Register of MPs’ interests shows ex-PM accepted gift from Lady Carole Bamford, wife of JCB chairman, Lord Anthony Bamford
Boris Johnson accepted free accommodation worth £10,000 from the wife of the leading Tory donor who hosted his wedding party this summer, it has emerged.
The updated register of MPs’ interests shows that the former prime minister accepted a £10,000 gift from Lady Carole Bamford, for “concessionary use of accommodation for me and my family in September”.
Continue reading...UK and Ireland agree to do ‘everything possible’ to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland
The UK and Ireland have agreed to do “everything possible” to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland, following a meeting of the British-Irish intergovernmental conference in London.
The Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney and the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary Chris Heaton-Harris met in London today – alongside the Irish justice minister Helen McEntee and the UK’s Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker.
The UK and Irish governments reaffirmed their commitment to doing everything possible to facilitate the reestablishment of the executive by 28 October and the full functioning of all of the political institutions established by the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement including the North South Ministerial Council.
They agreed on the importance of respecting the agreement in totality.
The conference discussed the approach to the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past and the value of further engagement on this crucial issue, in particular the Irish government’s concerns with the UK government’s proposed legislation and how those concerns might be addressed.
In terms of setting up a central bank, we would start that process as soon as Scotland voted for independence. That central bank would be the provider of advice to the Scottish government on these matters, it would be the lender of last resort for our financial services industry, it would require reserves that could cover these limited functions in that first period.
We have said, and this is my party’s position, that we would move from using the pound, we would continue to use the pound after independence ... and we would move to a Scottish pound when the economic conditions were right.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest political coverage here
In his interview with LBC Jake Berry, the Tory chairman, was asked if he was channelling When Harry Met Sally when he described Liz Truss as the “Yes, yes, yes prime minister” in his speech to the conference yesterday. (Robert Hutton is very funny about this, and much else, in his sketch for the Critic.) Berry said he was referring to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister when he delivered that line.
In the same interview, Berry revealed that his joke-making has not improved since yesterday. Talking about the conference in general, Berry said:
I think colleagues saw yesterday that when the going gets tough, the Truss gets going.
I do think my language was a bit clumsy in that regard and I regret it.
The point I was making ... is that the government needs to go for growth to ensure that it can grow the economy and Britain can get a pay rise. You don’t have to tell me how hard people graft in this economy. I know how hard people work.
We’ve got to wait until those figures are available … You simply cannot make a decision on figures you do not currently have.
Continue reading...It’s been four weeks since Liz Truss became prime minister and her policies are already facing criticism from senior Conservative MPs. Rafael Behr reports on whether she’ll be able to hold the party together
On Wednesday, Liz Truss addressed her party at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham. She told the party that she was “ready to make the hard choices”, but with some Tory MPs already publicly criticising her policies, are her days as prime minister numbered?
The speech was interrupted by two Greenpeace protesters holding up a banner saying “who voted for this?”, a sentiment shared by the former culture secretary Nadine Dories who tweeted earlier in the week “if Liz wants a whole new mandate, she must take it to the country”.
Continue reading...For every £1 given workers by cutting tax rates £2 was being taken via freeze on income tax thresholds, thinktank calculates
Millions of households are facing a “stealth” tax raid under Liz Truss’s government despite her promise to support workers through the cost-of-living crisis by lowering their tax bills, Britain’s leading economic thinktank said on Wednesday.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated that for every £1 given to workers by cutting headline tax rates, £2 was being taken away through a freeze on the level at which people begin paying tax on their earnings.
Continue reading...Never have so many angry things been said by so many Tories about each other in a single day as on Monday. We rank the 10 most irate MPs
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The Tories assembled in Birmingham are fighting over lots of things. They’re fighting over the 45p tax U-turn, and the prospect of a swingeing benefit cut, and whether or not it’s OK for the Home Secretary to accuse backbenchers of mounting a coup. But above all, deep down, they’re mostly fighting about whether Liz Truss has got what it takes. There may never have been so many angry things said by so many Tories about each other in a single day as there were on Monday. It’s not the ideal introduction for the most important speech of Liz Truss’ life.
