UK Politics

Keir Starmer has set up a fresh clash with his own senior MPs by again ordering them to stay away from picket lines mounted by striking workers.Several shadow ministers defied the Labour leader by joining protests during last month’s rail dispute – after which he backed down on a threat to discipline them.But Sir Keir has waded back into the controversy, ahead of fresh rail strikes and the Royal Mail dispute, saying: “The Labour party in opposition needs to be the Labour party in power.“And a government doesn’t go on picket lines, a government tries to resolve disputes,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.Even some of Sir Keir’s closest supporters called his first picket line ban a mistake, when he was accused of “hiding” from the strikes mounted by the RMT union over pay and redundancies.RecommendedSpeaking after Monday’s stormy TV Tory leadership race debate, the Labour leader condemned Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak “talking about clothing and earrings instead of the health service”.“If ever there was an example of a party that is absolutely lost the plot, lost any sense of purpose, then it was that debate last night,” he alleged.But Sir Keir declined to say whether a Labour government would give public sector workers inflation-matching pay rises, arguing its job would be to “create the framework for success” in negotiations.The Labour leader said: “I support the right to strike but I think the role of government is to facilitate, make sure those negotiations take place to an agreed settlement.”He also pledged: “An incoming Labour government would put in place stronger employment rights for people from day one in the job.”Sir Keir also confirmed he is backing down after appearing to axe plans to renationalise the rail companies, after a backlash from his own transport spokeswoman.Labour is abandoning its 2019 proposal to nationalise water, energy and post services, but he called rail “a bit of an outlier”.“Large parts of rail are already in public ownership and we would continue that, so the rail situation is different because of the way their contracts are run,” the Labour leader said.He added: “Apart from rail, the answer is going to lie in regulating the market, changing the market, rather than simply taking things into public ownership.”RecommendedSir Keir again failed to lift the lid on where he would find the money to fund public service improvements, after Labour opposed the National Insurance rise to rescue the NHS and social care.He repeated that he is “looking at stocks and shares, looking at those who have property portfolios” to create “a fairer tax system or a more efficient tax system”, but gave no details. More

A senior Liz Truss supporter has revealed her anger at Rishi Sunak for constantly “interrupting” her during their stormy TV debate, when they clashed over tax cuts and the economy.The Tory leadership race favourite was captured shaking her head as the former chancellor talked over her – prompting accusations that Mr Sunak was guilty of mansplaining.Simon Clarke, who is tipped to be Ms Truss’s chancellor if she wins the contest for No 10, criticised Mr Sunak, while insisting he would still be welcomed into her cabinet.‘There was genuine frustration at the tone which Rishi struck in the opening 20 minutes or so of the debate and the way he kept interrupting Liz when she was trying to set out her side of the story,” the Treasury chief secretary said.The criticism came as Mr Clarke admitted Ms Truss’s much-criticised £30bn-plus of unfunded tax cuts might led to public spending cuts in her promised emergency budget.RecommendedHe said: “We will look at public spending, at part of a new spending review when she becomes the prime minister, and make the choices required to support her tax plans.”Mr Clarke also said he expected Boris Johnson to appear at the Conservatives’ autumn conference, despite evidence that he bitterly resents being forced from office by his party.“Boris Johnson will always be welcome at a Conservative party conference,” the minister told Times Radio.After the debate, a spokesperson for the Truss camp branded Mr Sunak “not fit for office”, adding: “His aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour is desperate, unbecoming and is a gift to Labour.”However, the foreign secretary later backed away from the accusation and, at the close of the debate, said Mr Sunak would be offered a top job if she wins the contest.David Davis, a Sunak supporter, dismissed the accusation of mansplaining as “spin”, saying: “Sometimes it’s important to intervene in debates.“When we’re in the Commons, we have these comparatively fierce exchanges lots of times, all the time. This is a debate to find the prime minister of this country.”A snap poll suggested Mr Sunak failed to achieve the breakthrough he badly needs to overhaul Ms Truss when ballot papers go out to the estimated 160,000 Tory members next week.It found 47 per cent of Conservative voters believed the foreign secretary came out on top – compared with only 38 per cent handing victory to the former chancellor.RecommendedThe pair stoked the fears of many Conservatives that their party will fail to heal after the election, Mr Sunak warning Ms Truss’s economic plans would “tip millions into misery”.She hit back by accusing him of “scaremongering”, reviving ‘Project Fear’ – despite Ms Truss being a Remainer at the Brexit referendum – and likening his tax hikes to those of Labour’s Gordon Brown. More

