Markus Andrews

Conservative leadership contender Rishi Sunak has promised to “scrap” Boris Johnson’s plan to relax a ban on onshore wind farms in an appeal to the Tory right on climate.The former chancellor said he would uphold the ban if he wins the contest and becomes prime minister – citing the “distress and disruption” that onshore wind farms can cause.David Cameron’s government introduced a de facto ban on new onshore wind farm construction in 2016 when development was excluded from any green electricity subsidies.And under current government plans, local communities in England would be asked to consent to host new turbines in return for discounted electricity bills.But Mr Sunak said on Wednesday: “I want to reassure communities that as prime minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore.”A YouGov poll from September found that 62 per cent of Tory voters would support an offshore wind farm being built in their area, while on 28 per cent would be opposed.RecommendedEd Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change secretary, said it was “economic illiteracy and unilateral economic disarmament in the fight against the climate crisis that Rishi Sunak wants to keep the ban on onshore wind”.Wera Hobhouse, the Lib Dems’ energy spokesperson, said Mr Sunak’s promise showed “he is completely out of touch with reality”.She added: “Any supposed energy security strategy without onshore wind simply makes no sense … Onshore wind sites can be up and running, providing low-cost clean power for bill payers, in around a year.”The frontrunner – just one vote short of becoming one of the final two candidates – also pledged to make UK self-sufficient in energy production by 2045.Under Mr Sunak’s plan a new “energy sovereignty” target for 2045 would be written in to law, and an energy security committee would co-ordinate action to keep power stations online, protect gas reserves and reform markets to cut consumers’ bills.A dedicated energy ministry would be formed by breaking up the current Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).Mr Sunak said: “As energy bills skyrocket in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has never been more important that our country achieves energy sovereignty, so that we’re no longer reliant on the volatility of the global energy supply.”It comes after Mr Sunak warned that if progress on the plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 is “too hard and too fast” it would lose public support.Climate campaigns and Tory supporters of the net zero commitment fear Mr Johnson’s successor will backslide on policies aimed at achieving the landmark 2050 pledge.Foreign secretary Liz Truss suggested she wanted to look again at policies aimed at achieving net zero, vowing to stop the levies which help pay for investment in renewable energy. Rival Penny Mordaunt said the 2050 target “mustn’t clobber people” financially.Chris Skidmore – chair of the Net Zero Support Group of Tory MPs keen to uphold the target – welcomed Mr Sunak’s latest announcements.“A dedicated Department for Energy gives better focus on net zero, while an energy security target highlights that renewable energy provides energy sovereignty – ending foreign fossil fuel dependence,” he tweeted.Tory MP Robert Jenrick also defended Mr Sunak’s green credentials, describing him as “in favour of a sensible and credible plan to net zero”.The former minister told Sky News: “What he has said is that this is a big and expensive and logistically difficult journey for the country, and we’ve got to make sure we keep the public with us on that path.”Mr Jenrick added: “When we’re thinking of new pledges – whether that’s the introduction of electric vehicles, or mandating that homes have to have ground-source heat pumps – we’ve got to think about the pound in people’s pocket.“Because if the public lose faith in this, then we’re only going to set back our path to net zero.”RecommendedA final vote of Tory MPs on Wednesday will select the two candidates to be put to the party’s membership in the race for No 10.Ms Truss and Ms Mordaunt are battling to win over Kemi Badenoch’s supporters after she was knocked out of the contest. More

Britain’s Conservative Party will choose two finalists on Wednesday in the contest to replace Boris Johnson, as the divisive, unrepentant leader makes his final appearance in Parliament as prime minister.Johnson, who quit July 7 after months of ethics scandals but remains caretaker leader until the party elects his successor, will face derisive opposition politicians and weary Conservatives at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session. Parliament adjourns for the summer on Thursday, and Conservatives will spend the next six weeks electing a new leader, who will also become prime minister.Conservative lawmakers will hold a final elimination vote Wednesday afternoon to cut the field of three remaining candidates down to two.Former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt are battling for the run-off spots. The two finalists will go to a vote by all 180,000 members of the Conservative Party, with a winner scheduled to be announced Sept. 5.Sunak has led every round of voting so far and is highly likely to make the final two. Truss, who is favored by the party’s right wing, and Mordaunt, who has scored highly in polls of party members, are wooing lawmakers in an