Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: King Charles says ‘Dear oh dear’ as he meets Liz Truss

Meetings between the monarch and the prime minister remain a closely-guarded secret. This means that anything that is caught on camera when King Charles and Liz Truss meet is watched closely – and the King’s choice of greeting to the PM when he hosted her at Buckingham Palace last night was, err, particularly interesting. King Charles muttered ‘Dear oh dear’ as he met the PM late last night. In a video clip released by the Palace, taken at the beginning of their weekly audience, the PM is heard to say: ‘Your Majesty, great to see you again.’  Charles, smiling, replies: ‘Back again? Dear oh dear.’ Truss adds: ‘Well, it’s a great pleasure.’ Of course,

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Fiona Hill Edition

40 min listen

Fiona Hill is a seasoned political advisor, consultant and strategist. Born in Glasgow, she began her career as the first-ever female football reporter in Scotland. Then after moving into politics, she later became the first female chief of staff in No.10 under Theresa May. In her first interview since leaving Downing Street five years ago, Fiona Hill speaks to Katy Balls about how difficult she found it being attacked in the press after the Tories’ election disappointment in 2017. ‘Luckily I’m a strong person. But if I’d been a lesser person I may have thrown myself in the Thames.’ She also reveals that in the month after the election, Hill

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘Election campaigns are like voodoo’: Fiona Hill breaks her silence

Not so long ago, Fiona Hill was the most powerful woman in Whitehall. She ran Downing Street with an iron grip for the first year of Theresa May’s premiership alongside her co-chief of staff Nick Timothy. Ministers bowed to their authority, civil servants feared them, Tory MPs complained of a power grab by a duo of unelected officials. As the former Labour MP Frank Field put it: ‘People know that Fiona is not someone you mess around with.’ But after the Tories fell short of a majority in the 2017 snap election, she and Timothy were forced to resign. Hill flew to America and disappeared from public life. We meet

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Kwasi vs the markets

Warren Buffett famously said that ‘when the tide goes out, you see who is swimming naked’. Now that the tide of easy money has receded, and interest rates have risen, we can see that the UK is exposed. Higher rates are causing acute financial pain to an extent not anticipated for the government, homeowners and even pension funds. The cost to the taxpayer is going to be significant. The Bank of England is in an almost impossible position: it needs high interest rates to tackle inflation, but high rates threaten financial stability. Which is the lesser evil? The Bank has had to intervene in the gilt markets three times since

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

A house-price crash won’t be the only effect of the Kwarteng calamity

Where next for house prices? Clearly, they’re going down as mortgage rates go up – and my forecast in May that they would shed ‘recent froth’ and then stagnate rather than plunge, has been entirely overtaken by events, or at least by Kwasi Kwarteng’s calamitous ‘fiscal event’ last month. Reverberations from the Chancellor’s debut continue apace, with more emergency bond-buying by the Bank of England despite news that the OBR-assessed forecast missing from his September speech will now be unveiled on 31 October instead of on 23 November. But even if the books can be cooked in a way that makes more sense than markets expect, hundreds of mortgage deals

Owen Matthews

Kremlin crack-up: who’s out to get Putin?

The soldier with the Kalashnikov wasn’t happy. Neither were the hundreds of comrades who had chosen him as the spokesman for their angry complaints as they milled about on a train platform somewhere in Russia. ‘There are 500 of us, we are armed, but we haven’t been assigned to any unit,’ the newly mobilised soldier complained on a video that went viral earlier this month. ‘We’ve been living worse than farm animals for a week… Nobody needs us, we’ve had absolutely no training.’ Other soldiers, most of them masked, chipped in with more grievances. ‘The officers treat us like animals,’ shouted one. ‘We’ve spent a fortune on buying food for

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Backbench Tories turn on Truss