Nearly half a billion pounds was spent implementing the coronavirus traffic light system for international travel but the government “does not know” whether it worked, according to MPs.The testing and quarantine requirements for people arriving in the UK were changed 10 times between February 2021 and January 2022, a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) stated.In May 2021 the traffic light system was introduced, which set the rules for arrivals from every country depending on whether it was on the red, amber or green list.Arrivals from red list countries had to stay in a quarantine hotel for at least 10 days.Airlines and holiday companies blamed ministers for the limited recovery of foreign travel due to the rules, with many European countries imposing fewer restrictions.The PAC claimed the government does not know the health impact of its policies.RecommendedTaxpayers subsidised £329 million of the total £757 million cost of quarantine hotels, the report said.That is despite the bill for individuals rising to more than £2,200 for a single adult.Only 2 per cent of guests in hotel quarantine tested positive.The report stated: “Managing cross-border travel was an essential part of health measures introduced by government during the pandemic.“Despite spending at least £486 million on implementing its traffic light system to manage travel during the pandemic, government did not track its spending on managing cross-border travel or set clear objectives, so does not know whether the system worked or whether the cost was worth the disruption caused.”Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the PAC, said: “The approach to border controls and quarantine caused huge confusion and disruption with 10 changes in a year. And now we can see that it is not clear what this achieved.“We can be clear on one thing – the cost to the taxpayer in subsidising expensive quarantine hotels, and more millions of taxpayers’ money blown on measures with no apparent plan or reasoning and precious few checks or proof that it was working to protect public health.“We don’t have time and it is not enough for government to feed these failures into its delayed public inquiry.“It is not learning lessons fast enough from the pandemic and is missing opportunities to react quickly to future emergencies or even current events like new variants of Covid or the spread of monkeypox.”Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: “Government departments should be ashamed of the suck-it-and-see approach they took regarding travel measures during Covid.Recommended“The constantly changing policies not only caused enormous damage to the travel sector in terms of financial harm, but also hurt UK plc’s image around the world.“Urgent steps need to be taken to ensure the country’s borders are kept open should another variant emerge, and that government has a more positive policy in place to enable airlines, airports and other travel businesses to keep functioning so as to protect jobs and livelihoods.” More

The gap in public spending between London and the North has doubled since Boris Johnson came to power, despite his pledge to “level up” the country, new figures reveal.The capital has surged ahead of England’s poorest region in terms of cash handed out by the government – proving that “the money simply didn’t follow the rhetoric”, according to the think tank behind the analysis.The data also shows that, three years after the prime minister stood outside No 10 and vowed to level up the nation, public spending in the North has now fallen behind the average for England.Labour said the findings were “scandalous”, but the UK’s regional inequalities have barely featured in the Conservative leadership contest, which has instead been dominated by discussion of tax cuts and hardline policies on immigration.IPPR North, which carried out the study, warned Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak that “votes lent to their party” at the 2019 election cannot be taken for granted if the levelling up promise is allowed to fail.Recommended“If candidates hope to serve for longer than their recent predecessors, they should listen to the North and make unlocking the region’s significant potential their personal priority,” said Ryan Swift, a researcher for the think tank.A spokesperson for the Northern Research Group (NRG) of Conservative MPs said the analysis highlighted “the biggest issue facing our new prime minister”.“We were elected with a mandate to level up the entire UK, and this is what we must deliver,” the influential group said. “The NRG are pleased that both candidates have signed up to our pledges, meaning both are fully committed to a levelling-up fund, a minister for the North, and greater devolution.”Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, said: “These figures are scandalous. For all the Tory promises to people in the North, regional inequality has got worse since Boris Johnson became prime minister. And now the two continuity candidates scrapping to replace him are vying for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher.”And Clive Betts, the chair of the Commons levelling up committee, said: “I’m very disappointed but not surprised by these figures. The problem is that there is no real commitment to spending the money that is needed in the areas that need levelling up.”In 2019, the North received £13,884 per person, above the England average of £13,648, according to IPPR North’s analysis of data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).But by 2021, its spending per head of £16,223 had slipped below the England average of £16,309 – despite Mr Johnson’s high-profile pledge to rescue left-behind areas.Meanwhile, London’s share of the pot leapt from £15,397 to £19,231, widening the spending gap from £1,513 per person to £3,008, the figures show.“On public spending, the money simply didn’t follow the levelling-up rhetoric,” said Marcus Johns, another researcher at IPPR North, a branch of the Institute for Public Policy Research.The criticism will fuel fears that levelling up is floundering even before its champion leaves No 10 in September, forced out by Partygate and the Chris Pincher groping scandal.It was undermined by the Treasury’s refusal to commit to any extra spending despite the number of ‘red wall’ Tories in vulnerable marginal seats in the North and Midlands.Meanwhile, as The Independent revealed, at least £2bn has been slashed from development funding in poorer areas as a result of the government breaking its pledge to match EU spending lost because of Brexit.Starved of extra funding, the then levelling up secretary Michael Gove unveiled 12 “missions”, which were criticised for being vague, unambitious, or impossible to measure, although the bill to “enshrine” them in law was hailed as proof that the targets – to improve pay, jobs, transport connectivity and other indicators in less prosperous areas – had real teeth.It then emerged that Mr Gove was quietly affording his department the power to abandon the key tests of whether the strategy was working if he was able to argue that they were “no longer appropriate”.Now IPPR North has analysed the ONS data, covering expenditure on both services and investment, to uncover the true spending picture since Mr Johnson made his pledge.The “North” covers three regions – the North East, the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber – which are seen as the focus of the pledge to level up. Over the two-year period from 2019 to 2021, per-person public spending in the North went from being £246 higher than the England average to £86 below it.The lowest percentage increase was in the North East (16 per cent), while the lowest per-person public spending in 2021 was in Yorkshire and the Humber (£15,540).IPPR North also stripped out the huge amounts spent on tackling the Covid pandemic from its analysis, but discovered that the picture remained largely the same.On that measure, the gap between the North and London grew by almost 80 per cent, from £1,081 per person to £1,937.Mr Johns added: “Although an increase in public spending on 2019 was welcome and absolutely essential, spending is lower and grew slower in the North than in other parts of the country. At the same time, the country became more centralised and inequalities widened. This is because power is not distributed fairly in this country.”RecommendedMr Swift added: “Our analysis suggests that levelling up was, in many ways, business as usual. But that has to change.”A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “We do not recognise these figures and are pressing full steam ahead with levelling up the North.” More

Liz Truss has been accused of inflaming divisions and attempting to erode workers’ rights with proposals to raise ballot threshold for industrial action and minimum service levels during strikes.The Tory leadership contender said she will introduce legislation targeting “militant action” from trade unions in the first 30 days of taking office if she wins the race to succeed Boris Johnson in No 10.The committment comes as members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) at Network Rail and 14 train operators prepare to walk out on Wednesday in an ongoing dispute over jobs, pay and working conditions.The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has urged the government and transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to “stop blocking an agreement that will end the dispute” and get around the negotiating table.RecommendedBut Ms Truss’s campaign team said she will “introduce a number of measures to hinder unions’ ability to cripple the economy” and guarantee a minimum level of service on “critical national infrastructure”.