UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has urged people to focus on “the promise of a better future” in his Christmas message ahead of next year’s general election.The prime minister said Christmas is “a time of hope” but that it is important to remember those “facing a difficult time”.Mr Sunak, who is a Hindu, highlighted the “Christian values at the heart of this celebration of Christ’s birth”.The PM said: “Christmas is a time of peace, joy, compassion. A time of hope and a promise of a better world.“And today as we look ahead, let’s keep that promise of a brighter future burning into the new year.”The prime minister described Christmas as a ‘magical time of the year’ His words came as Sir Keir Starmer and the other major party leaders sent Christmas messages to voters.The Labour leader said the story of Jesus is a reminder that “in times of darkness and despair, hope, love and peace are always worth advocating for”.And Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Christmas “gives us a chance to reflect on the past year, whilst looking forward to a new one”.Mr Sunak and the other party leaders were reflecting on the values of Christmas after a torrid year dominated by spiralling inflation, industrial action, and record NHS waiting lists.The prime minister described it as a “magical time of the year” and thanked NHS staff, police and the armed forces for “sacrificing their Christmases this year in the service of others”.His Christmas message came between strikes by junior doctors in England, with the longest walkout in NHS history due to begin on 3 January.Keir Starmer’s Christmas address focused on hope and optimism Sir Keir said: “Throughout the Christmas period, we see the bonds of kinship rekindled as families and friends share in the joy, the hope and the optimism that Christmas provides.“For Christians the world over, this is a time to rejoice in the birth of Jesus Christ – God’s son.“The birth of Jesus Christ brings light into our world and reminds us that in times of darkness and despair, hope, love and peace are always worth advocating for.“Charity, humility and selflessness take centre stage in the Christmas story – and this season serves as a reminder that these qualities should be a guiding light for all of us.”He thanked the NHS, postal workers, military personnel, and retail and hospitality staff for their work over Christmas, and praised the “generosity of churches and charities”.Sir Ed said: “I want to send my love and prayers to those caring for loved ones over Christmas.Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey highlighted the plight of those who are missing loved ones over Christmas “You are unsung heroes of our health system, and Christmas is a time when your acts of kindness and care are felt even more.“We hold in our hearts those less fortunate than ourselves. And to those who, this year, are without loved ones over Christmas.“Whether through loss or the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, if you are missing family and friends at your Christmas table, you are in my thoughts.”Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf used his Christmas message to address the conflict in the Middle East, saying: “My prayer this Christmas is for peace and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”He also said that the cost of living crisis would affect people’s Christmases.“Christmas is a special time of year where people gather with their loved ones,” the SNP leader said.Humza Yousaf talked about the conflict between Israel and Hamas “However, I know for many people – many families in Scotland – it has been a challenging year. And as we come together over the festive period, the cost of living will be on many people’s minds.”Mr Sunak will call a general election in 2024, with his party facing an uphill battle to avoid electoral wipeout at the hands of Sir Keir’s resurgent Labour Party.The Tories are currently 19 points behind Labour in the polls, and have been warned they face defeat on the scale of Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Conservative Party is more focused on itself than the country, Tory chairman Richard Holden has admitted.The party’s “biggest weakness” is that it is “inward-looking” rather than looking out at the country, he said.After weeks of bitter infighting over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation scheme, Mr Holden said “being inward-looking is the biggest weakness”.The headlines have been dominated by factional warfare over the policy, designed to let Mr Sunak deport asylum seekers to the east African nation, with deep splits emerging between hardline right-wingers and more moderate Conservative MPs.But despite admitting the party has been too focused on internal battles, Mr Holden gave the Conservatives an eight out of 10 for party unity. “It’s definitely on the improving scale,” he insisted.Richard Holden replaced Greg Hands as Tory chairman last month In an interview with Times Radio, Mr Holden said that having now “kicked the tires inside the building”, the Conservative Party is “in a better place than I think some might have thought it would be”.He added: “We’ve got an excellent new team coming on board in terms of [political strategist] Isaac Levido and all of his campaign gang.“We’ve really ramped up our campaigning efforts right across the country, we’ve got more staff on the ground than we’ve had for a very long time, and I think we know we’re in quite a good place, actually, internally.