Former prime minister Liz Truss has stepped back into the political spotlight with the publication of her ambitiously titled new memoir, "Ten Years to Save the West".

Since being ousted in 2022, Britain's shortest-serving PM has remained a largely fringe figure in the Conservative Party. But in recent months, said David Runciman in The Guardian, Truss has "hitched her wagon to a newly launched organisation called Popular Conservatism".

Her "British version of much of the American alt-right agenda", said Adam Boulton at Reaction, has helped to ensure that Truss and her new book are making headlines.

'Unfinished business'

Truss has said that she has "unfinished business" in politics, said Sky News, and she has "refused to rule out running" to be Tory leader again in the future. Her book, she said, was intended to "build support for her political ideas".

 But there "isn't much evidence" that the "hysterical pitch of American conservatives" that she has adopted "resonates across the Atlantic", argued Rafael Behr in The Guardian.

Reading the "Alan Partridge-esque anecdotes" in Truss's book, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, what becomes clear is that she believes that the "first step" to saving the West is "saving the Conservative Party from itself". Truss's awareness that the current government "would prefer to pretend she doesn't exist", and that the mainstream party members consider her "an irrelevance", is why she has reappeared with a book of "tell-all revelations" and "bombastic end-of-the-world rhetoric".

Truss clearly has a "self-awareness problem" that "leads her to blame her failures on anyone and everyone" else, said Isabel Hardman in The Spectator, but it is worth asking whether "there are points she makes that Westminster can actually learn from". Although Truss's focus is "largely limited to what stopped her", she also points to the "resistance from the civil service to reforms" and Whitehall's "obstructing" of elected politicians.

'A deeper problem'

Her specific policies and opinions aside, Truss's book highlights a greater problem in Westminster: "it has stopped listening", said Kate McCann at the i news site. Although many will "baulk at the idea" of a Truss comeback, the response to her memoir exposes the "deeper problem" of a "narrowing of the lens" and a tendency to "scoff and shrug" off ideas that "don't fit". Truss is "not the perfect messenger", but she is not the only one to identify the "failure to properly consider things which don't fit the narrative".

The question remains whether, despite making a return to public view, Truss could drum up enough support to make a concerted bid for power again. So far, her "attempt at a comeback" appears to be working, said Bouton, and she is "getting another hearing – at least in Conservative circles".

Her voice is "listened to and influential among her party members", agreed Chris Mason at the BBC, and while Tories "privately anticipate" losing the next election, Truss is hoping to be in the mix as they "consider their future after it".

If Truss's "is the only story anyone can hear", said Behr, it raises bigger questions for the future of the Conservatives. It indicates that they "don't have a leader" and "don't have an argument" and eventually "could end up without a party". In the long term,  there simply aren't "enough Trussite MPs, let alone Truss-supporters in the country", to "inspire much beyond ridicule" for the former PM.

Liz Truss is rebranding herself in a bid to relaunch her stalled political career over in the US. 

Following her stint as Britain's shortest-serving prime minister, the former Lib Dem-turned-centrist Tory is "plotting a new course back to relevance as a darling of the American far-right and as the bridge in a transatlantic conservative movement" said the Daily Mail's US political reporter Bob Crilly.

Since leaving No. 10 in October 2022,  Truss has doubled down on her free-market policies and "worked tirelessly to build ties with US conservatives, including key Members of Congress", said Nile Gardiner, a former aide to Margaret Thatcher, in The Telegraph. Truss is "widely admired in conservative circles" as "one of the few British politicians who really understand the United States and the direction America's conservative movement is taking".

'Martyr of the Conservative cause'

Following her year in the "political wilderness", said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, Truss is now "ubiquitous". An appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last week provided the latest opportunity for the former Tory leader to "try out the persona she has adopted since her enforced departure from Downing Street: the martyr of the Conservative cause".

The annual event has "long been one of the most influential conservative gatherings in the world", said Crilly in the Mail, and is now a "showcase for Donald Trump's Maga movement".

Making her CPAC debut alongside former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, Truss "positioned herself as a fierce defender of history against the mores of the left", said The New Statesman's Matt McDonald – and "then proceeded to retell her own". Rehashing the platform she stood on in the Tory leadership contest, Truss portrayed herself  as the "populist conduit for the policies of her party's base" and claimed the "deep state" brought down her her tax-cutting plans. 