“Tailored minimum thresholds, including staffing levels, will be determine with each industry,” they added.The proposal was included in the Conservatives’ 2019 election manifesto to target transport strikes. Unions, however, described the measures as an attack on the right to strike which were “unfair and unworkable”.Among her plans, Ms Truss also intends to raise the minimum threshold for voting in favour of strike action from 40 to 50 per cent and expand the rule across all sectors of the economy while increasing the minimum notice period for strike action from two to four weeks.A cooling-off period would be implemented so that unions can no longer strike as many times as they like in the six-month period after a ballot and members would no longer be able to receive tax-free payments from unions on the days they are on strike.Ms Truss said: “We need tough and decisive action to limit trade unions’ ability to paralyse our economy. I will do everything in my power to make sure that militant action from trade unions can no longer cripple the vital services that hard-woking people rely on”.RecommendedResponding to her plans, TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady called on the leadership candidates to stop “taking pot-shots at working people and their unions” and instead draw up plans to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.She added: “The right to strike is an important British freedom. Threatening the right to strike means working people lose the power to bargain for better pay and conditions”.Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: “As we saw with the government’s plans to break strikes with agency workers, these plans are unworkable, will only erode working people’s rights further and inflame industrial relations at a critical time”.She added: “The candidates for the Tory leadership are in a full-scale arms race to exacerbate tensions and escalate divisions rather than get around the table and resolve disputes.“They’re denying their own records and fixated on performing to an unrepresentative Tory selectorate instead of offering answers to the public to get wages rising and tackling the cost-of-living crisis”. More

Rishi Sunak has warned Liz Truss risks tipping millions into “economic misery” and fuelling inflation with her economic proposals, as the pair trashed each other’s policy platforms in an acrimonious debate.Hitting out the foreign secretary’s £30bn-plus tax cut plans, the former chancellor claimed there was “nothing Conservative” about her approach, with the party having “absolutely no chance” of winning the next election.In their first head-to-head debate in the final stage of the Tory leadership contest, Ms Truss hit back, accusing Mr Sunak of “scaremongering” and “Project Fear” — a term Brexiteers used to dismiss the economic warnings of the Remain camp in 2016.While both suggested more help for the British public on rocketing energy bills if they replace Boris Johnson in No 10, Ms Truss also went on to claim Mr Sunak’s current proposals would tip the country into recession.Recommended“This chancellor has raised taxes to the highest rate in 70 years and we’re now predicted a recession,” she said. “The truth is in the figures”.Despite calls from some Tories to tone down the blue-on-blue attacks, the pair also clashed over the UK’s policy towards China while Ms Truss sidestepped the opportunity to distance herself from comments by the culture secretary, who earlier mocked Mr Sunak’s expensive clothing.Appearing in front of 2019 Conservative voters in a debate hosted by the BBC, both Ms Truss and Mr Sunak agreed to publish their tax affairs if they win the contest and were also challenged on their assessment of the outgoing prime minister. More

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have battled it out in the first head-to-head debate of the Tory leadership contest – continuing the bruising rivalry which saw both pull out of a similar contest just days earlier.Facing each other in front of television cameras for the first time since voting by Conservative MPs whittled the field of contenders down to a final two, the foreign secretary and ex-chancellor clashed on a range of subjects, including Brexit, China and the economy.With the deciding vote on who should replace Boris Johnson lying in the hands of tens of thousands of Tory members, the pair are increasingly forced to pander to the tastes of their selectorate, with the party faithful generally believed to sit considerably to the right of its MPs.This effect was on display during the “Our Next Prime Minister” leadership debate hosted by BBC One in Stoke-and-Trent on Monday night – just hours after their colleague Johnny Mercer criticised the “puerile” nature of the contest and warned that, on their current trajectory, the Tories will be “out of power in two years”.With many of the estimated 160,000 or so members expected to make their choice before departing for overseas holidays – weeks before the winner is announced on 5 September – the pressure on the two candidates to rapidly shore up their support was evident in Monday’s debate, even despite an unprecedented rule change which could see members alter their votes.RecommendedHere are some of the key moments from the debate:Sunak hints at further help