Category Archives: Liz Truss

Why access to Tory party members is big incentive for owning Daily Telegraph

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Newspaper retains considerable influence among those who will shape the direction of Conservatives

Whoever buys the Daily Telegraph is not just purchasing a historic and profitable newspaper – they are acquiring direct access to Tory party members who will control the future direction of the Conservatives.

Paul Goodman, the editor of ConservativeHome, said the newspaper retained “considerable” influence among the approximately 160,000 card-carrying members of the party’s rank and file who vote in leadership elections and MP selections.

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Liz Truss in Taiwan calls for ‘economic Nato’ to challenge China

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Former British PM says Taiwan is ‘on the front line of the global battle for freedom’ during trip that China has called a ‘dangerous political show’

Free nations must commit themselves to a free Taiwan and must be prepared to back it up with concrete measures, Liz Truss has said in a keynote speech in Taipei, in which she called for an “economic Nato” to tackle Beijing’s growing authoritarianism.

The former British prime minister said she had come to show support for Taiwan, which was “on the frontline of the global battle for freedom”, under threat from a totalitarian regime in China. Truss arrived in Taiwan on Monday for a five-day visit, and is expected to meet senior government officials.

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Liz Truss’s plan to visit Taiwan called ‘worst kind of Instagram diplomacy’

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Alicia Kearns, foreign affairs select committee chair, launches blistering attack on former prime minister

The Conservative chair of the foreign affairs select committee has launched a blistering attack on Liz Truss over the former prime minister’s planned trip to Taiwan, calling it “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy”.

Alicia Kearns said she thought Truss’s trip planned for next week was little more than a vanity project aimed at keeping her profile high after her brief spell as prime minister last year.

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Liz Truss to visit Taiwan and give speech that could upset UK’s China strategy

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Ex-PM, who is trying to revive career, says she will ‘show solidarity’ with Taiwan after Nancy Pelosi visit sparked furore

Liz Truss is to visit Taiwan next week, where she will deliver a speech likely to anger Beijing and potentially upset the UK government’s careful approach to China relations.

The former prime minister said on Tuesday: “Taiwan is a beacon of freedom and democracy. I’m looking forward to showing solidarity with the Taiwanese people in person in the face of increasingly aggressive behaviour and rhetoric from the regime in Beijing.”

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Liz Truss disputing £12,000 bill relating to use of Chevening grace-and-favour house

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Invoice for ex-PM’s time at Kent mansion when foreign secretary is thought to include sums for missing bathrobes and party business

Liz Truss is disputing part of a £12,000 bill sent to her by the Cabinet Office relating to her use of the grace-and-favour Chevening house while she was foreign secretary.

The bill mostly covered hospitality but also included missing items, such as some bathrobes, and dates back to last summer when she was fighting the Conservative leadership campaign against Rishi Sunak.

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Labour to use tactic that finished off Truss to force Tories into sewage vote

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If Tory MPs vote down opposition day motion, Labour can accuse them of thwarting attempts to clean up rivers, beaches and chalk streams

Labour is planing to use the same Commons procedure that helped remove Liz Truss from Downing Street to force Conservative MPs into a politically embarrassing vote about whether to toughen up rules on sewage discharges.

The party plans to use its regular opposition day motion on Tuesday to push a binding motion, which would oblige the government to set aside Commons time next week for a debate and vote on a Labour bill to impose tougher penalties for sewage spills.

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Liz Truss to say Macron trip to China was sign of weakness

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Former PM to say in speech that any attempts by western leaders to appease Xi Jinping would be a mistake

Liz Truss will say Emmanuel Macron’s recent trip to China was a “sign of weakness”, after the French president asked Beijing for support in ending the war in Ukraine.

In the latest of a series of foreign policy interventions designed to encourage Rishi Sunak to take a tougher approach towards China, Truss will say in a speech that any attempts by western leaders to appease Xi Jinping would be a mistake.

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Military sites to house asylum seekers to meet ‘essential living needs and nothing more’, says minister – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story here

Eagle how the pay settlement for health workers will be funded.

Hunt says, as with all pay settlements, departments fund them from the money they get in the spending review. But in exceptional circumstances they can speak to the Treasury about extra help.

But we make a commitment that there will not be a degredation of frontline services for the public.

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Liz Truss criticised for ‘stunning lack of humility’ over reported peerage plans

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Ex-PM has reportedly nominated at least four new members of Lords despite only lasting 49 days in No 10

Liz Truss has been accused of showing a “stunning lack of humility” following reports that she plans in effect to create a peer for every 10 days she spent in office.

The former prime minister is reported to have nominated at least four new members of the House of Lords, despite being forced from office after only 49 days, following a disastrous mini-budget.

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Boris Johnson insists Partygate leaving dos were ‘essential for work purposes’ during grilling by MPs – as it happened

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Former PM suggests ‘unsocially distanced farewell gatherings’ were allowed at work and that he didn’t think following guidance meant following it perfectly

Turning back to the Northern Ireland protocol deal vote for a moment, Steve Baker, the Northern Ireland minister, has said that Boris Johnson risks being remembered as a “pound shop Nigel Farage” for his stance on the Windsor framework.

Baker said that reviving the Northern Ireland protocol bill, Johnson’s declared alternative to Rishi Sunak’s deal (see 9.40am), would “wreck our relations with the European Union and damage our standing internationally”. Sky’s Sam Coates has posted the full quote on Twitter.