Referencing the title of her upcoming book, Truss warned that there were only "10 years left to save the West". She derided "wokenomics," Joe Biden and "the usual suspects" in the media and corporate world who allegedly undermined her as PM. And she ended with a call for Americans to elect Republicans "who aren't going to cave into the establishment" and are willing to be unpopular with elites, even if it means "they don't get invited to any dinner parties".

'Differences with her new audience'

Whether Truss's US bid to "remake herself as a right-wing celebrity will succeed is anyone’s guess", said The Independent's White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg. Her CPAC debut appears to be part of a "new offensive" to gain "new allies in the populist, antidemocratic milieu inhabited by Trump, Farage, and other authoritarian-friendly gadflies such as ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon".

Yet while her focus on the "enemies within" might have come straight from the Trump playbook, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times, there are "lots of reasons" why Truss might not want to "explicitly endorse" the former president. She knows "full well" that it is "hard" to "reconcile" her hawkish positions on foreign policy, particularly her support for Ukraine, with Trump's stances. 

Her foreign policy views "might be a harder sell to the American right, which is held in Trump's isolationist grip", agreed Crilly in the Mail. And she faces other "potential differences with her new audience", including her rejection of the widespread belief amongst Maga supporters that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Little wonder that her CPAC appearance was met with a mixture of confusion and scepticism, said Jack Montgomery in The National Pulse. Her support for action against climate change and backing for "woke" policies while in government show that Truss "wasn’t ousted by the deep state", he wrote. "She is the deep state."

Rishi Sunak may have hoped that this year's Conservative Party conference would focus on his new policies on net zero and motorists, but it was the future of HS2 that dominated the agenda in Manchester.

It is likely that "there wasn't a grand plan in Downing Street" for the conference to be "overwhelmed" by the controversial high-speed rail link, said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman, "but make no mistake: that is what's happened".

But amid "the spectacle of a prime minister trying in vain not to talk about HS2 before his big speech", there are other numerous key stories emerging, said Sky News's deputy political editor Sam Coates. Not least the "existential questions about what the next iteration of the Conservative Party stands for".

Rishi's reset

"We’ve had 30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one," Sunak said in his hour-long keynote speech to the conference. "Thirty years of vested interests standing in the way of change. Thirty years of rhetorical ambition which achieves little more than a short-term headline."

The speech was an "attempt to reframe his administration", said Bloomberg's Joe Mayes and Emily Ashton, that "reflects both the 20-point deficit to the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls and the lack of time to turn it around".

But "the thing that stood out about the prime minister's speech was he wasn't unveiling a whole bunch of guaranteed crowd pleasers", said the BBC's political editor Chris Mason. The scrapping of the HS2 Manchester link and the ban on smoking for the next generation are "ideas that provoke and divide within the Conservative Party – let alone the wider country".

"It is a big ask for the PM to prove he is the 'change candidate' after 13 Tory years," agreed The Sun. "But he genuinely believes it."

A shift to the right

From the Tory faithful "embracing the Liz Truss agenda" to "senior figures echoing and legitimising the tropes, language and politics of Donald Trump" to "a home secretary mobbed by activists wanting selfies", the "centre of gravity of the Tory party" is changing, said Coates. "Key figures" are now "invoking the membership to abandon the centre ground," he said. 

"Labour may revel in its enemy's slide towards oblivion," said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. "The further right the Tories go, the more beatable they look in the short term." 

However, she added, Labour "should be careful what it wishes for… When the Tory civil war begins in earnest post-election, the moderate platoon looks frighteningly invisible."

Tough immigration stance

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, "appealed to the party's hard right", said The New York Times, with a "fiery address" that warned of an imminent "hurricane" of immigration. 

Braverman, whose own parents came to the UK from Kenya and Mauritius in the 1960s, used her speech at the conference to warn that "unprecedented" migration is "one of the most powerful forces reshaping our world".

Following the speech, Braverman's cabinet colleague Grant Shapps was asked about comparisons that have been made to former Tory minister Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech, which was widely blamed for inflaming racial tensions in the 1960s.  

Shapps replied that the home secretary's rhetoric was "certainly no Enoch Powell situation" and, despite the apparent unease it had caused some senior Conservatives, he insisted that Braverman was "absolutely correct" to warn about the scale of the global movement of people.

Gender and trans issues

This week, policies on gender and trans people issues have "dominated announcements by ministers", said the Financial Times, "sparking a backlash among Tory MPs anxious about the party's deepening politicisation of the subject".