with energy bills – as Truss vows ‘immediate’ actionIn the first audience question, the two candidates were asked whether they would provide more help with soaring bills if they become prime minister.Mr Sunak pointed to his record as chancellor, saying: “When we get in we will have to see what happens to energy bills, as the situation changes on the ground, I am always going to support people through it.”He added that as the situation changes on the ground, he is “always” going to support people through it.Ms Truss opted for more emphatic language, vowing to put an economic growth plan in place “immediately” if she becomes prime minister, reverse the planned National Insurance hike, and impose a temporary moratorium on the green energy levy “which would help cut money from fuel bills”.Truss accused of planning £40bn of ‘unfunded’ tax cutsLiz Truss claimed that, under her plans, the UK would start paying back the national debt built up during the Covid pandemic “in three years’ time”, adding: “So I’m not putting it on the never never.”But Mr Sunak interrupted saying “that’s simply not right”, adding: “You promised almost £40bn of unfunded tax cuts … that is the country’s credit card.”Sunak accuses Truss of putting national debt on ‘credit card’ for future generations to payWhile the foreign secretary insisted that this was “not true”, Mr Sunak went on to take aim at the fact that her own economic adviser had admitted that her tax cuts could see interest rates rise by 7 per cent.Mr Sunak urged viewers to “think what that means for all of your mortgages”, before claiming that Ms Truss had “no chance of winning the next general election”.Rivals row over ‘Project Fear’As the debate on the economy grew even more heated, the pair clashed over the Brexit campaign slur “Project Fear”. Retorting to the former chancellor’s warnings about the impact of her economic plans on mortgage rates, the foreign secretary said: “I’m sorry, this is scaremongering. This is Project Fear.”Truss accuses Sunak of being ‘Project Fear’But Mr Sunak replied: “I remember the referendum campaign and there were only one of us that was on the side of Remain and Project Fear, and it was you, not me.”As Ms Truss remarked that “maybe I’ve learned from that”, he added: “Your proposals would mean that we get this short-term sugar rush of unfunded borrowed tax cuts, but that would be followed by the crash of higher prices and higher mortgage rates.”Truss distances herself from Raab’s ‘worst idlers in the world’ commentsPressed by the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason that she and her fellow authors of the 2012 book Britannia Unchained had described the British people as “amongst the worst idlers in the world”, Ms Truss responded: “Every author wrote a different chapter and I wrote the chapter on education.“That particular chapter was written by Dominic Raab, who’s actually supporting Rishi’s campaign, just to be absolutely clear.”The BBC reported that Mr Raab, the justice secretary, “sighed loudly” in the spin room as the book was brandished.Rivals clash over China …Pressed on the subject of the UK’s relationship with China, which has been a flashpoint of the contest in recent days, Mr Sunak and Ms Truss both sought to paint each other as having previously been too cosy with Beijing.Mr Sunak said: “Liz has been on a journey – there was a time when Liz was talking about having a golden era of relationships with China and the mission there was talking about having deeper collaboration with things like food security and technology.”The ex-chancellor then labelled China a threat to the UK’s national and economic security, as he boasted that the government’s National Security Investment Bill “gives us the powers as a country to protect ourselves against countries like China who are trying to infiltrate our companies and steal our technology”.However, Ms Truss interrupted, saying: “As recently as a month ago you were pushing for closer trade relationships with China … I’m delighted that you’ve come round to my way of thinking, but it’s been driven by the Foreign Office.“We have led on that, and frankly, what we’ve heard from the Treasury is a desire for closer economic relations with China,” she said, adding: “My view is we should not repeat the mistake we made with Russia, of becoming strategically dependent on Russia and we’re now facing the cost of that on energy.”… as Truss talks tough over TikTokAsked about the influence of Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, Ms Truss said the UK must take a “tougher stance” on technology companies based in authoritarian countries.“We absolutely should be cracking down on those types of countries and we should be limiting the amount of technology exports we do to authoritarian regimes,” the foreign secretary said, adding that she has “been talking to our G7 allies about this”. In notably strong language for a foreign secretary to use with regards to Beijing, she added: “I don’t think it’s inevitable that China will be the biggest economy in the world … we’ve been enabling that to happen, but I’m very clear after the appalling abuses in Xinjiang, after the terrible actions in Hong Kong, and after the most recent outrage which is China working with Russia and essentially backing them in the appalling war in Ukraine, we have to take a tougher stance.