attempt to clinch the other spot.RecommendedEven though Truss has come third in every vote so far, bookmakers say she is favorite to win the contest because she is gaining momentum.The bitter campaign has exposed deep divisions in the Conservative Party at the end of Johnson’s scandal-tarnished three-year reign. Opponents have branded Sunak a “socialist” for raising taxes in response to the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Sunak has hit back that his rivals are peddling economic “fairy tales.”The contenders are all trying to distance themselves from Johnson, whose term in office began boldly in 2019 with a vow to “get Brexit done” and a resounding election victory, but is now ending in disgrace.He clung to office through months of scandals over his finances and his judgment, refusing to resign when he was fined by police over government parties that broke COVID-19 lockdown rules. He finally quit after one scandal too many — appointing a politician accused of sexual misconduct — drove his ministers to resign en masse.Despite remaining prime minister, he has largely disappeared from the scene, even as Britain faces a summer cost-of-living crisis and labor discontent as inflation hits 9.4%.Johnson did not attend any government emergency meetings about the heat wave that brought temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) to Britain this week. Last week he took a ride in a Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jet, with “Top Gun”-style footage released by his office, then threw a weekend party at Chequers, the country house that comes with the prime minister’s job.London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who represents the opposition Labour Party, accused Johnson of wanting to “become Tom Cruise” and urged him to resign immediately.“We need a full-time prime minister looking after our country rather than somebody who’s checked out,” Khan said.Recommended___Follow all of AP’s coverage of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/boris-johnson More

Sir Keir Starmer has called Boris Johnson as a “complete bulls***er” found out by the British public, and insisted he was looking forward to facing whoever replaces him at No 10.Dismissing the Tory leadership candidates as “B-grade”, Starmer mocked the increasingly bitter contest to be the next prime minister. “Look at the state of them,” he scoffed.“I think that he is a complete bullshitter, and I think he’s been found out,” Sir Keir said of the outgoing PM on the Rest is Politics podcast.Starmer said: “I’m struck by the Partygate stuff because it wasn’t just that he broke the rules, it’s that he then took the p*** out of the public with his ridiculous defences afterwards.”He added: “In the local elections, I accept that not everyone on the doors was saying, ‘It’s that that’s done it for me’. But there was a general realisation that this guy bulls***s. And if he bulls***ting about that, he’s probably been bulls***ing about everything.”RecommendedStarmer rejected the idea that he should be worried about having to face a stronger candidate now that Mr Johnson’s time is almost over – saying it was “good for the country” he had resigned.Asked by hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart if he had lost one of his greatest strengths, he said: “No, I don’t think so. We’ll face whoever wins this awful contest. I mean – look at the state of them.”Starmer mocked the “fantasy” economic pledges being made by the candidates. “More profoundly the Tory party has lost any sense of purpose. They are tearing themselves apart.”The BBC is set to host a head-to-head debate between the final two Tory candidates on Monday, but a recently-planned Sky News debate was scrapped over party fears TV hustings were turning into damaging slanging matches.Labour has released a video clip of Sunday night’s angry ITV debate in which Tory rivals ran down each other’s credentials and mourned the state of the economy.The clip highlights Liz Truss’ claim that Rishi Sunak had put Britain on course for a recission and Kemi Badenoch stating: “Why should the public trust us? We haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory.”Labour sources have told The Independent that the leadership team wants Ms Truss to win the Tory contest because they believe her “wooden style” would make him look “less unexciting”.Labour see Ms Mordaunt as a more difficult opponent because of her reputation as an effective Commons performer, the sources said, while they are neutral about the prospect of facing Mr Sunak.RecommendedA final vote of Tory MPs on Wednesday will select the two candidates to be put to the party’s membership in the race for No 10.Ms Truss and Ms Mordaunt are battling to win over Kemi Badenoch’s supporters after she was knocked out of the contest. More

Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email It may come as something of a surprise, but the favourite to become the next leader of the Conservative Party, with almost twice as many votes in YouGov’s latest poll […] More

