Yesterday

2 Nov 2022

Tuesday

1 Nov 2022
Could Robert Jenrick end up replacing Suella Braverman?

Why did Rishi Sunak reappoint Suella Braverman? Her decision to back him rather than Boris Johnson was probably the most decisive endorsement of the recent campaign – this might well have been done with the understanding that she’d be Home Secretary. But the question now is whether the PM backs her position on immigration. Braverman’s critics say she is ungovernable, a verbal flame-thrower. Her supporters say this is precisely what’s needed: language and an attitude that matches public concern over the small boats crisis. Her move to the Home Office was accompanied by another significant move: Robert Jenrick put under her as immigration minister. He’s understood to be miffed that he wasn’t in cabinet, but as Sunak’s closest friend in politics it can only be a matter of time.

Could Robert Jenrick end up replacing Suella Braverman?

Monday

31 Oct 2022

Monday

24 Oct 2022
Six reasons to be optimistic about a Rishi Sunak premiership

For the last few days and weeks, the political news from Britain has been unremittingly grim. But Rishi Sunak in No10 represents a new start - but before he starts, it is worth considering the case for optimism for his premiership. Here goes:-At a time when market-literacy is at a premium, we’ll have the most market-literate PM in history. Sunak has a clearer grasp of finance than anyone to sit in No. 10 or No. 11. Gordon Brown was regarded as a details man because he read original academic papers. Sunak, a Goldman Sachs alumni, had a Bloomberg terminal on his desk to follow the metrics from which such papers are drawn. Treasury officials make the same joke about him: no matter how detailed the briefing, he was more on top of the issue than they are.

Six reasons to be optimistic about a Rishi Sunak premiership

Sunday

23 Oct 2022
Might Tory MPs refuse to recognise Boris Johnson as PM?

Might Tory MPs refuse to recognisee Boris Johnson as leader if party members choose him? George Osborne raises the prospect on the Andrew Neil Show today saying:I think there’s a real chance the Tory parliamentary party says ‘we don’t accept the result of the members’ ballot. We don’t accept that 200 of us are going to serve under a PM we didn’t want’. And so I think the crisis will develop sooner than the privileges committee. It will develop at the end of this coming week and the beginning of this coming week, the beginning of next week, if Johnson gets through. This might reflect the attitude of Osborne’s contacts in Parliament (who found Boris V1 hard enough to deal with) but it’s not, so far, hugely widespread.

Might Tory MPs refuse to recognise Boris Johnson as PM?

Friday

21 Oct 2022
Penny reign: how Mordaunt could be kingmaker

Tory MPs will likely have three candidates to vote for in Monday’s leadership race: Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak. If Johnson runs, gets to the final two and it goes to the Tory membership, then he’s probably be back in No. 10 within days. Polls of Tory members put Boris ahead by a three-to-two margin in a multi-candidate scenario.To stop Johnson getting in the final two, Tory MPs would need to cast their votes tactically to engineer a Sunak-Mordaunt playoff amongst members, in which Sunak would likely win.But all this assumes Penny Mordaunt plays ball. Why would she be Sunak’s lobby fodder? Why allow herself to be used by his supporters to rig an election and prevent Tory members from being given the chance to vote for the person they want? You can see the arguments.

Penny reign: how Mordaunt could be kingmaker

Thursday

20 Oct 2022

Wednesday

19 Oct 2022

Monday

17 Oct 2022
Will Jeremy Hunt’s U-turns deepen recession?

Just two weeks ago, Liz Truss told the Tory conference that her priority was ‘growth, growth and growth’. But how much of that can she expect now that her new Chancellor plans to jack up corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent as the economic headwinds strengthen?  As she never tired of telling us during the leadership campaign, it’s an unusual thing to do at a time of threatened recession: no other G7 country plans to put up taxes in this way. Now that she has agreed to go along with the Sunak plan in the name of assuaging the markets, City forecasters are doing a double-take. Instead of that ‘growth, growth and growth’ we are set for recession – and one that they say will be deepened by the U-turns. Expect more of those this morning at Jeremy Hunt’s statement.

Will Jeremy Hunt’s U-turns deepen recession?

Saturday

15 Oct 2022
Why Liz Truss failed

The markets did not crash, so there was not a Black Friday in the way some had envisaged. But this certainly was Black Friday for the Tories, a new low in the party’s history, a debacle to rival Black Wednesday but with none of the economic dividends. A new Prime Minister sacks a Chancellor for doing exactly what she told him to, then declares she will implement every single one of the corporation tax rises that she had spent the summer promising to stop. So it now emerges that Liz Truss stood for leader on a false prospectus, promising an agenda she has quickly proved unable to deliver.Her plan during her campaign was £30 billion of unfunded tax cuts – in a government that takes almost £1,000 billion a year in taxes, this was doable.