“But obviously, I want to make sure that the party stays as united as practically possible as we head through this election year.”Despite Mr Holden’s positivity, the Conservative Party faces an uphill battle ahead of next year’s general election. The Tories have consistently trailed Labour in the polls, with a deficit of 19 points.Rishi Sunak faces a battle to turn around his party’s fortunes ahead of a general election next year Britain’s top pollster last week told The Independent that Mr Sunak is facing a landslide election defeat.In a grim seasonal message, Professor Sir John Curtice said the prime minister faces a “very bleak situation”. The Conservatives could lose as many as 220 of their current total of 350 MPs in the election due next year, he claimed, warning they are heading for a “collapse” on a par with Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide.Mr Sunak’s personal popularity with voters has also plunged to a record low in a fresh headache for the Conservative Party.Strategists had hoped that the PM’s relative popularity compared to the party would help its image recover in the wake of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson’s premierships.But he is now as unpopular as Mr Jonhson before the ex-PM was forced out of Downing Street, and is heading toward levels seen by Ms Truss in the dying days of her tenure in No10.He is also now as unpopular as the Conservative Party as a whole and is viewed negatively by most of those who voted Tory in 2019, according to YouGov. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak’s decision to scrap HS2 north of Birmingham will bring “higher fares and congestion for decades”, it has been claimed. Plans to make up for the lost capacity due to the cancellation of the railway, which was first revealed by The Independent, are said to be years away and passengers will reportedly have to be priced off the railway to ease congestion. The prime minister used his Tory conference speech in October to confirm The Independent’s reports that the northern leg of the high speed rail line would be scrapped, sparking fury among regional leaders and business chiefs.Experts have now said the decision to cancel the second phase of the project will have knock on effects for the rest of the century.Andrew McNaughton, HS2’s former technical director, said Mr Sunak had created a “growth reduction scheme” by axing the route.Rishi Sunak used his conference speech to confirm the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 He told The Observer the “whole strategy for connecting the north and south of England was HS2”.“Any other plans were all predicated on HS2 creating the new capacity either directly or indirectly for the next 100 years,” he said.He added: “If there is nothing to replace it, you would need to ration. What’s the rationing on the railway? You have to price people off. That’s how it’s always been done as the only way of managing demand.”“There is no alternative,” Mr McNaughton said. He added that HS2 was “by far the best solution” unless Britain is to live with congestion for the rest of the century, choking economic growth. “It was the only big intervention that was going to work,” Mr McNaughton said.Network Rail confirmed that since Mr Sunak’s decision to scrap phase two of HS2 it had kicked off a project examining how best to avoid congestion among the west coast mainline.Former PM Lord Cameron said Mr Sunak had made the ‘wrong decision’ by scrapping HS2 But industry insiders told The Observer that completion of the review would be “years away”.A Network Rail spokesman said: “For over a decade the long term strategy for dealing with the growth and capacity constraints along the [west coast mainline] has been the completion of HS2 to Manchester.“Now the government has changed course, our strategic planning team are starting a large piece of work to look at what interventions will now be required in the decades ahead to deal and address those growth and capacity issues and pulling together modelling and plans and proposals which will eventually go to the government to seek funding to implement.”After The Independent revealed secret government plans codenamed Operation Redwood to junk the railway line, Mr Sunak blamed ballooning costs for his decision to junk the railway line, saying the “facts have changed” since it was planned.“I am ending this long-running saga. I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project and in its place, we will reinvest every single penny, £36bn, in hundreds of new transport projects in the North and the Midlands, across the country,” he said.But he was criticised by business chiefs and local leaders across the north of England and even former PM David Cameron.Lord Cameron said Mr Sunak had made the “wrong decision” and would “fuel the views of those who argue that we can no longer think or act for the long-term as a country”.The government said capacity between London and Birmingham, the most congested part of the west coast mainline, would “nearly double” thanks to phase one of HS2.A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “This is in addition to redirected funding from Phase 2 being used to support a raft of transport projects across the country, benefitting more people in more places, more quickly.