Six cabinet ministers discussed trans and gender issues at the podium in a signal that the topic is likely to be a "prominent theme" in the Tories' campaign leading up to the next general election, the paper added.

Yet some Tory ministers think the issue could cast the party in a "hostile light" and would distract from positive efforts to ease the cost of living crisis.

One minister said the party should be "compassionate" towards trans people, adding: "It's not an issue that voters notice like pump watch [a scheme to monitor and compare petrol prices], it doesn't come up on the doorstep."

A party that likes to party

People who have not been to the Conservative Party’s annual conference "might assume that the 'conference' bit is what matters", said The Economist. For many Tory members, though, "this is all about the party".

A conference does take place "but all that is a sideshow", the paper said. "The real action goes on in between sessions, as people in blue suits, blue shirts and brogues go to parties, drink white wine and use words such as 'thus' in conversation."

Elsewhere at the event, in a queue for a speech, "one woman looks irritated when they cannot find her name on the list. Look for me, she says, under 'Lady' instead," The Economist reported, adding "it requires a lot of effort and aspiration to appear this out of touch". 

Rishi Sunak hoped a picture of party unity at the Conservatives' conference in Manchester would provide the platform to reset his premiership ahead of next year's general election.

Instead, the first few days of the annual gathering have revealed bitter infighting, with different tribes vying for influence and attention.

Membership of what are mainly unofficial groupings overlap, said The Guardian, and "divisions are often more Venn diagram than hard borders". 

The free-market ultras

It may surprise those not used to the idiosyncrasies of internal Tory politics that exactly a year on from her disastrous 49-day term as prime minister – when her radical tax-cutting programme spooked the markets and turbocharged interest rates – Liz Truss is back as the darling of the Conservative Party conference.

Leading the call against what she first described in office as the "anti-growth coalition", Truss is the standard-bearer for small state, low tax, supply-side reforms.

These ideas still have "significant currency across a swathe of the Conservative Party", said The Times, while several of her former ministers "retain enough of a profile to carry significant sway".

Presenting themselves as keepers of the Thatcherite flame, these free-market ultras include former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, former home secretary Priti Patel, former housing minister Simon Clarke and Ranil Jayawardena, who leads the recently formed and increasingly influential Conservative Growth Group.

As Richard Vaughan and Hugo Gye wrote in i news in February, those backing Truss's revivalist mission leave Sunak "at risk of becoming sandwiched" between the two previous incumbents.

Northern Tories

With the Tories trailing Labour by double digits in opinion polls, this group of MPs from the North "are focused on policies that could appeal to Red Wall voters who switched their allegiance from Labour to give Boris Johnson his landslide victory at the general election four years ago", said The Independent.

Known as the Northern Research Group (NRG), they have lobbied the government for more tax responsibilities to be devolved from Westminster, the prioritisation of an east-west rail line linking Liverpool and Hull, and the creation of a "minister for the north".

Made up of prominent figures including former party chairman Jake Berry and current Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson, "the yearning for the party to look beyond England’s south-east finds an echo among Scottish Tories and others including the north-east mayor Ben Houchen", said The Guardian.

This group will be crucial to how Sunak's impending decision to scrap HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester – and the government's wider levelling up agenda – will go down with voters in the North. Channel 4 News reported that "they’d accept a compromise over connections to London as long as East-West links connecting Northern cities get built".

Culture warriors

Promoting an anti-woke, anti-immigration message, this group of right-wing pro-Brexit MPs could make the running at the next Tory leadership contest. Champions of what they term "national conservatism", leading lights include Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

While there is an overlap with the social conservatism of Northern Tories, theirs is a "more pessimistic, authoritarian, explicitly Christian and anti-woke world-view, closer in spirit to some of the national populist movements in Europe than to neoliberalism", said The New Statesman.

Among the most vocal are Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, who lead the so-called New Conservatives group of MPs from the 2017 and 2019 intake. It has called for a ban on "gender ideology" being taught in schools, curbs on legal migration and the withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

This tribe may be on "the fanatic fringe", wrote Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in i news, but to an extent it has already been "absorbed into the mainstream of Conservative politics", said The Guardian, "with even Sunak, once mistakenly viewed as a largely ideology-free technocrat, expected to lean increasingly into culture war issues as the election approaches".