Liz Truss’s appearance before MPs at the 1922 committee was meant to be part of a wider charm offensive as she tries to get MPs back on side after a tricky start. With Labour enjoying a large poll lead and market turmoil dominating the news, Truss needs to keep her party behind her. Yet that is looking rather uphill. As James Forsyth reports on Coffee House, the mood amongst backbenchers leaving the meeting was (to put it politely) mixed. ‘It was painful,’ says one attendee. Other words used to describe the session include ‘awful’, ‘funereal’ and ‘brutal’. Truss attempted to win over assembled MPs by promising further reach out and parliamentary

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Truss’s tricky time with Tory MPs

Liz Truss has just finished addressing the 1922 committee of Tory MPs. The mood among backbenchers afterwards was mixed. There was surprise among them that there hadn’t been more of an effort by the whips to get supportive questions placed – something which happened even at the nadir of Theresa May’s fortunes. Instead, there were a slew of direct questions about the missteps of recent weeks. Truss’s allies might be concerned that Grant Shapps had a broad grin on his face as he left the meeting.   The PM promised more consultation with Tory MPs, a staple offer from a leader facing backbench discontent. Truss said MPs would be invited to

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Liz Truss’s epic blandness

Liz Truss faced her first proper grilling at PMQs. Her debut, last month, was a softball affair but today Keir Starmer went in with both fists swinging. He asked her to endorse Jacob Rees-Mogg’s view that ‘turmoil in the markets has nothing to do with the Budget’. ‘What we have done,’ said Liz, pleasantly, ‘we have taken decisive action to make sure that people are not facing energy bills of £6,000 for two years.’ Sir Keir, already hopping mad, blasted her for ignoring his specific point. ‘Avoiding the question, ducking responsibility, lost in denial,’ he said viciously. He mentioned a young couple from Wolverhampton, Zac and Rebecca, who last week

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer and Truss both face problems of their own making

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions taught us two things. The first was that Keir Starmer has still got a long way to go before he is the one putting Liz Truss on the ropes. The second is that Truss has got a long way to go before she isn’t putting herself on the ropes instead.  It wasn’t a high energy session from either leader: Starmer fell back into his habit of enunciating every syllable in an exasperated tone, whether he was talking about the BUSINESS. SECRETARY. or MORTGAGE. PAYMENTS. In fairness, there is a fair bit to be exasperated about, but Starmer would probably adopt the same tone about his sock

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is Truss ruling out spending cuts?

9 min listen

Did Liz Truss misspeak or did she mean it when she said that she wouldn’t go ahead with spending cuts, as promised in her leadership campaign? On the episode, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about what the Prime Minister could have meant, given the need to balance the books to pay for her tax cuts. James suggests that there may be a question over whether she meant nominal or real spending cuts. Whatever it is, the government needs to do more to reassure the markets – the team also discuss whether or not the Bank of England’s bailout will really end in the coming days.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Truss says no to spending cuts. Here’s the caveat

The mini-Budget was a spending spree. The ‘medium-term fiscal plan’ was meant to explain the funding. But what exactly is going to be in it?  Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng were thought to have (finally) come to terms with the need to address the need for some restraint, after their mini-Budget led to market chaos which is yet to settle. Their fiscal statement – in other words, how they would fund their tax cuts – was moved forward by almost a month, to 31 October. Its contents were thought to include some major spending cuts, in a bid to convince markets that fiscal discipline still guides the Tory party. If there are

Christopher Snowdon

Therese Coffey should leave smokers alone

So Thérèse Coffey, the health secretary, is putting the tobacco control plan on ice. Or is she? As in many other areas of public policy these days, all we have are rumours. Someone may be flying a kite with this rumour, but it is not clear whether it is the health secretary or a disgruntled civil servant at the Department of Health holding the string. All Coffey has said officially is that she was not ‘aware’ of what’s going on with it. You may not be aware of it at all and I can hardly blame you. In the dying days of Theresa May’s administration – two prime ministers ago