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir James Dyson has lashed out at Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, accusing the government of not “going for growth”.The billionaire inventor said wealth generation and growth have become “dirty words” under the prime minister and chancellor’s leadership.And he heaped praise on predecessors Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, saying he “thought they were doing the right thing”.Sir James, who made his fortune with the invention of the bagless vacuum cleaner, said Britain is now too focused on tackling inflation rather than growing the economy.“If you get inflation down and kill growth, I think you’re in trouble,” he said.He added: “I’m disappointed we’re not going for growth.”Sir James Dyson said he is ‘disappointed’ Britain is not ‘going for growth’ The Brexiteer said his criticism was also aimed at Labour under Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.It comes a day after revised official figures showed the UK economy is performing worse than previously thought. In a blow to Mr Sunak, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) downgraded its estimates of Britain’s economic performance this year.It said gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.1 per cent in the three months to September, down from an earlier estimate that it had flatlined.And it said from April to June Britain experienced no GDP growth at all, compared with an earlier estimate of a 0.2 per cent rise.After the figures, Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot, said: “Growth is weakening and interest rates are really beginning to bite, and while a recession has just been avoided to date, there is no guarantee one will be avoided in 2024.”He added that “Rishi Sunak’s pledge to grow the economy is now severely in doubt”.Martin Beck, chief economic adviser ar=t EY Item Club, said: “October’s decline in GDP, the growing drag from past rises in interest rates, and industrial action holding back activity in some sectors mean the economy in the fourth quarter is likely to flatline at best, with a technical recession a serious possibility.”UK inflation fell to 3.9 per cent in November, its lowest level for more than two years. This decline was driven by a fall in fuel prices.Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have been criticised over Britain’s flatlining economy In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Sir James said: “I’m disappointed we’re not going for growth… I’ve made that plain.“I was hopeful [with Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng]. I thought they were doing the right thing – I’m the only one who did. Kwarteng wasn’t raising taxes. He was going for growth, which I think is the right thing. It allows us to pay for things and generates wealth.”Mr Kwarteng was sacked by Ms Truss near the end of her ill-fated premiership after his unfunded tax cuts saw the pound tank and the price of mortgages and government debt surge.She went on to resign as PM just days later.Sir James went on: “Wealth generation and growth became dirty words. I’ve always believed that inflation isn’t quite the enemy everyone thinks it is. If you’ve got growth, a bit of inflation doesn’t matter. If you get inflation down and kill growth, I think you’re in trouble.”And he said Britain is lacking enthusiasm for “wealth creators” compared with the US.A Treasury spokesperson said: “The UK is a pro-growth country, having grown faster than France, Germany, Italy and Japan since 2010 and this is set to continue with the IMF saying say we will grow faster than France and Germany in the longer term.“We’ve again seen inflation fall this week to help everyone’s money go further and the OBR expects measures in the Autumn Statement including delivering the biggest package of tax cuts since the 1980s and cutting National Insurance for 29 million people, will boost growth even further.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA Tory donor who funded Rishi Sunak’s private jet travel is being taken to court over allegations of unauthorised business deals that made his sister millions of pounds, it has been revealed.Entrepreneur Akhil Tripathi, who made his fortune inventing an anti-snoring device, has donated more than £150,000 to the Conservative party since 2021.He funded £38,500 worth of the prime minister’s travel to the Scottish and Welsh Tory conferences, on board an Embraer Legacy 500 private jet.Mr Tripathi is being taken to court in a civil case, according to the i. The entrepreneur is facing allegations over business dealings he carried out when he was chief executive of the company he founded to market his snoring device, Signifier Medical Technologies (SMT), it said.Court papers show he is facing allegations over payments of “tens of millions” to his sister.Investors claim he facilitated the sale of his sister’s stake in the company without telling the board or highlighting that the seller was his sister.Mr Tripathi, who attended a Downing Street reception at which Mr Sunak was present in April, denies failing to disclose that his sister sold her shares. He also reportedly claims he was not asked about his relationship throughout the sale’s due diligence process.Other claims include that Mr Tripathi sold SMT shares owned by a close friend, and that he more than doubled the salaries of two senior managers without the approval of the company’s board.The court documents also accuse the entrepreneur of failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest between himself and a “close connection”.Mr Tripathi has donated a total of £153,475 to the Conservative Party, Electoral Commission figures show.Mr Sunak is relying on a dwindling pool of mega-donors ahead of next year’s general election as support for the Conservative