'One Nation' Tories

Probably the largest group, centrist 'One Nation' Tories are also the least formalised. They "have struggled for influence under recent prime ministers" and "currently lack a standard-bearer for the internal debates convulsing the party", reported The Times.

Made up of MPs who present themselves as serious politicians for serious times, they boast the likes of the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, security minister Tom Tugendhat, Tobias Ellwood and Damian Green among their number.

Less vocal than other Tory factions, the group appears to be "biding their time for what could be a bare-knuckle fight against the culture warriors and Truss's rump group of ultra free-market devotees for the future direction of the party", The Guardian concluded.

It's a year since Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, unveiled a mini-budget that included £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts and caused chaos, confusion and controversy.

Many people feel Truss is to blame for the high interest rates that have caused worry and worse for homeowners, but her supporters deny this. Here are the legacies of her headline-grabbing growth plan, which led to her swift demise.

Are we still paying a 'moron risk premium'?

Dario Perkins, of research firm TS Lombard, coined the term "moron risk premium" to describe the effect he believed Truss had on Britain's economic credibility.

To see if that "risk premium persists", said The Economist, we should look at credit-default swaps, the instruments that "insure investors in the event that the bond-issuer goes bust". These, said the newspaper, give a "clearer indication of financial competence".

Last September, the price of insuring British government debt against default for five years rose from 29 basis points to 49 basis points after Truss's plans were announced. Today, that instrument trades once more at 29 basis points, with "financial order" appearing "to have been restored".

Not everyone agrees. Truss's "catastrophically failed" attempt to change the country's course in a mini-budget "crashed the pound, punished mortgage holders and destroyed her party's reputation for economic competence in one fell swoop", wrote Richard Partington for The Guardian, and the UK economy is "still stuck in first gear".

Is the mini-budget to blame for high interest rates?

"The short answer is no," said Callum Mason on the inews site. Interest rates are now at 5.25%, "far higher than after the mini-Budget", he wrote, and as a result average fixed-rate mortgages are "now higher than they ever were". According to some economists, had we had not had the mini-budget, "we would have reached the rate we have now, more slowly".

But, argued Partington, policymakers are preparing to hold rates at "restrictively high levels", which will "create a grim backdrop for the next election, stoking the chances of recession and maintaining pressure on businesses and households".

What about gilt yields?

A "recurring refrain" from Truss's supporters is that gilt yields, or government bonds, are higher now than they were in the immediate aftermath of the mini-budget, said City A.M.

The Trussites argue the steady rise in yields during Rishi Sunak's premiership has received "much less commentary" than the surge seen last autumn. However, Dan Hanson, an economist at Bloomberg Economics, told the paper that while last year's surge "signalled a loss of confidence in the UK", yield prices now reflect a "rational response" rather than a total loss of confidence.

Or, as Andrew Goodwin, chief UK economist at Oxford Economics, said: "If Truss and Kwarteng were in power today and announced a budget like they did last year, then it's likely that gilt yields would surge again… because markets thought their plans lacked credibility."

And the pound?

Sterling is now "much stronger than the depths it slumped to last autumn", said City A.M. Then, it "approached parity with the dollar as international investors abandoned the UK putting downward pressure on sterling".

It has since recovered and, until relatively recently, was one of the strongest performing currencies of 2023. This recovery “reflects the more credible direction of fiscal policy since Jeremy Hunt took over" as chancellor, "both from the perspective of a less inflationary stance but also in terms of fiscal sustainability,” said Phil Shaw, chief economist at Investec.

What about the political legacy?

The Conservative Party is "still reeling" from Truss's plans, said The Economist. The Tories’ deficit to Labour is close to 20 points in the polls and the party's "reputation for economic competence has been shattered" but Truss "shows little contrition".

Labour has vowed to give Britain's economic watchdog more powers to avoid a repeat of what it called the "disastrous mistakes" of Truss's mini-budget, The Times reported.

Labour said that, should it win the next election, the Office for Budget Responsibility would be given the freedom to publish forecasts and analysis alongside any fiscal changes.

What does Truss say?

Truss and her supporters are "attempting to revise history", said Partington, aiming to "shift the blame" for the "clearest rejection of a prime minister's economic policy since Black Wednesday".

This week, an "unrepentant" Truss sought to blame a "left-wing infiltration of thinktanks, the Bank of England and other 'institutions' for the market turmoil during her brief premiership", said Sky News.

Liz Truss has defended the policies she tried to push through during her short time as prime minister, adding to speculation that she wants to return to high office.

