UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe Bank of England is under increasing pressure to help homeowners and cut interest rates after inflation fell to its lowest rate in two years. Latest figures show it has slowed to 3.9 per cent, well below Rishi Sunak’s target of 5 per cent by the end of the year. Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride said the inflation fall could allow the Bank of England to ease interest rates and aid those struggling with mortgage costs.While he emphasised that the bank was independent, he added “if inflation comes down faster than expected then that does take some pressure off the Bank of England in terms of keeping interest rates higher, which of course in time and in turn feeds into mortgage rates.”Falling petrol prices helped drive the larger than expected fall in inflation, which the prime minister hailed as “good news for everyone in this country”.Most economists had been expecting a dip to 4.3% last month.However, the current rate is still well above the Bank of England’s goal of 2 per cent.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed the fall in inflation as ‘good news for everyone in this country’, and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the UK economy is ‘back on the path to healthy, sustainable growth’ (Ian Forsyth/PA)Labour warned that more than a million people face higher mortgage payments next year “after the Conservatives crashed the economy”. Economists suggested that markets were pricing in interest rates cuts by May, and perhaps as early as March, as pressure intensifies on the central bank. Matthew Ryan, from financial services company Ebury: “The first 25 basis point cut is now fully priced in for the bank’s May meeting, with a decent chance of a start to cuts in March.”James Smith, developed markets economist at ING bank, said: “Markets are right to be pricing a number of rate cuts for 2024 … starting in May.”Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves with party leader Sir Keir Starmer (Peter Byrne/PA)Responding to the inflation figures, the chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “With inflation more than halved we are starting to remove inflationary pressures from the economy.“Alongside the business tax cuts announced in the Autumn Statement this means we are back on the path to healthy, sustainable growth. “But many families are still struggling with high prices so we will continue to prioritise measures that help with cost of living pressures.”Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “The fall in inflation will come as a relief to families. However, after 13 years of economic failure under the Conservatives, working people are still worse off.“Prices are still going up in the shops, household bills are rising, and more than a million people face higher mortgage payments next year after the Conservatives crashed the economy.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe tide turned against inflation.Artificial intelligence went mainstream — for good or ill.Labor unions capitalized on their growing might to win more generous pay and benefits.Elon Musk renamed and rebranded the social media platform Twitter, removed guardrails against phony or obscene posts and ranted profanely when advertisers fled in droves.The American housing market, straining under the weight of heavy mortgage rates, took a wallop.And Taylor Swift’s concert tour scaled such stratospheric heights that she invigorated some regional economies and drew a mention in Federal Reserve proceedings.A look back at 10 top business stories in 2023: RAGING AGAINST INFLATION The Fed and most other major central banks spent most of the year deploying their interest-rate weapons against the worst bout of inflation in four decades. The trouble had erupted in 2021 and 2022 as the global economy roared out of the pandemic recession, triggering supply shortages and igniting prices.By the end of 2023, though, the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England had taken a breather. Their aggressive rate hikes had brought inflation way down from the peaks of 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy and grain prices rocketing and intensified price spikes.In the United States, the Fed’s policymakers delighted Wall Street investors by signaling in December that 2024 would likely be a year of rate cuts — three to be exact, in their expectations — and not rate hikes. The Bank of England and ECB sounded a more cautious note, suggesting that inflation, though trending down, remained above their target.“Should we lower our guard?” Christine Lagarde, the ECB president, told reporters. “We ask ourselves that question. No, we should absolutely not lower our guard.”The Council on Foreign Relations, which tracks interest rates in 54 countries, found that central banks turned aggressive toward inflation in the spring of 2022. Policies remain tight, the council found, but the overall anti-inflation stance has eased. AI GOES MAINSTREAM Artificial intelligence thrust itself into public consciousness this year. But the technology, while dazzling for its ability to retrieve information or produce readable prose, has yet to match people’s science fiction fantasies of human-like machines.Catalyzing a year of AI fanfare was ChatGPT. The chatbot gave the world a glimpse of advances in computer science, even if not everyone learned quite how it works or how to make the best use of it.Worries escalated as this new cohort of generative AI tools threatened the livelihoods of people who write, draw, strum or code for a living. AI’s ability to produce original content helped fuel strikes by Hollywood writers and actors and legal challenges from bestselling authors.By year’s end, the AI crises had shifted to ChatGPT’s