“We have to learn the mistakes we made of Europe becoming dependent on Russian oil and gas, we cannot allow that to happen with China.”Truss insists she was a ‘teenage eco-warrior’When the candidates were asked about their positions on the environment, Ms Truss – a former Liberal Democrat activist – said: “I was an environmentalist before it was fashionable. “I was a teenage eco-warrior campaigning against damage to the ozone layer, and I’ve always taken the view that we should save our resources. I’m naturally a thrifty person, I like saving money and it also helps the environment. “So it’s about using less, particularly wasting less – which I think is a massive problem in this country – but also the innovation that we need to get the new technology that can help us do things better”, citing electric vehicles and better home insulation.”The foreign secretary said, however, that she would look for “better ways to deliver on that net zero”.‘I wasn’t born this way,’ Sunak says in response to Dorries earring rowThe contenders were also pressed on a Tory row sparked earlier on Monday by culture secretary Nadine Dorries – a Truss supporter – as she pointed out the difference in cost between Mr Sunak’s Prada shoes and Ms Truss’s “circa £4.50 Claire’s Accessories” earrings.Ms Truss drew a laugh from the audience – comprised of 2019 Tory voters – as she joked that she wasn’t sure whether the BBC’s political editor had ever been to Claire’s Accessories before. But she later failed to explicitly disown personal attacks such as the one made by Ms Dorries, adding that she is a “great admirer” of Mr Sunak’s dress sense.Liz Truss refuses to disown Nadine Dorries’ comments on Rishi Sunak’s expensive clothingAsked whether it mattered, Mr Sunak said: “In the Conservative Party we judge people by their character and their actions … I wasn’t born this way. My family emigrated here 60 years ago. “I talked about my mum. She ran the local chemist in Southampton. That’s why I grew up working in the shop, delivering medicines. I worked as a waiter at the Indian restaurant, down the road.“And I’m standing here because of the hard work, the sacrifice and love of my parents and the opportunities they provided to me, and that’s why I want to be prime minister because I want to ensure that everyone, your children and grandchildren have the very same opportunities that I had.”Truss rules out deploying British troops to UkraineAsked whether as prime minister they would deploy troops to Ukraine, Ms Truss said: “I am not prepared for the United Kingdom to become directly involved in the conflict.“We have done as much as we can – we were the first European country to send weapons to Ukraine, we’ve put the toughest possible sanctions on Russia, we’re actually helping with areas about maritime insurance, in helping getting that grain out of Odesa, and an agreement has been reached.“But Ukraine is not a Nato country, and I think it would be wrong to directly deploy our troops and our resources.”Mr Sunak did not directly answer the question, referring to having “put together one of the strongest set of economic sanctions that the world has ever seen” and supported Kyiv with arms.Truss says Johnson’s mistakes were not ‘sufficient’ for him to be removedOn the subject of the outgoing prime minister, Mr Sunak said that his resignation as chancellor – which partially sparked the implosion of Mr Johnson’s Cabinet – came after he decided that “enough was enough”, adding that he would not employ the “remarkable” Mr Johnson in his own Cabinet.’Enough was enough’: Rishi Sunak defends decision to resign from Johnson governmentMs Truss, however remained loyal to Mr Johnson, insisting that the mistakes which he made – including attending lockdown-breaking parties in No 10 and promoting Chris Pincher to a role in charge of MPs’ welfare despite misconduct allegations – were not “sufficient” for the Tory Party to “reject” him.Asked whether she would give Mr Johnson a role in her Cabinet, Ms Truss said that “I just don’t think it’s going to happen” as he “needs a well-earned break from what has been a very difficult few years”.In a quick-fire round, they were asked which marks out of 10 they would give Mr Johnson – to which Ms Truss said “seven”, and Mr Sunak initially refused to respond, before saying that on the subjects of winning an election and delivering a Brexit solution he would give the prime minister a 10.Truss wins snap poll of Conservative votersRecommendedAs the debate came to an end, a snap poll of Conservative voters by Opinium found that 47 per cent thought Ms Truss had performed better than Mr Sunak, as opposed to 38 per cent who favoured the former chancellor.In the eyes of the general electorate, the candidates were far closer, with Mr Sunak on 39 per cent – just one point ahead of Ms Truss, while Labour voters were split 41-30 in favour of Mr Sunak. 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