Liz Truss speaks at party conference amid Tory turmoil
If Prime Minister Liz Truss continues with her same “agenda of tax cuts and high debt”, she will trigger a Tory “wipe-out” in the process, a former cabinet minister has warned.
Speaking to The Times on Wednesday, Nadine Dorries said she understood the government needed “rocket-boosting growth, but you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“Elections are not won by swinging to the right and abandoning the center ground for Keir Starmer to plant his flag,” he added.
Dorries said the Conservatives faced a defeat comparable to that of their Canadian counterparts in 2015, when incumbent Stephen Harper lost to Justin Trudeau’s Liberals after his party had been in office for a decade.
“If we continue down this path, we’re absolutely going to be facing a Stephen Harper-type takedown. I’m sure he’s listened and he’s going to stop and think again,” she said.
Mrs Truss’s popularity hit a new low after she stood at the Conservative Party Conference, and now has a lower rating than Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.
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Liz Truss is ‘destroyer of growth’, says Keir Starmer
Asked about Mrs Truss’ attack on an “anti-growth” coalition of Labour, unions and left-wing elites, Sir Keir Starmer told BBC Radio Sheffield: “Oh, for God’s sake, the enemies of the growth!”
“He has just passed a kamikaze budget which has lost control of the economy, which is putting hundreds of pounds on mortgage bills. This is the very opposite of a plan for growth,” Sir Keir said.
The Labor leader: “It’s not only anti-growth, it’s destructive of growth.”
Adam Forrest October 6, 2022 8:25 am
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Brits face £500 rise in mortgage payments due to ‘kamikaze’ budget, Labor warns
Sir Keir Starmer has called on Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to reverse their “kamikaze” mini-budget as he warned families face “exciting” mortgage rises.
The average UK buyer moving out of a two-year fixed mortgage could see a monthly increase of £498 if interest rates hit 6%, according to Labor analysis.
The opposition made estimates based on the assumption that a homeowner has a 20-year mortgage term and pays 5 to 6 percent interest after their two-year fix ends on the third quarter of 2022.
£500 rise in mortgage payments due to Budget, Labor warns
“You just have to reverse the mini-budget,” says the Labor leader
Emily Atkinson October 6, 2022 8:15 am
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Tory leader urges MPs to make Truss’ ‘bold vision’ for UK a reality
Conservative party leader Jake Berry has said he hopes his peers will listen to Liz Truss’ message at the conference and make her “bold vision” for Britain a reality.
Asked if he was concerned the current administration was “driving the party over a cliff”, Berry told Times Radio: “If people listen and look at what the Prime Minister said yesterday, I don’t think she was talking just with the people.in the conference room, he was talking to the country about his vision.
“I hope and I believe that the country will hear it, and I hope that colleagues will hear it and see that we have a bold vision for our country to transform it to improve the lives of families and people everywhere and from below this country.”
Emily Atkinson October 6, 2022 8:04 am
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The average fixed-rate mortgage holder will pay around £500 a year, Labor says
The average fixed-rate mortgage holder will pay an extra £500 a year because of the rise in rates, the shadow rate rise secretary has said.
Lisa Nandy told the BBC’s Today programme: “The really rapid acceleration in interest rate expectations immediately after the mini-budget was announced is what has led to this crisis for many families in this country .
“We calculate, based on Bank of England figures, that the average mortgage payer who will be coming out of a fixed-rate mortgage next year, and there are 1.8 million of them, will pay on average £500 more on their mortgage bills as a direct result of this Government’s decision to put the economy on hold.”
He added that although it is a global problem, the Government’s mini-budget “poured fuel on the fire”.
Emily Atkinson October 6, 2022 7:50 am
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The Ministry of the Interior “suspends the official after discovering racist Whatsapp messages”
An immigration official and a former Metropolitan Police officer have reportedly been suspended following an investigation into allegations he posted racist content on WhatsApp.
The BBC’s Newsnight reported that Rob Lewis had set up a group chat with other former Met officers.
The program said Dave Eden, another former police officer, showed messages from the group.
The Home Office said it had suspended a member of staff.
A Home Office statement said it had “a zero tolerance approach to anyone who exhibits racist, homophobic, misogynistic or discriminatory behaviour.