A major NHS nurses’ union has agreed unanimously at an emergency meeting to ballot members on strike action, accusing the government of “disdain and contempt” over a pay award.The general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Pat Cullen, said it is now “time to stand up and say enough is enough” after millions of public sector workers were awarded pay rises of between 4 and 5 per cent.Most full-time nurses in the NHS will get a basic pay rise worth 4 per cent, a salary increase of about £1,400, though new nursing staff will see starting pay rise by 5.5 per cent to £27,055.Ms Cullen said this would represent around £27 per week before tax with memebers telling her: “That wouldn’t even get them a quarter tank of petrol to be able to go and see their patients.“That’s the disdain and contempt that was shown for the nursing profession yesterday”.RecommendedSpeaking on BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme, said added: “Our ruling council moved last night to a special meeting and immediately and unanimously decided to ballot our members now for industrial action, including strike action.“That will take its time, we will go through the proper process, we will do it safely, we will do effectively.”“It’s time now to stand up and say enough is enough for our profession and when we speak for nurses, we speak for patients.”She said the government had a “moral imperative” to look after the population, adding: “What they did yesterday was again say to the profession… we actually do not care that a lifetime of service translates into a lifetime of poverty for our members.”In an email to hundreds of thousands of nursing staff, RCN chair of council, Carol Popplestone, and Ms Cullen, said last night: “Today the UK Government confirmed its pay award for NHS staff in England for the year 2022-23.“This is yet another pay cut in real terms and we’re clear that nursing deserves better. Tonight, an emergency session of your elected council voted that members in England will be balloted on industrial action.“After years of underpayment and staff shortages, the fight for fair pay must continue. Your voice in the upcoming ballot will be essential to turning the tide on low pay.“Their announcement tried desperately to mislead the public on nursing pay. We need your help in calling it out.”Her comments came as it was announced the vast majority of teachers will get only a 5 per cent increase, while salaries for new teachers outside London will be increased 8.9 per cent to £28,000 as part of a recruitment drive.RecommendedAnd police officers will get a 5 per cent pay rise – an annual salary uplift of around £1,900 – after home secretary Priti Patel accepted the recommendations of the pay review body.The Public Commercial Services (PCS) general secretary Mark Serwotka described the awards as an “outrage” and warned of widespread strikes in the autumn. “We’ll be talking to our colleagues in other unions about organising co-ordinated national strike action,” he said. More

Social housing in England has deteriorated so badly that some homes are now “unfit for human habitation”, according to group of MPs calling on the government to improve conditions.MPs on the levelling up, housing and communities committee urged ministers to commit more funding for regeneration projects, and demanded that social housing providers “up their game”.In a damning report, the committee said too many social landlords were stigmatising their tenants and leaving them in “appalling conditions and levels of disrepair”.Social housing providers should face tougher action from a far more active regulator, MPs said – calling on the government to give the ombudsman the power to award far higher levels of compensation to tenants.The cross-party group recommended that the government empower the sector’s regulator to order providers to award compensation of up to £25,000.RecommendedLabour MP Clive Betts, committee chair, said too many social housing tenants were living in “uninhabitable homes and experiencing appalling conditions and levels of disrepair – including serious damp and mould”.Mr Betts said the poor handling of complaints by some providers was adding “insult to injury”, warning that delays in fixing problems were contributing to levels of disrepair.“Sadly, beyond the distress of experiencing poor living conditions, it is undeniable that tenants also face poor treatment from providers who discriminate and stigmatise people because they are social housing tenants,” he said.“This must change,” the Labour MP added. “Providers need to up their game, treat tenants with dignity and respect, and put tenants at the centre of how they deliver housing services, including by regularly monitoring the condition of their housing stock.”The MPs’ report also pointed out that the sector is under serious financial pressure, with an acute shortage of social housing.Warning that some buildings were “never built to last” and were coming to the end of their life, the report recommends the government commits to a major boost in funding for regeneration projects.MPs also recommended that providers are forced to support the set of genuinely independent tenant associations, calling on the government to establish a national tenant body to drive up standards.The report also criticises the current regime for regulating the quality of social housing. Since 2011, the Regulator of Social Housing has been prevented by the existing “serious detriment” test from proactively regulating standards.The report welcomes the fact that the government is legislating through the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill to repeal the “serious detriment” test, as MPs hope it will remove a significant barrier to more