own maker, OpenAI, which was nearly destroyed by corporate turmoil over its CEO, and to a meeting room in Belgium, where European Union leaders emerged after days of talks with a deal for the world’s first major AI legal safeguards. WORKERS SCORE GAINS The long-battered American labor movement flexed its muscle in 2023, taking advantage of widespread worker shortages to demand — and receive — significantly better pay and benefits. From Hollywood writers and actors to autoworkers to hotel workers, 510,000 laborers staged 393 strikes in the first 11 months of 2023, according to Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker.Under its pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, the United Auto Workers struck the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler, Jeep and Ram — and won pay raises, improved benefits and numerous other concessions. Hollywood writers and actors, as a result of their walkouts, secured higher pay and protection from the unrestricted use of artificial intelligence, among other concessions.The unions’ gains marked a resurgence for their workers after years following the Great Recession of 2007-2009 when union power further dwindled, wage gains languished and employers seemed to have their pick of job candidates. An explosive economic rebound from the COVID-19 recession of 2020 and a wave of retirements left companies scrambling to find workers and provided labor unions with renewed leverageStill, even now, unions remain a shadow of what they once were: As of last year, roughly 10% of U.S. employees belonged to labor unions, way down from 20% in 1983. And back in the 1970s, the United States experienced an average of 500 strikes a year, involving 2 million workers, said Johnnie Kallas, a labor expert at Cornell. MUSK’S X-RATED TRANSFORMATION A little more than a year ago, Elon Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, fired its CEO and other top executives and began transforming the social media platform into what’s now known as X.Since then, the company has been bombarded by allegations of misinformation, endured significant advertising losses and suffered declines in usage.Disney, Comcast and other high-profile advertisers stopped spending on X after the liberal advocacy group Media Matters issued a report showing that their ads were appearing alongside material praising Nazis. (X has sued the group, claiming it “manufactured” the report to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”)The problems culminated when Musk went on an expletive-ridden rant in an on-stage interview about companies that had halted spending on X. Musk asserted that advertisers that pulled out were engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to get lost.“Don’t advertise,” X’s billionaire owner said. HOUSING’S MISERABLE YEAR Remarkably, the U.S. economy and job market largely avoided pain in 2023 from the Fed’s relentless campaign against inflation — 11 interest-rate hikes since March 2022.Not so the housing market.As the Fed jacked up borrowing rates, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate shot up from 4.16% in March 2022 to 7.79% in October 2023. Home sales crumbled. For the first 10 months of 2023, sales of previously occupied homes sank 20%. Yet at the same time and despite the sales slump, home prices kept rising. The combination of high mortgage rates and rising prices made homeownership — or the prospect of trading up to another house — unaffordable for many.Contributing to the squeeze was a severe shortage of homes for sale. That, too, was a consequence of higher rates. Homeowners who were sitting on super-low mortgage rates didn’t want to sell their houses only to have to buy another and take on a new mortgage at a much higher rate. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac says 60% of outstanding mortgages still have rates below 4%; 90% are below 6%. CRYPTO CHAOS (CONTINUED) If 2022 was the year that the cryptocurrency industry collapsed, 2023 was the year of the spillover from that fall.The year’s headlines from crypto were dominated by convictions and legal settlements as Washington regulators adopted a much more aggressive stance toward the industry.A jury convicted Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of the crypto exchange FTX, of wire fraud and six other charges. Weeks later, the founder of Binance, Chengpeng Zhao, agreed to plead guilty to money laundering charges as part of a settlement between U.S. authorities and the exchange. Among the other crypto heavyweights that met legal trouble were Coinbase, Gemini and Genesis.Yet speculation that crypto may gain more legitimacy among investors helped more than double the price of bitcoin. After years of delays, regulators are eventually expected to approve a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. Whether that would prove sufficient to sustain bitcoin’s rally over the long run remains to be seen. BANKING JITTERS Historically, high interest rates benefit banks; they can charge more for their loans. But in 2023, higher rates ended up poisoning a handful of them.The industry endured a banking crisis on a scale not seen since 2008. Three midsized banks — Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank — collapsed.For years, banks had loaded up their balance sheets with high-quality mortgages and Treasurys. In an era of ultra-low rates, those mortgages and bonds paid out puny interest.Enter the specter of inflation and the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes. As rates jumped, the banks’ bonds tumbled in value because investors could now buy new bonds with much juicier yields. With pressure on the banks mounting, some anxious depositors withdrew their money. After one such bank run, Silicon Valley collapsed. Days