Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Monday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Things could be about to get worse for Liz Truss

It’s a cliche to report an air of unreality at the Conservative conference here in Birmingham. All party conferences are divorced from political reality, cut off from the rest of the country by steel fences and self-absorption. But this little bubble of self-referential noise feels even further away from normality than usual. Safe behind the fences and still, just about, comfortable in the familiar company of their colleagues and contacts, conference-goers (Tories and non-Tory visitors alike) risk failing to grasp just how much trouble the party, the government, and the country, are in. Start with talk of a fresh austerity programme, trimming between £20 billion and £40 billion a year

Sunday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is levelling up dead?

Does Liz Truss really believe in levelling up? She doesn’t talk about it that much, and it wasn’t really a major feature of the ‘fiscal event’ recently (though given the way that’s gone, this might not be a bad thing). This evening Levelling Up Minister Dehenna Davison insisted that it really was still a thing. She told a Tory ‘fringe’* event that she didn’t understand why people were questioning its longevity, saying:  Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen this emerging narrative that the government is dropping levelling up, isn’t having it anywhere near as much of a priority, and I honestly have no idea where that has come from,

Steerpike Steerpike

Kemi attacks mass immigration proposals

To the Think Tent, home of the IEA and Taxpayers’ Alliance. Who would the free market thinkers be cheering this year, now that their heroine is running the country? To no one’s surprise, Kemi Badenoch was the star speaker, following her impressive leadership bid earlier this summer. Some wags suggest that Kemi’s campaign never actually ended, with the Tory rising star keen to boost her credentials as a right-wing tonic to the soggy centrist ails of recent years. And the newly appointed Trade Secretary did little to dispel such talk, with a crowd-pleasing speech that contained a pointed critique on the idea of using increasing immigration numbers to boost GDP.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Kwarteng’s next fiscal event will have to be brought forward

In a tetchy performance on The Andrew Neil Show, Tory party chair Jake Berry repeatedly insisted that everyone would have to wait until the Chancellor’s unveiling of his fiscal plan on 23 November to find out whether or not there would be spending cuts and when the government believes it will hit its 2.5 per cent growth target. Berry’s performance, which involved repeatedly trying to answer a different question to the one he was asked, made it even harder to believe that this line can hold. If every minister interviewed for the next six weeks sounded like Berry did just now, then it would be a disaster for the government. The sensible

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The silence that reveals everything about Liz Truss

The moorings that tie the rulers to the ruled are breaking in the UK. You can hear them snapping during the Prime Minister’s silences. On Sunday morning, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asked Liz Truss a question any democratic leader should be able to answer. Truss and her Chancellor’s folly had sent yields on ten-year guilts up to 4.3 per cent. It had forced the Bank of England to announce an emergency £65 billion bond-buying programme. It had threatened pensions and the finances of mortgage holders. ‘How many people voted for your plan?’ asked Kuenssberg. Silence. A silence long enough for viewers to believe that concerns of democratic legitimacy had not

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne: It’s ‘touch and go’ if Kwasi Kwarteng survives

George Osborne knows a thing or two about an omnishambles Budget. Having hiked taxes on pasties back in 2012, the then-chancellor was forced into a humiliating u-turn. So far, his successor Kwasi Kwarteng is holding his ground over his ‘mini Budget’. But how long can that last? Osborne’s verdict is that it might not be long before we get an answer to that question.  ‘I think I underestimated the ability of the government to blow itself up in its first few weeks of office’ Speaking on the Andrew Neil show on Channel 4, Osborne said it is now ‘touch and go whether the Chancellor can survive’ after the catastrophic fallout from his unfunded tax

Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘I don’t think they can win’: Tories mull electoral doom

Conservative party conference in Birmingham has got off to a strange start. MPs and activists aren’t in open revolt but few have much that is positive to say about the situation the Tory government finds itself in. As one long-time activist put it to me on arrival:  ‘I have been voting for the Conservatives for over two decades but now I’m not sure I can’ Truss’s problems are twofold With a string of polls suggesting that the party would face electoral annihilation were an election held tomorrow, Liz Truss’s honeymoon is well and truly over. One particularly downbeat fringe event took place this afternoon, titled: ‘Can the Tories win the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Even Liz Truss’s closest allies are nervous