“When we become aware of this behavior, we will not hesitate to take decisive action.”
Meanwhile, Commander Jon Savell, the Met’s head of professional standards, said the messages shared were “disgusting”.
Adding to Savell’s comments, commissioner Sir Mark Rowley vowed to “be ruthless in removing from our organization those corrupt officers and staff, including racists and misogynists”.
Emily Atkinson October 6, 2022 7:36 am
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Calm down and “keep it classy”, Tory minister tells colleagues
Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland has hit out at his colleague Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s “incendiary” language after she accused Tory MPs of staging a “coup d’état” on the subject of the maximum tax rate of 45 p.
“If your intervention is not actually going to help the party, it’s probably better to retain your own lawyer,” Buckland told ITV’s Peston.
“I think that kind of language is much better than bashing language and anything that’s too incendiary. Let’s all keep it classy, shall we, and calm down, everyone.”
Adam Forrest October 6, 2022 7:16 am
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Armor’s speech shows that the government is “rowing” net zero
Environmentalists have said Liz Truss’ Tory conference speech was a “shameful” display of a government not taking the climate and natural crises seriously enough.
The Prime Minister made only one mention of climate change in her speech on Wednesday, and the issue only came to the fore when she was challenged by Greenpeace activists who unfurled a banner asking “Who voted for this?”
Read more from Saphora Smith:
Armor’s speech shows that the government is “rowing” net zero
Government ‘doesn’t seem to recognize there is a climate problem’
Stuti Mishra October 6, 2022 7:10 am
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Conservative group condemns Liz Truss government’s “amateurism and immorality”.
A major Conservative group has condemned the “amateurism and amorality” of Liz Truss’s government, a blow to its hopes of regaining power, writes Rob Merrick.
Bright Blue, a think tank for party modernisers, attacked the Prime Minister minutes after her “growth, growth, growth” speech to close the Tory conference.
He praised her “tenacity” but warned the skeleton plan to jump-start the stalled economy would “do very little” for the voters Boris Johnson promised to help.
Better education and getting more people into work, not an obsession with tax cuts, was the way to achieve the expected annual growth rate of 2.5 percent, the think tank said.
The Conservative group condemns the “amateurism and immorality” of the Truss government
A major Conservative group has condemned the “amateurism and immorality” of Liz Truss’s government, a blow to its hopes of regaining power.
Stuti Mishra October 6, 2022 6:50 am
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Policy Explained: Back to school for Team Truss as Tory MPs seek more inclusive leadership
“At the Conservative conference in Birmingham, unity was in short supply, but Tory MPs representing different wings of the party agreed on one point: despair at the unforced errors of the Truss government.
Some who had resigned themselves to losing their ministerial jobs when she took over are furious at the way they were fired. A similar complaint was heard about the government’s mini-budget. Many Tory MPs are skeptical of the claim that it was a communications glitch that sent the pound to its lowest level ever. But they do think it was an unforced error.
And so to the controversy over Mrs Truss’s eccentric boast of being the first Prime Minister to go to a comprehensive school.”
Kate Devlin explains how the Prime Minister’s education claim was barely true:
It’s back to school for Team Truss as Tory MPs seek more inclusive leadership
The Prime Minister’s education claim was hardly true, as Kate Devlin explains
Stuti Mishra October 6, 2022 6:30 am
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Starmer calls on the Prime Minister to reverse his ‘kamikaze’ budget.
Sir Keir Starmer has renewed calls for Liz Truss to reverse her “kamikaze” budget as he warned families face “exciting” mortgage rises.
Analysis by the Labor Party suggests that the average UK buyer moving out of a two-year fixed mortgage could see a monthly increase of £498 if interest rates hit 6%.
Labor has developed estimates based on the assumption that a homeowner has a 20-year mortgage term and pays an interest rate of 5 or 6 per cent after their two-year fix ends in the third quarter of 2022.
Starmer says the Prime Minister and Chancellor have “crashed the economy” with their unfunded tax cuts and warned that mortgage rises will cause “sleepless nights” for homeowners across the country.
Stuti Mishra October 6, 2022 6:15 am