Why Liz Truss failed

Friday

14 Oct 2022

Monday

10 Oct 2022
Nicola Sturgeon and the politics of hatred

One of the problems with nationalism – of any stripe – is its uglier undercurrents. The Scottish National Party has made great strides presenting itself as civic and progressive, but it’s usually never too long before blood-and-soil arguments start to come through. So you’ll hear fairly sinister arguments about how the SNP’s opponents are not really Scottish (a point made about me quite often) or that their opponents are not just wrong but malign, even evil and detestable. Speaking ahead of her party conference, Nicola Sturgeon forgot herself. 'If the question to me is: would I prefer a Labour government over a Tory government,' she told her fellow Scot Laura Kuenssberg. 'I detest the Tories and everything they stand for, so it’s not difficult to answer that question.

Nicola Sturgeon and the politics of hatred

Sunday

9 Oct 2022
Can Truss repair the damage of her first four weeks?

Soon after being elected Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith summed up a test that he was soon to fail. ‘At the moment, I am a clean slate,' he said. 'It’s the next four months that count. If the wrong colours are applied to my slate, they will be there for ever. I have to be able to show in the first few months that my strengths are the dominant features, so that people will say, “That bloke looks as though he knows where he’s going.”’ William Hague, he said, never recovered from the baseball cap incidents. Early slips, he said, are fatal. Three or four months is a luxurious timetable. In an era where social media is Britain’s No. 1 source of written news, the whole process is accelerated. The great fear stalking the Tory party now is that, after three of four weeks, Liz Truss's position is already unrecoverable.

Can Truss repair the damage of her first four weeks?

Tuesday

4 Oct 2022
Why Penny Mordaunt’s pre-rebellion matters

Another day, another Tory rebellion. Liz Truss needs to think of ways to constrain spending and tough decisions lie ahead. One option is to increase benefits in line with average salaries (6.2 per cent), rather than CPI inflation (9.9 per cent). Her aides are preparing the argument. Why should someone on welfare see their income rise faster than someone in work? And with public sector wages rising at just 2 per cent, can government really give a near-10 per cent rise to those on benefits – while saying that there's not enough money to do the same for nurses, teachers etc? Those around the PM think that, unlike the 45p tax rate cut, this is a tough-love, fiscal-responsibility battle that can be won. 'We have to look at these issues in the round,' said the Prime Minister on the BBC Radio 4 interview broadcast this morning, 'We have to be fiscally responsible.

Why Penny Mordaunt’s pre-rebellion matters

Wednesday

28 Sep 2022

Monday

26 Sep 2022
Will the Bank of England now move to steady the pound?

After a weekend where the markets digested the Kwasi Kwarteng plan for growth, the pound hit $1.03 in early trading in Asia – the lowest rate since the dollar was invented in 1792. The fall was shortlived – it later rebounded to $1.07 – but the fact that it touched such a low at all has set off speculation that the Bank of England will stage an emergency intervention putting up interest rates by as much as one percentage point. ‘We’ve entered the part of the currency crisis where psychology takes over. That could mean the markets continue to test the Bank and the pound falls further, suggesting that the Bank has to have another go to assert its authority,’ said Paul Dales, Chief UK Economist at Capital Economics.

Will the Bank of England now move to steady the pound?

Saturday

24 Sep 2022
The benefits scandal Kwasi Kwarteng should tackle next

I was at an end-of-summer party for the Centre for Social Justice last night, with some politicians and others interested in the welfare-to-work agenda. The reaction to the budget was mixed. The various donors there were stunned to have been given the biggest tax cut of their lives – the biggest since Nigel Lawson cut the top rate of income tax from 60 to 40 per cent.These are philanthropists, by and large, highly likely to give a chunk of their tax cut to causes they support. That's why Kwarteng's budget will have gone down very well amongst the charity fundraisers who depend on such people. The Charities Aid Foundation once calculated that 9 per cent of the UK population contributes 66 per cent of donations, a group they call the 'Civic Core'.

The benefits scandal Kwasi Kwarteng should tackle next

Friday

23 Sep 2022
The audacity of Kwarteng’s tax cut for the rich

George Osborne dreamed about it and Rishi Sunak told friends that he’d like to do it if everything went well and he was feeling brave. But this morning Kwasi Kwarteng has gone ahead and done it. The ‘additional rate of tax’ – set up by Gordon Brown as a trap for the Tories in 2009 – has just been abolished. Right now, those earning more than £150,000 per year will pay 48.25 per cent on every pound they earn (45 per cent income tax plus 3.25 per cent National Insurance). From April next year, it will fall to 42 per cent (40 per cent income tax plus 2 per cent NI). A double tax cut: the additional rate goes and NI is also cut. So the biggest tax cut of Kwarteng’s ‘mini-Budget’ has gone to the very richest. Middle earners have been given a 3.

The audacity of Kwarteng’s tax cut for the rich

Monday

19 Sep 2022