails China’s rule over Hong Kong on 25th anniversary of handover

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Chinese president says ‘one country, two systems’ will endure and democracy flourishes after unprecedented unpicking of freedoms

Xi Jinping has hailed China’s rule over Hong Kong as he led 25th anniversary celebrations of the city’s handover from Britain, insisting democracy was flourishing despite a political crackdown that has silenced dissent.

After swearing in a new hardline chief executive, John Lee, in a solemn ceremony on Friday morning, the Chinese president laid out his vision for the city and its administrators.

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Boris Johnson says UK defence spending set to rise to 2.5% of GDP by end of decade – live

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Latest updates: prime minister tells Nato conference UK will spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030

And in another interview Liz Truss refused to endorse Boris Johnson’s claim that “toxic masculinity” helped to explain Vladimir Putin’s conduct and that he would not have invaded Ukraine if he were a woman. Asked if she agreed, she told Times Radio:

[Putin is] clearly is capable of very, very evil acts ... I don’t pretend that I can conduct a psychological analysis on him, nor do I think it’s helpful ...

I think that both women and men are capable of terrible and appalling acts.

All of Ukraine that has been invaded by Russia is illegally occupied. And, ultimately, the Russians need to be pushed out of all of that territory, and certainly what we shouldn’t be doing as friends and allies [of Ukraine] ... is implying that there are any trade-offs or any bits of Ukrainian territory that could be traded away or compromised on.

It is realistic, and that is why we are supplying the extra lethal aid we’re supplying.

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Chinese invasion of Taiwan ‘would be catastrophic miscalculation’

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Trade should be directed at countries who can be trusted, says British foreign secretary Liz Truss

China would be making “a catastrophic miscalculation” if it invaded Taiwan, Liz Truss has said, telling the Nato summit that the UK and other countries should reconsider trading relationships with countries that used economic power in “coercive” ways.

In a sign of how far UK government attitudes towards China have shifted since the self-declared “golden decade” under David Cameron, the British foreign secretary said trade should be directed at countries that could be trusted.

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UK calls for extra vigilance on China ahead of Nato summit

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Boris Johnson and Liz Truss among those saying Ukraine war highlights potential Chinese threat to Taiwan

Boris Johnson and his ministers are going into the Nato summit with fresh warnings that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the need for extra vigilance and caution over potential Chinese action against Taiwan.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, who is joining the prime minister at the Nato gathering in Madrid, was most explicit, calling for faster action to help Taiwan with defensive weapons, a key requirement for Ukraine since the invasion.

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Liz Truss dismisses Macron suggestion UK might be keen on joining new European political community – UK politics live

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Foreign secretary tells Commons foreign affairs committee UK sees Nato as key defensive alliance for Europe and G7 as key economic alliance

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. There is a live feed at the top of this blog.

On Sunday Emmanuel Macron, the French president, came away from a meeting with Boris Johnson under the impression that the UK was enthusiastic about his plan for a “European political community” - a proposed new grouping, taking in European countries in the EU and outside it.

That this house notes that UK economic growth is forecast to grind to a halt next year, with only Russia worse in the OECD; further notes that GDP has fallen in recent months while inflation has risen to 9.1% and that food prices, petrol costs and bills in general are soaring for millions across the country; believes that the government is leaving Britain with backlogs such as long waits for passports, driving licences, GP and hospital appointments, court dates, and at airports; and calls on the government to set out a new approach to the economy that will end 12 years of slow growth and high taxation under successive Conservative governments.

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