In a speech at an event held by the Institute for Government think tank, she argued that she could not deliver her plans because of the "political and economic establishment".

"The Trussites may be in exile," wrote Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, "but they do not believe their ideas have been defeated."

However, a survey by YouGov this month found that 81% of respondents felt she had done badly as prime minister, including 80% among Conservative voters. 

So can Truss win back the grassroots and mount a political comeback?

'Loyal rump'

Although her speech "prompted a furious response from some colleagues", Truss "still commands the backing of a small but loyal rump of MPs on the Conservative right", said the Financial Times.

Her "ability to galvanise some quarters of the right of her party to speak up on tax and the green agenda is only part of the problem she presents for [Rishi] Sunak", it said. Another difficulty for the prime minister is "her willingness to pick fights with the economic establishment over her doomed economic strategy".

Truss's popularity among those on the right of the party and her appeal, "in particular, to the Tory grassroots" remains "unabated", said the inews site. It is "from this base" that she aims to "push the party into more pro-growth policies".

She "gets invited to speak to grassroots members at events around the country", an ally told the news site, boasting that she receives "so many" invitations that she "can’t possibly attend them all".

She will speak at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester next month, but a source from within her camp insisted this was not an attempt to undermine Sunak by indulging in "personality politics". Rather, it is "purely about ensuring the Tory party is pushing the right policy platform that she believes the country needs".

"Publicly – and privately – there are many in the Conservative Party who think the pendulum has swung too far under Rishi Sunak," said Ali Fortescue, political correspondent for Sky News, and they "want a more coherent plan for growth". 

But "any remarks worth listening to" are "drowned out by the facts of history", she added, and Truss's "unwillingness to accept what happened" during her brief and disastrous reign.

So, although her speech "may have been the starting gun in her big comeback attempt", the "bigger question is whether anyone is really listening".

'Brass neck'

Her plans have been dismissed by "more centrist Tories", said the inews site, including George Osborne’s former adviser and prospective Tory MP Rupert Harrison, who criticised the "brass neck" of Truss. "Happily, nobody in the Conservative Party or the government is listening," he said.

Truss has made it clear she is not "going away", wrote John Crace for The Guardian, "even though that's precisely what most Tories want her to do. To shut up and stop embarrassing herself and them."

A former MP who worked alongside Truss in government described her as "really lacking in EQ [emotional intelligence], the way she goes about things", said Politico.

Another former colleague of Truss told the news site that "every time she says anything conspicuous, the public is reminded that Liz Truss was prime minister and that it wasn't some sort of fever dream". The Tories "should be trying to push that further into the past", they added.

Nevertheless, wrote Iain Watson, political correspondent for the BBC, "it is worth remembering that a majority of rank-and-file party members had backed her leadership bid last year".

U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss will have a lasting legacy — but probably not the one she was hoping for.

Truss announced her resignation as prime minister last week amid mounting pressure and scathing criticism of her handling of the economy, ending her tenure after just 45 days and making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. Her resignation was hardly a surprise, especially given her plunging approval ratings — among the worst ever seen.

However, while many are blaming Truss for the unprecedented failure in office, is everything going wrong in the U.K. really her fault? Does the ex-prime minister simply represent the culmination of years of strife in one of the world's most important economies, or will her disastrous outing overshadow everything else that came beforehand and cement her legacy as a one-and-done failure?

Liz Truss took the worst actions at the worst time and has nobody to blame but herself

Some have said that Truss' own actions set her on a path to failure. Upon taking office, "Truss' plan to slash taxes, especially for the wealthiest, amounted to opening a firehose filled with gasoline into that raging economic fire," wrote CNN opinion contributor Frida Ghitis. She called Truss' controversial tax cut proposal a move "that threatened to send her country into an economic tailspin," and added that it made no sense to take such actions "in the midst of a wave of inflation that is battering the world."

Ghitis noted that many people both inside and outside of the U.K. felt that Truss did not have a concise plan for trying to fix her nation's economic woes. "Truss argues that cutting taxes will spur investment and growth," Ghitis wrote. "But even devout proponents of trickle-down economics know that slashing taxes when inflation stands at its highest levels in decades ... is like gorging on candy to prevent a diabetic coma."