proactive regulation.The report calls for the “passive” regulator to be more proactive in defending the interests of tenants and calls on it to make more use of its enforcement powers, especially in the most serious cases.Candidates have had little to say about social housing or the problems of private tenants in the Conservatives’ leadership contest, with Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt appealing to homeowners in the Tory shires by vowing to ditch housebuilding targets.It comes as fears grow that the Tory hopefuls are willing to row back on Boris Johnson’s levelling up agenda and commitment to invest more in the north and Midlands.RecommendedThe shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy said the contest to succeed Mr Johnson at No 10 has been the “final nail in the coffin” for the levelling up policy.“I don’t think Rishi [Sunak] would ever have committed a bunch of funding to it if it wasn’t for Johnson,” one official from Michael Gove’s levelling up department told Politico. “Gove was always going to be a high-water mark – the drop-off will now be massive.” More

Former minister David Davis has accused Conservative leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak’s team of “reallocating” votes to Liz Truss because he believes he can beat the foreign secretary in the run-off.The senior figure – a key backer of Penny Mordaunt’s campaign to become prime minister – claimed it was the “the dirtiest campaign” he had ever seen, and revealed he had asked for an inquiry.Mr Davis said he had urged cabinet secretary Simon Case to examine into whether government resources had been used to help Ms Mordaunt’s rivals, claimed she had been subjected to “brutal” smears.“It’s been the dirtiest campaign I’ve ever seen,” he told LBC. “I’ve written to the cabinet secretary, asked him to do an inquiry of the use of government resources in some respects.”Mr Davis claimed on Andrew Marr’s programme that Mr Sunak’s team “reallocated” some votes he picked up from defeated candidate Tom Tugendhat to Ms Truss in the latest round of the leadership contest.Recommended“He’s got his four or five chief whips that he has in a boiler room somewhere, reallocated them [to Ms Truss] … He wants to fight Liz, because she’s the person who will lose the debate with him,” Mr Davis claimed.The former Brexit minister added: “Presumably what Rishi thinks is that he can take apart Liz’s economic plan.”Ms Truss received a surprise surge in support as she battles it out against Ms Mordaunt to face Mr Sunak in the Tory leadership run-off decided by members, after Kemi Badenoch was eliminated.Ms Truss picked up 15 votes to command the support of 86 Tory MPs in the penultimate ballot. Ms Mordaunt increased her share by only 10 to sit on 92, while Mr Sunak is still out in front on 118. However, despite Mr Davis’ claims, Mr Sunak’s backer Chris Skidmore suggested Ms Truss was the candidate the ex-chancellor’s camp fears most when the final candidates go before members.The senior Tory MP told Sky News: “Rishi versus Liz is going to be the most feared contest, in terms of that will be a battle for ideas rather than a battle of personalities.”Meanwhile, Michael Gove denied that his backing of Ms Badenoch in the Tory leadership was “a clever plot” to help put Mr Sunak in No 10.Mr Davis also claimed Ms Mordaunt had been the victim of “brutal” and “provably untrue” claims from MPs supporting other candidates.He fired back at international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who had claimed that Ms Mordaunt had neglected her duties as trade minister and left others to “pick up the pieces”.“On Anne-Marie Trevelyan saying about lazy – lazy, absolute nonsense, actually, the truth be told it shouldn’t be Anne-Marie Trevelyan in cabinet, it should be Penny,” he said.Recommended“But because Boris preferred Anne-Marie because she was a loyalist to him, it wasn’t. So you’ve got all sorts of tangled arguments and fights going on, which of course, of course has an impact.”The Independent has approached Mr Sunak’s campaign for comment. More

Liz Truss’s hopes of replacing Boris Johnson as prime minister have taken a big step forward as rival Penny Mordaunt’s leadership bid stalled and a poll suggested the foreign secretary would comfortably beat MPs’ favourite Rishi Sunak in the final ballot of Tory members. Both the Truss and Mordaunt camps were love-bombing defeated contender Kemi Badenoch, whose elimination in the fourth round of voting put her in the position of kingmaker. And all three remaining contenders were battling for the votes of Ms Badenoch’s 59 supporters, who now have the power to decide who joins Mr Sunak in the final battle for the Tory leadership, which will be decided by party members on 5 September. The 42-year-old former equalities minister herself looks set for a significant role in government whoever becomes PM, with rival camps hailing her “fantastic campaign” and “fresh thinking”.Mr Sunak’s tally of 118 votes left him tantalisingly close to the 120 threshold to guarantee a place on the final shortlist of two to be announced at 4pm on Wednesday.RecommendedBut his prospects in the members’ ballot looked far gloomier, with a YouGov poll of 725 Tory activists finding he would be comprehensively beaten by either Ms Truss or Ms Mordaunt. However, in a sign that Ms Mordaunt’s campaign may be losing momentum, her margin