Party dries up.Recent Electoral Commission data revealed that the Tories received £15.4m in donations between July and September including a £10m bequest from the former boss of Sainsbury’s.Mr Sunak has previously faced transparency questions over donations from multimillionaire Mr Tripathi. The PM declared that the £38,500 cost of air travel was funded by Balderton Medical Consultants, which is based in a property ultimately owned by Mr Tripathi.The original entry for Mr Sunak’s declaration of the donation listed Mr Tripathi, but this was later changed to cite Balderton instead.A spokeswoman for Mr Tripathi told the i: “Mr Tripathi has made a number of donations to the Conservative Party in a personal capacity, including for the costs of air travel for the Prime Minister and colleagues on 28 April 2023.”Downing Street declined to comment. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailPayouts to passengers for rail delays hit record highs last month among some of the worst-performing rail operators, figures suggest.Between November last year and last month, successful delay-repay claims more than doubled at Avanti West Coast, rising from 45,900 to 104,700, according to data from watchdog the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).Three months ago, Avanti, which had been beset by poor performance, was handed a long-term contract renewal of up to nine years.The company had been ordered to develop a recovery plan aimed at addressing cancellations, which were largely attributed to drivers refusing to work paid overtime shifts.The number of delay-repay claims paid out by Great Western Railways (GWR) also more than doubled in that period, from 63,400 to 141,100.And at East Midlands Railway claims increased from 23,700 to 26,300 year on year, a rise of 11 per cent.Rail operators say most delays are not their fault, but are caused by infrastructure problems on the network.But last month all three private operators recorded their highest number of November delay-repay payouts – above pre-pandemic levels.Earlier this year, Avanti West Coast became the worst operator for train punctuality in a list that also included TransPennine Express, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railways and Great Western Railway.Between April and June, only 46.1 per cent of Avanti trains ran on time. By September, the company had improved and became only the second-worst performing operator.Avanti West Coast runs trains on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Glasgow Central, with branches to Birmingham, North Wales, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh.Train reliability across the UK fell to a record low last year. On-the-day service cancellations rose to their highest level since records began in 2014, it was revealed, partly because of strikes.Figures from the regulator covering the final three months of last year showed that one train in 30 was cancelled on the day.Labour, which obtained the delay-repay figures, pledged to take rail franchises back into public ownership as they expire.A spokesperson for Avanti West Coast said: “We would like to apologise to customers who have experienced delays on our services. As the ORR’s figures show, the delay-repay scheme the industry has in place is working and making it easier than ever for customers to receive compensation when their train is delayed.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Albania’s parliament voted Thursday to lift the legal immunity of former Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who leads the opposition Democratic Party and is being probed for possible corruption.Opposition lawmakers inside the hall boycotted the vote and tried to disrupt the session by collecting chairs and flares, but security guards stopped them. Berisha didn’t take the floor to speak against the motion.The ruling Socialist Party holds 74 of the 140 seats in Albania’s national legislature, and 75 lawmakers agreed to grant a request from prosecutors to strip Berisha of his parliamentary immunity. Thursday’s vote clears prosecutors to seek a court’s permission to put Berisha under arrest or house arrest.With the opposition refusing to participate, there were no votes against the move or any abstentions.In October, prosecutors publicly accused Berisha of allegedly abusing his post to help his son-in-law, Jamarber Malltezi, privatize public land to build 17 apartment buildings. Prosecutors have yet to take the formal charges to the court and Berisha is still technically under investigation.Berisha, 79, and Malltezi, 52, both have proclaimed their innocence, alleging the case was a political move by the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama. Prosecutors have said that if Berisha is convicted, he faces a prison sentence of up to 12 years.Democratic Party supporters protested outside the parliament building Thursday with anti-government banners and “Down with dictatorship” chants. Berisha called on his supporters to join “a no-return battle” against the “authoritarian regime” of the Socialists.