Many agreed, including Faisal Islam, the economics editor for BBC News, who wrote in an op-ed that "Truss would still be prime minister had she not pushed ahead with the mini-budget, which caused her economic experiment, the entire basis of her leadership mandate, to fail in full view of the country and the world." Islam went on to say that Truss' advisors incorrectly believed the global markets "would simply ignore the massive £45 billion unfunded nature of her tax cuts," but instead "targeted British assets."

Liz Truss is among the worst prime ministers in British history

Given the failure of almost all of Truss' political agenda, contributor Martin Fletcher wrote in The New Statesman that Truss was among the worst prime ministers in the nation's history. In a blistering column, he described Truss as "inept, tin-eared, and seemingly devoid of any emotional intelligence, possessed of no mandate from the country or even her parliamentary party." Fletcher added that the prime minister had "arrogantly rebuffed all experts, all scrutiny, all warnings of catastrophe to pursue the chimera of economic growth ... through the sugar rush of huge, unfunded tax cuts for the rich at a time of acute economic hardship for everyone else."

The op-ed harshly criticized Truss' tax cuts as "ideological lunacy," and even suggested that, had Truss had her way, it could have led to "civil insurrection." Even as a self-described Conservative voter himself, Fletcher said that the disgraced prime minister had led her country "down a path of destruction that will blight the lives of generations to come."

"For the first time in my adult life, there is a genuine sense of decay in Britain — a realization that something has been lost that will be difficult to recover," Tom McTague, a staff writer for The Atlantic, wrote in a similar op-ed. "Today, we had the absurd spectacle of a prime minister, barely a month into the job, abandoning the central tax-cutting purpose of her premiership ... in aid of a vain and surely doomed attempt to cling to power, after the markets concluded that her policies were insane." He called the ongoing situation an "idiotic farce" and likened her plan to a booby trap in an Indiana Jones film, and predicted that she had nowhere to go but "political death."

Truss was thrust into a disastrous scenario and was set up for defeat

Despite the majority of columnists lambasting Truss, there are others still who feel that she was placed in an impossible scenario by her party. This includes Rosa Prince, editor of The House magazine, who wrote in an op-ed for CNN that the Conservative Party, "the most electorally successful party in British political history, is indeed battle-scarred, riven into multitudes of factions, and overhung with an air of bitterness."

Others further argued that Truss had inherited an economic crisis that couldn't be fixed, including Yasmeen Serhan, a staff writer for Time, who wrote on Truss' first day that the new prime minister was "beset with challenges that have been stewing over a long, anxious summer: A dire cost-of-living crisis that could see most Britons facing energy poverty, record-breaking inflation, a buckling healthcare system, widespread labor unrest, and an economy some say is already in recession." Gavin Barwell, a former Conservative minister, also told Serhan that the challenge Truss walked into "is one of the most difficult any prime minister has had in my lifetime."

Serhan also argued the domino effect that Truss would have, writing "the added challenge for Truss is that every decision she makes now will have knock-on effects on the other crises she faces." Serhan added, "This combination of crises would likely crush any prime minister — let alone one taking office against the wishes of the majority of her parliamentary colleagues."

Brexit and Boris Johnson are more to blame for Truss' downfall

Those that felt Truss was less personally responsible for the U.K.'s issues pointed to a wide array of other factors. One of the most commonly cited was Brexit and the country's longstanding issue with governance, with Jon Henley writing for The Guardian, "Continental observers have become used to Westminster meltdowns –— but many see in the latest cataclysm the inevitable finale of a project that was always divorced from reality."

This sentiment was echoed by French newspaper Libération, whose editorial board wrote that the Conservative Party was "on a path to total self-destruction." It seems many in France agreed with this analysis, with another newspaper, Le Monde, writing that Brexit was easily the number one cause of the current U.K. crisis.

Libération further argued that "Brexit, and its chief architect [former Prime Minister] Boris Johnson, have drained the Conservative Party of all substance and competence." The paper noted that Johnson was more to blame for the current situation given his significant push for Brexit that goes back years.

Time will tell how Truss' successor, Rishi Sunak, will fare as he attempts to rebuild the broken pieces of his country.

Rishi Sunak, 42, was declared the new leader of Britain's Conservative Party on Monday, putting him on course to become the next prime minister of the U.K.

This comes after his rivals, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt, withdrew from consideration. Sunak will be the first person of color to ever hold the position of prime minister in the country, and will be the third leader in seven weeks, The New York Times reports. Sunak will be coming into the position with the country facing high levels of inflation and economic uncertainty.