later, Signature Bank failed. First Republic was seized and sold to JPMorgan Chase.Investors remain concerned about midsized institutions with similar business models. Trillions of dollars in commercial real estate loans that remain on these banks’ books could become problematic in 2024. GLOBAL MARKETS RALLY From Austria to New Zealand, stock markets rallied through 2023. As inflation eased, stocks climbed despite sluggish global economic growth.A tumble in crude oil prices helped slow inflation. A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 14% through mid-December on expectations that the world has more than enough oil to meet demand.An index that spans nearly 3,000 stocks from 47 countries returned 18% in U.S. dollar terms as of Dec. 11. Healthy gains for Apple, Nvidia and other U.S. Big Tech stocks powered much of the gains. So did the 45% return for the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, which sells the Wegovy drug to treat obesity and the 33% return for the Dutch semiconductor company ASML.The bond market endured more turbulence. Bond prices tumbled for much of the year, and their yields rose, over uncertainty about how far central banks would go in raising rates to curb inflation.The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury briefly topped 5% in October to reach its highest level since 2007. Yields have since eased on the expectation that the Fed is done raising rates. WORLD ECONOMY’S RESILIENCE Over the past three years, the global economy has absorbed one hit after another. A devastating pandemic. The disruption of energy and grain markets stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A resurgence of inflation. Punishing interest rates.And yet economic output kept growing in 2023, if only modestly. Optimism grew about a “soft landing” — a scenario in which high rates tame inflation without causing a recession. The head of the International Monetary Fund praised the global economy for its “remarkable resilience.’’The United States has led the way. Defying predictions that high rates would trigger a U.S. recession, the world’s largest economy has continued to grow. And employers, fueled by solid consumer spending, have kept hiring at healthy rates.Still, the accumulated shocks are restraining growth. The IMF expects the global economy to expand just 2.9% in 2024 from an expected 3% this year. A major concern is a weakened China, the world’s No. 2 economy. Its growth is hobbled by the collapse of an overbuilt real estate market, sagging consumer confidence and high rates of youth unemployment. THE U.S. ECONOMY (TAYLOR’S VERSION) Taylor Swift dominated popular culture, with her record-shattering $1 billion concert tour, her anointment as Time magazine’s Person of the Year and her high-profile romance with Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs football star.The Swift phenomenon went further yet. It extended into the realm of the national economy. Her name came up at a July news conference by Fed Chair Jerome Powell, when Powell was asked whether Swift’s blockbuster ticket sales revealed anything about the state of the economy. Though Powell avoided a direct reply, Swift’s name came up that same month in a Fed review of regional economies: Her tour was credited with boosting hotel bookings in Philadelphia.Economist Sarah Wolfe of Morgan Stanley has calculated that Swifties spent an average of $1,500 on airfares, hotel rooms and concert tickets to her shows (though it’s perhaps worth noting that Beyonce fans spent even more — an average $1,800)._____AP Business Writers Stan Choe in New York, Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has been rebuked by the UK’s statistics watchdog over his claims to have reduced public debt.The prime minister said that “debt is falling” in a social media video and told the Commons that “we have indeed reduced debt” at PMQs last month.But the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Sir Robert Chote has suggested Mr Sunak’s claims, part of his five key pledges, were misleading. He said the average person “would likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the government’s policy decisions had lowered it at the fiscal events – neither of which is the case”.And in a stern warning, Sir Robert said: “This has clearly been a source of confusion and may have undermined trust in the government’s use of statistics and quantitative analysis in this area.”In a letter to Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney, the stats watchdog chief said No 10 told the UKSA that Mr Sunak’s claims referred to forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).The claims involved looking at the underlying measure of net debt would be falling as a proportion of GDP in the final year of its five-year forecast – meaning 2028-29 at the time of the November autumn statement.This was primarily due to happen because of changes to the OBR’s underlying economic and fiscal projections, even as government decisions on tax and spending pushed debt higher in cash terms.Rishi Sunak told off in letter by stats watchdog chief But Sir Robert said that this is not how the “average person in the street” would interpret Mr Sunak’s statements.“Members of the public cannot be expected to understand the minutiae of public finance statistics and the precise combination of definitional choices that might need to be made for a particular claim to be true,” he wrote.The Office for Statistics Regulation, the UKSA’s regulatory arm, “will work with the prime minister’s office to ensure further statements on debt levels adhere to our guidance on intelligent transparency,” Sir Robert said.Ministers should “ask themselves how someone with an interest but little specialist knowledge is likely to interpret a particular claim and to explain themselves clearly if they choose to depart significantly from that in definitional terms,” he wrote.Reducing debt is one of Mr Sunak’s five pledges, alongside halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting NHS waiting times and stopping small boat crossings.Ms Olney had written to the UK’s official statistics watchdog to raise her concerns about Mr Sunak’s remarks.Following Sir Robert’s reply, the Lib Dem MP said Mr Sunak “knows he has no good story to tell on the UK economy so he has resorted to making one up”.