There is a slightly odd atmosphere at Tory conference in Birmingham. Those who should be striding around triumphantly are instead rather nervous. One of Liz Truss’s closest ideological allies was quick to stress to me that while they might have shaped the thrust of the new Prime Minister’s ideas, they weren’t responsible for their execution in the Budget by any other name. Strikingly, the abolition of the 45p rate of tax on the highest earners has very few friends. Even those who you would expect to laud the measure are at pains to say that they wouldn’t have done it now. Meanwhile, Michael Gove is touring the conference fringes making the case against

James Heale James Heale

Did Gove just torpedo Truss?

14 min listen

Michael Gove this morning said that Liz Truss’s plans to scrap the top 45 per cent tax rate are a ‘display of the wrong values’. It comes as Jake Berry, the Tory party chairman, confirmed that MPs who vote against the budget would lose the Conservative whip. Has Gove just ruined Truss’s conference? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls. Produced by Max Jeffery.

Coffee House

Full list: Tories against the 45p tax cut

It’s day one of Tory conference and already the drumbeat of rebellion is filling the air. There was much to digest in last week’s mini-Budget but the measure that has attracted the most attention was the eye-catching plan to cut the top rate of tax from 45p to 40p. This morning Michael Gove attacked the measure on Laura Kuenssberg’s show as a ‘display of the wrong values’ but he’s far from alone in having doubts. Below is the The Spectator’s running tally of the Tory MPs who have gone public and voiced their concerns. James Cartlidge ‘Cutting tax for top earners while reducing benefits in a cost of living crisis

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Gove torpedoes Truss’s conference

Liz Truss’s supporters had hoped this year’s Conservative party conference would mark a moment of triumph for the new leader. Instead it opened with her arch-nemesis lobbing a hand grenade in her direction. Step forward, Michael Gove. Appearing on a panel on Laura Kuenssberg’s show this morning, Gove voiced his concerns with Truss’s economic plan which has spooked the markets. He criticised ‘the sheer risk of using borrowed money to fund tax cuts’ as well as the the decision to cut the 45p rate for top earners as ‘a display of the wrong values’.  When pressed on whether that meant he would not vote for the measures, Gove replied:  So,

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Truss defends her mini Budget

Liz Truss: ‘We should have laid the ground better’ Liz Truss joined Laura Kuenssberg in Birmingham as the Conservative party conference kicks off. In more ordinary times, a new leader might expect to bask in the warm glow of their recent election. However, there is no doubt that Liz Truss can expect considerable scrutiny this week, not least with the Conservatives now a distant second to Labour in the opinion polls. Unsurprisingly, the government’s mini Budget was at the top of the agenda, and Truss expressed some remorse at how the ambitious financial package had spooked the markets: Truss: I am committed to abolishing the 45p tax rate Truss confirmed she

Steerpike Steerpike

Now Nadine goes for Truss

It’s day one at Tory conference and already tensions are running high. Conservative MPs are coming out to attack Liz Truss’s 45p tax cut, angry activists are muttering about mutiny and the markets are braced for more turmoil tomorrow. So who better than Nadine Dorries to calm the situation? Now relieved of her Cabinet post, the former Culture Secretary has time on her hands and she’s certainly putting that to good use. Alongside an anguished Sunday Times interview today – in which Dorries bemoans the loss of Boris as ‘one of the world’s great leaders’ – the pugilistic parliamentarian has now taken to Twitter to turn her guns on Johnson’s

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Liz Truss insists she’s not for turning