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Just stop Just Stop Oil

Why block roads? Why make people’s lives miserable? Who do you think this is going to convince? So go the interminable TV-news debates after each disruptive piece of direct action by eco-troupe Extinction Rebellion and the various single-issue offshoots, such as Just Stop Oil, that it has inspired. These past two weeks, Just Stop Oil has been back in the spotlight. It is now into its 12th consecutive day of action in London, demanding the government stop all oil and gas production. Yesterday, its activists blocked roads in Knightsbridge, delaying an ambulance, a fire engine and cars carrying babies to hospital. Today, they’re sitting in the road outside parliament.  Once

Douglas Murray

Is what Conor Burns did really so appalling?

There are times when I feel like certain rakes must have done when they realised that the Regency period was suddenly morphing into the Victorian one. Not that I feel especially rakish. Just that there are times when you see the new rules of sex and think: ‘Well, I guess there’ll be none of that from now on.’ Take the allegations made against Conor Burns MP. Last week, Burns was fired from his ministerial job and had the Conservative party whip suspended. There are efforts to take his name off the list of people put forward for a knighthood in Boris Johnson’s farewell honours list. What is the cause of all

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is it time to sack Andrew Bailey?

Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget was botched and the government has lost control of public spending. But this morning Jacob Rees-Mogg was not wrong to deflect at least some of the blame for current market turmoil on the Bank of England. The bank has been hopelessly behind the curve on inflation – in May last year it was still confidently predicting that the Consumer Prices Index would rise no higher than 2 per cent this year. Shortly before Kwarteng’s budget it showed that it was still lagging behind by raising interest rates by 0.5 per cent rather than the 0.75 per cent which markets had been expecting. If ever there was a public

Steerpike Steerpike

Parliament to host ‘children’s select committee’

Critics moan that parliament is full of children – and next week it certainly will be. For Mr S has learned of a new scheme to champion Westminster’s outreach efforts across the country. The UK Youth Parliament for 11 to 18 year olds was one thing; now Tory MP Anna Firth is hosting the first in-person ‘Children’s Parliament Select Committee’ for those even younger. For next Monday London and Southend school pupils between the ages of seven to eleven will descend on Portcullis House to ask the tough questions of various water companies. Anglian Water, Southern Water and other related businesses are expected to be there and can expect a

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Britain’s shrinking economy adds to market jitters

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak spent the summer fighting it out in the Tory leadership contest, debating how they would make the economy grow. It turns out that, while that discussion raged on, the economy was contracting: GDP fell in August by 0.3 per cent, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. This is an unexpected dip which is only likely to increase market jitters. September is likely to be a bad month too Production output fell by 1.8 per cent, while services dipped by 0.1 per cent overall: of this, arts, entertainment and recreation activities plunged by 5 per cent in total, making it one of the ‘largest contributors’ to the

Peregrine Worsthorne

What Washington was like during the Cuban Missile Crisis (2002)

On 27 October 1962, US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara stepped out of crisis meetings and looked up at the sky. ‘I thought it was the last Saturday I would ever see,’ he recalled.  This month marks 60 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 2002, Peregrine Worsthorne wrote about what it was like to be in Washington during humanity’s closest shave. Forty years ago the Americans won what I hope will be the nearest thing to nuclear war between superpowers — of which only one is left — ever fought; and the fact that they won it without firing a shot should not diminish but rather increase the extent of the victory.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget continues to spook investors

If government bond sales by pension funds are the fundamental cause of a potential systemic crisis that could hurt us all, as the Bank of England says, why are pension funds taking so little advantage of the Bank’s offer to buy £65 billion of the bonds? And why are bond prices still falling? It seems to me the only explanation for what is happening is that margin calls on pension funds’ liability-driven investments (LDIs) – or the trillion pounds of their debt that’s secured against UK government bonds – are not, in fact, the main cause of the spike in bond yields, or at least they are only a small