“Instead, he has reached for the Boris Johnson playbook and is undermining trust in politics. This is desperate stuff from a desperate prime minister, and it is right that he has been called out on it.”She added: “Rather than using smoke and mirrors to cover up his own failings, Rishi Sunak needs to come forward with a real strategy to rebuild the economy after the Conservative party crashed it.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has admitted he does not know when he will be able to “stop the boats”, insisting there is no “firm date” on the promise he made.The PM made stopping migrant crossings in the English Channel one of his five key pledges in January, but has so far failed to deliver on it and three other promises.Grilleds by parliament’s powerful liaison committee, Mr Sunak said he does not have “a precise date” for when the crossings will stop. “We will keep going until we do [stop the boats],” he insisted.The Tory leader also refused to tell the senior MPs if any airline had agreed to Rwanda deportation flights, amid reports the government is struggling to find a partner.In an often tense exchanges with the heads of select committee heads on Tuesday, Mr Sunak said he remained “highly confident” he will be able to deport asylum seekers to the east African nation under the scheme.And the Tory leader stressed that the “deterrence” effect of the policy, which would see those arriving across the channel put on one-way flights to Rwanda, will work to cut arrivals.Home affairs committee chairman Diana Johnson grilled Mr Sunak over the plans, saying: “I understand that no airline is willing to actually contract with the government to remove people to Rwanda because of reputational damage. Is that correct?”Home affairs committee chairman Dame Diana Johnson grilled Rishi Sunak over his Rwanda plans Mr Sunak said he would not comment on “commercial conversations”, but stressed he is “highly confident that we can operationalise the [Rwanda] bill in all its aspects”.The PM also refused to provide further details of how much will be spent on the scheme, which has seen zero asylum seekers deported since being unveiled by Boris Johnson last April.Mr Sunak again stressed that details of the government’s deal with Rwanda are “commercially sensitive”, insisting that disclosing the cost yearly to parliament offered “the appropriate level of transparency”.Labour attacked the PM’s inability to say when he would fulfil the stop the boats pledge. Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said: “A year on from making his public pledge, Rishi Sunak has just admitted there is no firm date by which he will meet his target to stop the boats.”Launching a defence of his record on small boat crossings, Mr Sunak said: “We will keep going until we [stop the boats]. This isn’t one of these things when there’s a precise date estimate on it, this is something where before I took this job they had only ever gone up, now they’re down by a third.”Rishi Sunak appearing before the Commons Liaison CommitteeMeanwhile, home secretary James Cleverly said the government will “not be able to rely” on its treaty with Rwanda if key elements of the agreement are not in place. But he told peers that the African country has a “reputational incentive” to make the deal work.Mr Cleverly was unable to tells peers Lords international agreements committee what progress had so far been made on putting practical elements of the treaty, such as appointing international judges to sit in a new asylum appeals court, into practice.“This is a country that is willing to move very, very quickly,” said the home secretary. “But, ultimately, if the elements of the treaty are not in place, then obviously we will not be able to rely on the treaty for the purposes of asylum process.”Mr Cleverly also said the Rwanda policy on its own will not stop small boat crossings. And he insisted that the number of asylum seekers who could come to UK from Rwanda under a reciprocity clause was “single digits”.Mr Sunak was unable to tell MPs say when he would clear the backlog of total asylum claims, which stood at 109,442 cases at the end of November.He pledged to clear the backlog of “legacy” cases made before the end of June 2022 by the end of 2023. By November it had fallen by nearly three quarters to just over 18,000. But the rest of the backlog, applications made on or after the end of June, continues to rise, reaching 91,000 at the end of November.Asked when the overall backlog would be cleared, the PM refused to offer a date, saying: “We haven’t set a target for that publicly but obviously the priority was clearing the initial legacy asylum backlog.”Aside from overseeing a halving in the rate of inflation, the PM ends the year having failed on all the other measures; reducing national debt, cutting NHS waiting lists and growing the economy.Mr Sunak was asked at the committee hearing if he ever lies awake at night worrying about inequality. “No,” the Tory leader replied – before adding: “I want to make sure we reduce economic inequality and spread opportunity around the country.