Liz Truss goes into her first Conservative party conference with the latest Opinium polling giving Labour a 19-point-lead and her own approval ratings down at -37 – worse than Boris Johnson’s in his final days in office. Yet despite this, the new Prime Minister used her first big sit down interview since the fallout from the not-so-mini Budget to insist that she was not for turning. Truss told Laura Kuenssberg that she stands by all the measures announced last Friday – including abolishing the 45p rate of income tax for the highest earners. The furthest Truss would go in accepting that her first fiscal event – which has spooked the markets, voters

Michael Gove

‘It’s not conservative’: Gove’s verdict on Liz Truss’s economic plan

It was right of the Prime Minister to acknowledge that the fiscal event (the mini Budget) needs to be revisited. There needs to be a recognition of mistakes. But it’s still the case, on the basis of what the Prime Minister said this morning, that there is an inadequate realisation at the top of government at the scale of change required. So, yes: the energy package was the most important thing in the fiscal event. But 35 per cent of the additional money that we are borrowing is not to cut energy costs; it is for unfunded tax cuts. I’m profoundly concerned about that because there are two major things

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

What do the Tories have to show from their time in power?

After 12 years in Downing Street, four prime ministers (so far), two monarchs, and one mini-budget, the public are starting to drop hints that it’s time for Tories to head home. As Conservative conference kicks off, it’s as good a time as any to take stock: what do the Tories have to show for their many years in office? The truth is that the party’s legacy amounts to little, but it has done one thing well: keeping Labour out of power. This is hardly something to boast about. The 2010 Conservative manifesto opened with the declaration that ‘our economy is overwhelmed by debt’. The public finances would dominate David Cameron’s

Rupert Darwall

Is this a Black Wednesday moment for the Tories?

Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his mini-Budget one week after the thirtieth anniversary of Black Wednesday, when the markets forcibly ejected sterling from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). There’s one measure that makes recent market turmoil seem modest and even manageable by comparison with Black Wednesday. According to the Bank of England’s database, the pound fell 2.16 per cent against the euro on the day the Chancellor delivered his fiscal statement. By last Thursday, the pound was down only 1.91 per cent against the euro. Black Wednesday and its immediate aftermath saw sterling fall 13.9 per cent against the Deutschmark. In all other respects, however, the economic and political situation is more

Norman Davies

A short history of language in Ukraine

After six months of war in Ukraine, most observers agree that the roots of Russian aggression lie in the country’s deep-rooted attitudes to culture and history. In line with Russia’s nationalist traditions, Putin denies any place for a separate Ukrainian identity. The Ukrainians, in contrast, see themselves as a proud nation with their own history, culture, centuries long struggle for independence, and, of course, language. And while Ukrainian has been dismissed as a dialect of Russian in Moscow, it in fact has a long history – and is very much a language in its own right. That independence can be seen in the genesis of the word ‘Ukraine’ itself. In

Saturday

Julie Bindel

Is sanity returning to the trans debate?

At last, Mermaids, the UK charity for, in their own words, ‘gender variant and transgender children’ is under the spotlight. Following investigations by the Telegraph and Mail newspapers, as well as demands from critics concerned about child safeguarding, the Charity Commission has launched a regulatory compliance case and have said that they have written to the organisation’s trustees. The investigations found that Mermaids has been offering breast binders to girls reportedly as young as 13, and despite children saying their parents opposed the practice. Binding can often cause breathing difficulties, back pain and broken ribs. It was also uncovered that kids have been ‘congratulated’ online for identifying as transgender by

Ian Williams Ian Williams

China’s lockdown nightmare is far from over

Another Covid-19 lockdown, another angry confrontation. This time it was on the streets of Shenzhen, China’s high-tech hub, where videos this week showed an angry crowd facing off against police officers wearing protective medical gear, including blue gowns, masks and plastic visors. ‘Lift the lockdown’, the protesters yelled, pushing against hastily erected barricades. Some threw plastic bottles at the police. In one clip, a woman can be heard shouting, ‘The police are hitting people’. The protest, one of several reported in the city, followed an order for residents of three districts to stay at home after just ten infections were detected. Subway stations were closed, and affected areas cordoned off.