Liz Truss – It is ‘highly likely’ that Russia will invade Ukraine
January may be Eastern Europe’s coldest month, but most Ukrainians are unwilling to accept Vladimir Putin’s gigantic bear hug for comfort. Last week, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss claimed to have seen intelligence suggesting a Russian plan to install a puppet government in Kyiv, and diplomatic efforts have not yet managed to take the chill off the situation. Truss was interviewed by Sophie Raworth, who asked her how likely it was that the situation could escalate:
LT: We think it’s highly likely that [Putin] is looking to invade Ukraine… There is a real threat of invasion, but we don’t know what’s going to happen.
Europe is too dependent on Russian gas
Trevor Phillips also spoke to Truss about the co-ordination of sanctions against Russia. As well as a proposed broadening of sanctions against individuals, Truss said that she would argue wholeheartedly for the cancellation of the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, running from Russia to Germany. The Nord Stream pipelines are owned by the Russian state-backed company Gazprom:
LT: One of the issues we have is European dependence on Russian gas… We cannot allow that to happen.
The public ‘appreciate that we’ve spent a lot of money’
Phillips pressed Truss on the issue of the government’s National Insurance rise, aimed at funding the health and social care system. Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak have confirmed that the rise will go ahead in April, in the teeth of opposition from their backbenches, concerned about the current cost-of-living squeeze:
LT: We want to see taxes come down… [but] I think the public appreciate that we spent a lot of money during COVID and we do need to pay that money back.
Boris ‘will do a fantastic job’ at the next election
Truss was also stoic in her defence of the Prime Minister when challenged about his conduct by Raworth, and refused to countenance his resignation, even if it were to be established that he deliberately misled the House of Commons:
LT: [Johnson] will do a fantastic job winning the next election for the Conservative party…
SR: If he’s lied to Parliament should he resign…?
LT: I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions… He’s done an excellent job on the things that matter.
Lisa Nandy – ‘We can’t possibly hit people with more taxes’
Raworth also discussed the planned National Insurance rise with Shadow ‘Levelling Up’ Secretary Lisa Nandy. Nandy was highly critical of the tax, arguing that people needed more money in their pockets to spend in their local communities:
LN: We can’t possibly hit people with more taxes at the moment… If there was a Labour government today, there would be no rise in National Insurance.
‘Do you want me to frogmarch Boris out of Downing Street?’
Phillips goaded Nandy with the suggestion that Labour had completely failed in one of its core duties – the government had been on the ropes thanks to various self-inflicted wounds, but no knockout blow had been landed:
LN: Do you want me to go down now and frogmarch [Johnson] out of Downing Street?… If Tory MPs won’t find the courage and the backbone to do the right thing, then it will be up to the British people.
Ed Davey – Sue Gray delay could be worse than ‘a cockup’
And finally, the Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey sought to cast doubt on what had happened to the much-anticipated Sue Gray report into alleged Downing Street parties. The Metropolitan police have demanded that Gray’s report can only be published in a redacted form until they complete their own criminal investigation:
ED: The way the Met has handled this, I think is undermining [public trust]… This is chaos… It may be a cockup, but equally it may be something worse.
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