Some of them are angrily making headlines by saying exactly what they bloody well think; others are angrily making headlines by telling the first lot to put a sock in it. The mood is a little delirious. An amazing video appeared on Tuesday of at least three people appearing to sleep soundly through health secretary Thérèse Coffey’s speech in the main hall, but on Wednesday morning I find myself wondering if they weren’t obscure backbenchers who somebody had poisoned.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Tobias Ellwood said the party should focus on sticking to its sensible and fiscally responsible roots
Tobias Ellwood has urged moderate Conservatives not to leave the party as he suggested Liz Truss has until Christmas to turn her troubled premiership around.
The senior MP, who chairs parliament’s defence select committee but was stripped of the Tory whip in July, said the party should stick to its sensible and fiscally responsible roots.
Continue reading...Prime minister says she is committed to ‘supporting most vulnerable’ but stresses need to be ‘fiscally responsible’
Truss was asked about her views on what she has described as “obstacles to growth” replying that she was intent on pressing ahead with plans to remove “top-down” housing targets.
It’s wrong that how houses are built is centrally directed. Instead we are setting up new investment zones, which are places that people want homes to be built and they want businesses to be built. It’s an approach based more on local consent than centrally based targets.
That is the balance that she needs to strike. Yes there is more that we can do to get the highly skilled people we need in our economy but we also need to train more people.
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...Unusual diplomatic intervention prompted by fears over Liz Truss’s commitment to net zero
The Egyptian government, host of the next UN climate summit, has warned the UK against “backtracking from the global climate agenda”, in a significant intervention prompted by fears over Liz Truss’s commitment to net zero.
The warning before the Cop27 conference, which will take place in just over a month in Sharm el-Sheikh, to the host of Cop26, which took place in Glasgow last November, is highly unusual in diplomatic terms. The hosts of successive Cops are responsible for a smooth handover of the talks.
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...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...Government says change would apply to all new regulations and it would look to raise in threshold in future
Ministers are seeking to exempt firms with up to 500 staff from new regulations, with unions warning that they could soon be spared from reporting on gender pay gaps and executive pay ratios in a “cynical and reckless” move.
Liz Truss announced on Sunday that companies with up to 500 staff would now be treated the same way as small businesses with fewer than 50 staff, which are exempt when new regulations are introduced.
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...Tory MPs fear voters see them as the nasty party again after the prime minister refused to rethink tax cuts for the rich
Liz Truss has long channelled Margaret Thatcher – echoing her rhetoric, her free market instincts and even her clothes – but as the Tory conference kicked off in Birmingham on Sunday many in her party were hoping that she would relinquish ambitions to be the next Iron Lady and drop her mini-budget plans.
There were early glimmers of hope. In an article for the Sun, she admitted her proposals would cause “short term disruption” but that she had an “iron grip” on the country’s finances. Then she told the BBC she understood public concerns. “I do accept we should have laid the ground better,” she said.
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...Prime minister is facing the same fate as Theresa May when the Commons returns and could even be removed as leader
Liz Truss is already facing the possibility of crippling parliamentary rebellions over welfare, planning and a new wave of austerity, as MPs warn that No 10 has become “disconnected from reality”.
With some Conservatives in talks with Labour over how to block elements of the prime minister’s sweeping plans, senior Tories believe that Truss is now heading into the bruising parliamentary warfare that characterised Theresa May’s beleaguered premiership.
Continue reading...Russia is suspected to have carried out explosions to put pressure on western energy supplies
Liz Truss has said a series of explosions that severely damaged Russia’s undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines were an act of sabotage.
In a joint report delivered to the United Nations last week, the Danish and Swedish governments have claimed that the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which can carry gas to Germany, were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.
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