“That decision won’t destroy the opposition but will mobilize it, and under the motto ‘Today or never,’ it will respond to that regime,” Berisha told reporters after the vote.Berisha served as Albania’s prime minister from 2005-2013, and as president from 1992-1997. He was reelected as a lawmaker for the Democratic Party in the 2021 parliamentary elections.The United States government in May 2021 and the United Kingdom in July 2022 barred Berisha and close family members from entering their countries because of alleged involvement in corruption.Since the investigation into Berisha’s role in the land deal was revealed in October, opposition lawmakers have regularly disrupted sessions of parliament to protest the Socialists’ refusal to create commissions to investigate alleged cases of corruption involving Rama and other top government officials.The Socialists say the plans are not in line with constitutional requirements.The disruptions are an obstacle to much-needed reforms at a time when the European Union has agreed to start the process of harmonizing Albanian laws with those of the EU as part of the Balkan country’s path toward full membership in the bloc.___Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSajid Javid has for the first time revealed the full details of his extraordinary row with Boris Johnson and ex-No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings which saw him ousted as chancellor.The senior Tory lifted the lid on his bust-up with the then-prime minister in February 2020, when Mr Johnson demanded the chancellor sack all his Treasury advisers to stay in the job.Knowing Mr Johnson’s top adviser was the one pushing for senior Treasury staff to be sacked, the chancellor told the PM at a showdown meeting: “It’s either me or Cummings.”The PM chose Mr Cummings. Before storming out, Mr Javid told Mr Johnson: “That guy – he’s not going to be content until he burns the house down. He’s running rings around you.”The former chancellor shared the full details of the ruckus in the Crisis What Crisis? podcast with the Tory party’s former communications boss Andy Coulson.Mr Javid said infighting had left the Conservatives in a “very depressing” state. He also revealed the terrible scale of the racism he suffered growing up in the 1970s – which saw him attacked by skinheads and his parents’ shop vandalised.The former cabinet minister – home secretary under Theresa May before becoming chancellor under Mr Johnson – suggested then-PM was “taking his instructions” from Mr Cummings when demanding he sack six Treasury special advisers in February 2020.Johnson and then-chancellor Javid in 2019“I reacted immediately, I said, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not doing that… These are like some of our best people, you just want me to fire them?’,” Mr Javid said.“And then [Mr Johnson] said, “Saj, they’re only people. Don’t worry about it.”Bizarrely, Mr Javid was then given 15 minutes to change his mind as Mr Johnson marched out of the room. The former chancellor said No 10 officials came in to tell him: “This is all Cummings. Just do what he’s saying because Cummings will be gone soon anyway.”But Mr Javid said he “just couldn’t do it” despite being “begged” by Mr Johnson to change his mind, leading to his half-hearted demand for Mr Cummings’ exit and resignation the same day.The former chancellor later patched things up with Mr Johnson – after the Tory leader had fallen out with Mr Cummings – and re-joined government as health secretary after Matt Hancocks’s exit in the summer of 2021.He went on to play a key role in the PM’s downfall when he resigned on the same morning as Rishi Sunak. Though Mr Javid, who stood for the Tory leadership, insists his exit was not co-ordinated with the man who would eventually become PM.Mr Javid with Sunak and Johnson in September 2021 The former banker said Mr Johnson’s government was a “massive” missed opportunity, given the huge majority won in 2019, and blamed the former PM for “listening to the wrong people”.On the party’s current polling woes and internal squabbles on Rwanda and other major policies, Mr Javid said: “I find the whole situation very depressing really”, before offering a grim warning for the 2024 general election.”“We’re not helping ourselves with all this infighting, and the one thing I certainly learned during my 13, 14 years in parliament is that the public won’t elect a disunited party,” added the senior MP – who is standing down next year.Mr Javid also discussed the racism that blighted his upbringing in Bristol in the 1970s and 1980s, revealing that he was regularly abused and attacked by National Front skinheads on his way to school.“I would have to avoid them because the times that I didn’t avoid them I would get punched in the face, punched in the stomach, called P*** and all sorts of other things,” he said.His parents’ shop was regularly daubed with racist graffiti. “We would wake up in the morning, go down to the shop and someone would have sprayed ‘P*** bastard’ or something along the windows of the shop.”“And then my poor mother – my dad would be ranting and raving and be really upset – my mother would be the sort of practical one and actually get out detergent and other things and she would be scrubbing it.”He added: “I think things have improved a lot in our country since then. It’s by no means sort of perfect when it comes to race relations, but it doesn’t feel like that era anymore.”But Mr Javid suggested that his background was partly the reason senior people at “tired old” British banks turned him down for jobs at the end of 1980s.The senior Tory, who went to work for Chase Manhattan Bank, credited Margaret Thatcher with the so-called ‘Big Bang’ shake-up of the City which allowed US companies to play a bigger role.“For these businesses that you know, it was costly to be racist,” he said. “What really made money was getting the best talent in, regardless of their colour or their background. The American banks were much more meritocratic.” More