of victory over the former chancellor was significantly reduced to 14 points, compared to 39 a week ago, while Ms Truss’s lead over Sunak extended from 14 to 19 points over the same period.Despite holding onto her second place with 92 MPs’ votes in Tuesday’s ballot, the trade minister did not enjoy the expected boost – on which she had been relying to maintain momentum in her campaign – from the 31 backers of One Nation candidate Tom Tugendhat, who was knocked out on Monday.With Mr Tugendhat campaign manager Anne Marie Trevelyan turning publicly on her Department for International Trade colleague – who she accused of skipping work to concentrate on her leadership ambitions – and endorsing Ms Truss, Ms Mordaunt picked up just 10 votes, compared to the 15 gained by the foreign secretary to reach a tally of 86.Having won the “fight on the right”, Ms Truss was hopeful of scooping enough of Badenoch’s supporters to overhaul Ms Mordaunt on Wednesday and secure her place in the final face-off with Mr Sunak.In an appeal to the 58 MPs now in play, a spokesperson for Ms Truss said: “Kemi Badenoch has run a fantastic campaign and contributed enormously to the battle of ideas throughout this contest. Now is the time for the party to unite behind a candidate who will govern in a Conservative way and who has shown she can deliver time and again.“But Ms Mordaunt backers insisted that tomorrow’s vote will not be decided simply by ideology.One told The Independent that conversations in the Commons tea-room suggested Ms Badenoch’s backers were split evenly between ideological right-wingers who might now coalesce behind Ms Truss and others who backed the Saffron Walden MP because they wanted a fresh face at the top, who could now transfer their allegiances to Ms Mordaunt.Meanwhile, others questioned Ms Badenoch’s ability to deliver her supporters in a block, suggesting that party grandee Michael Gove, who has been a driving force behind her campaign, could in fact act as the kingmaker as the battle draws to a tightly-fought conclusion.One senior Tory told The Independent: “Lots of us are eager to find out which mast Michael will pin his colours to. He’s a formidable campaigner, so his backing is a boost for any team.”A senior Sunak supporter dismissed rumours that the former chancellor was planning to “lend” supporters to Ms Mordaunt to keep Ms Truss out of the final ballot, as the candidate he most fears.“We are encouraging every colleague who supports Rishi to vote for him,” said the MP, who also emphatically denied that the frontrunner had a preferred rival for the final contest.One MP told The Independent: “Everyone is talking about Rishi lending votes, but I’m not sure he has enough in the bag to do that without risking his own position. And it’s not at all clear whether his chances are better against Penny or against Liz.”Uncertainty remained high over the result of Wednesday’s vote, with Badenoch supporters largely keeping their cards close to their chests over how they will switch.Several said that they had received multiple calls and approaches from the rival camps, but few revealed their new allegiances.Veteran former whip Sir Desmond Swayne announced he was falling in behind Mr Sunak, and defence minister Leo Docherty said he was backing Ms Truss for her “deep experience and sound judgement”. Senior backbencher Tim Loughton said Ms Badenoch was the “stand-out candidate” and members’ choice, but that party activists would now feel “cheated” if Ms Mordaunt was not on the shortlist presented to them.Mordaunt supporter George Freeman told The Independent he had been urging MPs to consider not only who they want as leader but how they want the party to be represented by the two candidates in the final showdown.“A lot of MPs are rightly worried that a Rishi v Liz contest could end up like the TV debates as an unedifying fight between two people who only 10 days ago were in Cabinet together, not the moment of inspiring change and renewal that Tom, Kemi and Penny and members have all called for,” said Mr Freeman.The three remaining candidates had a last chance to lobby for the votes of “red wall” MPs at a hustings hosted by the Northern Research Group (NRG) and Onward think tank in Westminster on Tuesday evening.All three said they were signed up to the NRG manifesto demanding, among other things, a minister for the North in the new government. And Ms Mordaunt went further than her rivals in committing to delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail.NRG chair Jake Berry said the event demonstrated that the “levelling up” agenda would not die with the end of Mr Johnson’s premiership.“The core principle of levelling up is absolutely embedded across Conservative Party politics for at least the next decade,” said Mr Berry. “They might change the slogan, but frankly they can call it Shirley if they like, as long as it delivers for my constituents.”RecommendedBallot packs for up to 200,000 Tory members who joined the party before 3 June will begin landing on doorsteps on 1 August and hustings will be held in all parts of the country before the deadline for voting on 2 September, with the winner announced three days later.However, online voting will begin immediately, giving the final two candidates only a matter of days to win over the thousands who are expected to mark their cross as soon as they receive their ballot paper. More