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Truss urges west to safeguard Taiwan security ‘before it’s too late’

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In Tokyo speech to conservative lawmakers, former British PM issues warning about Chinese aggression

Liz Truss has used her first overseas speech since resigning as British prime minister to call on the west to safeguard Taiwan’s security and economy in the face of Chinese aggression “before it is too late”.

Speaking in Tokyo at a meeting of mainly conservative lawmakers that included the former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, Truss said Britain had been naive to court the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in 2015, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should serve as a warning of what happens when democracies fail to stand up to authoritarian regimes.

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Truss to call for tough sanctions against China if it escalates Taiwan tensions

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Former PM will warn in Tokyo ‘free world is in danger’ in apparent attempt to put pressure on Rishi Sunak

Britain and the rest of the G7 should urgently agree a tough package of sanctions to impose on China if it escalates military tensions with Taiwan, Liz Truss will argue, as she uses her first public overseas speech to pile pressure on Rishi Sunak.

Speaking in Tokyo on Friday, the former prime minister will urge her successor to be more hawkish in standing up to Beijing, warning coordinated action is needed to block “the rise of a totalitarian China” given “the free world is in danger”.

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Liz Truss oversaw jump in credit card spending at Foreign Office

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Guardian analysis of data shows officials spent more under former PM than predecessor Dominic Raab

Liz Truss oversaw a major jump in spending on government credit cards at the Foreign Office when she took over, a Guardian analysis shows, with spending on restaurants, bars, leisure activities and hotels all rising sharply during her time in office.

An analysis of data collated by the Labour party shows officials spent far more on procurement cards under the former prime minister than they had under her predecessor, Dominic Raab.

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Labour condemns ‘catalogue of waste’ on government ‘credit cards’

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Analysis of civil service spending includes Rishi Sunak’s Treasury department spending £3,000 on Tate photographs

Spending on government-issued “credit cards” has risen 70% since 2010, when the Conservatives first warned they were generating “hideous waste”, according to a Labour analysis of civil service spending.

Civil servants at 14 of the 15 main government departments spent nearly £150m on government procurement cards (GPCs) in 2021, the figures show, a steep rise since 2010-11, when David Cameron warned about the lax rules and oversight governing their use.

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Whitehall procurement cards serve a purpose but oversight is patchy

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Labour analysis shows use of GPCs has risen under Tory government despite David Cameron decrying ‘hideous’ spending levels in 2010

Nestled inside a shaded courtyard, Plataran in south Jakarta offers diners the promise of authentic Indonesian food “with the atmosphere of Javanese royalty”. Five miles to the north, Kaum gives guests a taste of tribal Indonesian cooking with modern inflections.

Together, these are two of the city’s finest restaurants, and they are where Liz Truss and her team decamped, first for lunch and then for dinner, during a whistle-stop trip to the Indonesian capital in 2021. The two meals cost the taxpayer £1,443 – all paid for conveniently by handing over one of the thousands of government procurement cards (GPCs) that officials can use to pay for anything under £20,000.

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Rishi Sunak to replace Nadhim Zahawi as Tory party chair in mini-reshuffle

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Sources say prime minister also wants to split Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Rishi Sunak is planning a mini-reshuffle to replace Nadhim Zahawi as Conservative party chair as he tries to reassert his grip over his divided party, according to reports.

The prime minister is also believed to be considering a shake-up of Whitehall by splitting the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy into two or three new departments to better reflect his priorities.

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Liz Truss seems keen to make comeback, but is anyone else on board?

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Former PM not trying to keep a low profile, but former allies have their own ambitions and few would risk a return

Liz Truss has been a looming presence in Westminster ever since her time in No 10 was cut short with the UK on the precipice of economic meltdown.

Unlike her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, who has barely been sighted, Truss has not hidden away from Westminster and is seen frequently strolling through the atrium of Portcullis House and lunching in popular SW1 restaurants, including at the newly opened Old Queen Street Cafe, which is owned by the website Unherd.

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Liz Truss expected to launch political comeback on Sunday

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Former PM whose No 10 stint ended after 49 days understood to have written piece for Sunday Telegraph

Liz Truss is expected to launch her political comeback on Sunday, months after her calamitous tenure in Downing Street ended after 49 days.

Her return is expected to begin with an opinion piece in this weekend’s Sunday Telegraph, as well as a number of planned media appearances.

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Campaigners seek to overturn Liz Truss’s resumption of Saudi arms sales

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Lawyers will argue the then trade secretary ignored Saudi air force’s bombing of civilians in Yemen

Anti-arms trade campaigners will seek to overturn a decision made by Liz Truss to resume UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, arguing she ignored a pattern of bombing civilians by the country’s air force in Yemen.

A judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) starts in the high court on Tuesday, the latest step in a long-running battle over the legality of a lucrative trade worth more than £23bn since the war in Yemen began.

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Troubles ahead for Rishi Sunak? Here are five pitfalls he’ll be dreading

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He may yearn for a period of calm, but the prime minister faces some daunting challenges in the stormy months ahead

Having taken on the party leadership after months of economic turmoil, Rishi Sunak always faced a tough task in turning around his party’s fortunes. With the future of cabinet ministers already in doubt and Boris Johnson courting MPs, a series of new hurdles in the months ahead will make life even harder for the prime minister.

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