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as David Cameron meets Antonio Tajani in Rome on Tuesday, 19 December, to discuss the crises in Gaza and Ukraine.The UK foreign secretary is also meeting his counterpart to discuss working together to tackle illegal migration.Lord Cameron and Mr Tajani’s news conference is being held after the pair attended the 16th Conference of Italian Ambassadors in the world.It comes after Rishi Sunak used a gathering of Italian conservatives and right-wingers in Rome over the weekend to issue a stark warning of the threat posed by illegal migration to “overwhelm” European states.The UK prime minister met his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni, with whom he has developed a strong partnership, as they announced plans for the UK and Italy to participate in the Rome Process; the leaders committed to “co-fund a project to promote and assist the voluntary return of migrants from Tunisia to their countries of origin”, a statement from Downing Street said. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSchools and colleges in England have been told there is “no general duty” to allow children to change their gender identity.Teachers in England will not be “compelled” to use a preferred pronouns, the government’s long-awaited transgender guidance has said.But Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash from Tory right-wingers angry that it does not ban social transitioning – the process when pupils change their names, pronouns and clothing – in schools.Former Tory PM Liz Truss said it “doesn’t go far enough” and will let trans rights activists “exploit loopholes in the guidance … to pursue their agenda”.Jonathan Gullis MP, former schools minister, said: “This fudge from the government is wholly unacceptable, leaving teachers vulnerable to attacks from those who try to impose their extremist gender ideology onto young minds.”The guidance says schools will be told that there is “no general duty” to allow children to change their gender identity. And schools are under no obligation to provide gender-neutral facilities.The advice also says on the “rare occasions” where a school or college agrees to a change of pronouns, no teacher or pupil should be compelled to use them. It says teachers should still be able to refer to children collectively as “girls” or “boys”.Kemi Badenoch has said single sex areas needed protecting from ‘predators’The advice also says that teachers should consider if a pupil’s request to socially transition has been “influenced by social media” or their “peers”.Schools have also been told to tell parents if a pupil wants to change their gender identity, with some exceptions. Parents “should not be excluded” from decisions taken by a school relating to requests for a child to “socially transition”.The guidance also adds that schools should provide separate toilets for boys and girls aged eight and above – and changing rooms and showers for boys and girls who are aged 11 years or over at the start of the school year.The guidance says all children should use the toilets, showers and changing facilities “designated for their biological sex unless it will cause distress for them to do so”.It adds: “In these instances, schools and colleges should seek to find alternative arrangements, while continuing to ensure spaces are single-sex.”Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, said the guidance would give teachers and school heads “greater confidence” when dealing with an issue “hijacked by activists misrepresenting the law”.The cabinet minister added: “It makes clear that schools do not have to accept a child’s request to socially transition, and that teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns.”But a school leaders unions said headteachers will continue to be placed in a difficult position – arguing that the trans guidance leaves many “questions unanswered”.Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “school leaders will continue to be placed in an incredibly difficult position.”The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said it would be reviewing whether the guidance is “clear and deliverable and whether it places extra workload on education staff”.Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, condemned the plan. “The UK government’s draft trans guidance for schools does not put the best interests of children first, and as such is simply not fit for purpose,” said a spokesperson.The trans rights advocates said there was “considerable evidence” that allowing social transition “improves the mental health of trans children and young people”.However, Maya Forstater, executive director of the gender-critical group Sex Matters, largely welcomed the changes. “This guidance, though imperfect, sets the global standard for uprooting trans ideology from schools.”She added: “No other country that has allowed the trans lobby to dictate lessons and school policies has moved so decisively to reverse course.”Former PM Liz Truss says guidance does not go far enough But some on the Tory right are uneasy. Ms Truss said it “does not go far enough” and leaves children “at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected”.Ms Truss has put forward her own legislation to mean that would mean social transitioning is not recognised by schools or the state in children and puberty blockers and hormone treatment for gender dysphoria would be banned for under-18s.No 10 said the government could still change the guidance. “We will listen carefully to the views of those who work in the sector and beyond,” said Mr Sunak’s official spokesman. “We have taken the time, we believe, to strike the right balance.”Education secretary Gillian Keegan – thought to have pushed for a less hardline stance that Ms Badenoch – claimed the guidance would remove “any confusion about the protections that must be in place for biological sex and single-sex spaces”.She added: “Parents’ views must also be at the heart of all decisions made about their children, and nowhere is that more important than with decisions that can have significant effects on a child’ life for years to come.”Meanwhile, a Tory minister has claimed a police force was wrong to record an allegation of transphobia made against a Conservative MP as a “non-crime hate incident”.Redditch MP Rachel Maclean is challenging the decision made by West Mercia Police after an investigation into her retweet of a post on X, formerly Twitter, which described transgender woman Melissa Poulton as “a man who wears a wig”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Rishi Sunak is questioned by parliament’s select committee chairs regarding global affairs, economic issues, COP28 and energy concerns.It comes after the prime minister ruled out the prospect of a general election in 2025, telling a gathering of journalists in Downing Street that the UK will go to the polls next year.Under current rules, the latest date an election can be held is January 2025.According to a December 2023 Ipsos poll on UK voting intention, Labour are at 41 per cent and the Conservatives are at 24 per cent.Britain’s top pollster told The Independent that Mr Sunak is heading for a landslide election defeat even if his Rwanda immigration policy gets off the ground.Professor Sir John Curtice said the prime minister faces a “very bleak situation” and could lose as many as 220 of the Conservatives’ current total of 350 MPs. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailCabinet minister Michael Gove has claimed the government will take on council planning departments that “drag their feet” when it comes to the approval of new homes.But the housing secretary was accused of “capitulating” to nimby Tory MPs after he announced moves to let councils reject housebuilding targets in the countryside.Local authorities will no longer have to earmark greenfield land for new homes, under changes revealed by the levelling up secretary on Tuesday.Mr Gove denied caving to pressure by the nimbys – the “not in my back yard” campaigners and MPs – as he vowed to get tough with councils who “delay” housebuilding.The senior Tory said there would be “no excuse” for not dealing with planning applications promptly under reforms aimed at dealing with England’s housing shortage.The government will give local authorities three months to come up with plans to meet the housing need in their area. Those that fail could have developments forced upon their area, and councillors could also be stripped of their powers to delay applications.“There is now no excuse for not having a (housing) plan in place … There is no excuse for the arbitrary refusal of planning permissions. Delay, no. Denial, no,” Mr Gove said.Michael Gove says nimbys ‘often have good reason to just say no’ The government will name and shame local councils by publishing “robust league tables” on their planning system, Mr Gove also announced.But councils will be able to turn down housing development if it would significantly change the character of an area or build on the green belt.Last year, Rishi Sunak and Mr Gove dropped compulsory housing targets to ward off a potential backbench Tory rebellion – choosing instead to make the 300,000 target in England only advisory.Asked if he was a “yimby” – a pro-housing campaigner who says “yes in my back yard” – Mr Gove said: “Yes.” But Mr Gove also defended anti-housing campaigners, saying they “often have good reason to just say no”.Deputy Labour leader and shadow housing secretary Angela Rayner said: “Despite all this tough talk, [Mr Gove] and Rishi Sunak have stripped away every measure that would get shovels in the ground and houses built to appease their backbenchers.”“We simply can’t be expected to believe that the government will take the steps necessary to get the homes built that Britain desperately needs,” Ms Rayner added – attacking the “reckless” decision to abolish local targets.Labour’s leader Angela Rayner says Tory promises cannot be ‘believed’ The Home Builders Federation (HBF) also accused Mr Gove and ministers of a “capitulation” to Tory MPs in the countryside.“No matter how it is packaged, it will result in fewer new homes and represents another victory for NIMBY backbenchers,” said HBF executive chairman Stewart Baseley.The levelling up secretary has also set out plans for a major expansion around Cambridge, with around 150,000 new homes. And he set up a major clash with London Mayor Sadiq Khan as he ordered a review of the supply of homes in the capital.Mr Khan got his defence of London’s building record in early, tweeting: “Oh dear … the Tories are desperately trying to distract from their catastrophic housing record.”He said a record number of homes have been built in London, more council homes have been started than since the 1970s – and Labour boroughs are delivering 50 per cent more homes than Tory ones.“I love Sadiq,” said Mr Gove to laughter during his speech. “What I want to do is help him deliver.” But the Tory minister warned that he could “intervene” in London if housing targets continued to be missed.Meanwhile, the HBF pointed out that the number of sites granted planning permission in the past 12- months in England was the lowest quarterly figure recorded since such reports began in 2006.The levelling up department said ministers are “continuing to deliver” on the target of building one million homes over this parliament, between 2019 and January 2025.Officials said numerous measures to help build homes had been introduced, including bringing forward the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which is designed to speed up the planning system, hold developers to account and encourage more councils to put local plans in place. More