The sudden appointment comes after prime minister Liz Truss resigned from her position after just 45 days due to the failure of her fiscal plans, which put Britain's economy in turmoil. Her policies caused the value of the pound to plummet, causing major economic damage, CNN reports. Sunak predicted her plan's failure during their summer leadership contest, reports the Los Angeles Times.

After the failure of both Johnson and Truss, there has been debate within the country as to whether the Conservative Party should be appointing a third leader, with many in the opposition pushing for a general election. The Conservative Party is losing to the Labour Party in record numbers amid the chaos, Bloomberg reports.

Sunak's leadership is noteworthy for British Asians — as Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future, put it: "This simply would not have been possible even a decade or two ago."

Liz Truss departs 10 Downing Street as Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, resigning after just 45 days in the job and leaving office after barely seven weeks.

“History books will not speak kindly of Liz Truss,” wrote The Economist shortly after she announced she was stepping down as PM. “She had promised a radical new era of economic growth,” said the newspaper, but instead she will be remembered for her “many U-turns, unforced political and economic blunders, and having the shortest tenure of any British prime minister in history”.

Although she will serve as prime minister until Rishi Sunak is formally appointed by King Charles, which is likely to be on Tuesday, it means her tenure will be 50 days, allowing her to claim the title as the shortest-serving prime minister in British political history.

Shortest-serving prime ministers

Until Truss’s resignation last Thursday, the briefest British prime ministerial reign was that of George Canning, who served 119 days in office before he died of either tuberculosis or pneumonia on 8 August 1827. Although he served just five short months in office, his tenure was “75 days longer” than that of Truss’s premiership, said The Telegraph.

The Conservative Alec Douglas-Home also had a short premiership, lasting 363 days as PM before he was defeated by Labour’s Harold Wilson in the 1964 general election.

In India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s first stint as prime minister lasted only 13 days in May 1996, after his Bharatiya Janata Party “failed to muster the required support on the floor of the house”, said The Telegraph. He returned to power for another short stint in 1998, serving for 13 months, and then again in 1999 when he served a full term until 2004.

Siaka Stevens, of Sierra Leone, was arrested “an hour after he was sworn in” as prime minister after narrowly winning an election in 1967, according to FirstPost. The military removed him from office and seized control for two weeks before a counter-coup saw him return to power, and he then served for 17 years.

Other heads of state

William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, had the shortest tenure of any president, dying just 32 days into the job in 1841. Aged 68, he also became the first president to die in office.

He took the presidential oath on 4 March, “a cold, wet day during which he rode on horseback and delivered possibly the longest inaugural address in American history, taking about two hours”, said The Guardian. It is thought that his “refusal to wear a coat or hat that day” contributed to the illness that cut his life and presidency short, and he died a month later on 4 April.

However, the record for the shortest-ever presidency most likely goes to Pedro Lascuráin, who was president of Mexico for just 45 minutes on 19 February 1913. His extremely short tenure was “completely intentional”, said Mental Floss, with Lascuráin being used “as a pawn in a political coup” that allowed General Victoriano Huerta to seize power from the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero.

Monarchs and emperors

Known in popular culture as “the nine days queen”, Lady Jane Grey had the shortest reign of any British monarch. Despite being only fifth in line to the throne, she was named as heir to the throne by a dying Edward VI, who wanted England to retain a Protestant monarch.

Upon Edward’s death, Grey was proclaimed Queen on 10 July 1553, but the country would rise in favour of the true heir to the throne, Edward’s half-sister Mary, who was out of favour with the young King due to her fervent Catholicism.

Jane was deposed as Queen on 19 July, just nine days after she ascended the throne and with “her own father even abandoning her cause”, said Royal UK. Jane and her husband would be executed the following year.

The shortest reign of any monarch is probably that of Louis-Antoine, the Duke of Angoulême, who became Louis XIX when his father, Charles X of France, abdicated the throne in 1830. But Louis followed his father’s example by abdicating – just 20 minutes later.

Liz Truss resigned as Britain's prime minister last Thursday after wreaking havoc on the economy with her failed fiscal plans. Her 45-day term became the record-shortest in Britain's history and has left the U.K. scrambling to appoint a new PM. The Conservative Party has announced that a leadership decision will be made by Oct. 28 between the candidates in the ring (notably not including former disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson). Britain's new leader will be 42-year-old Rishi Sunak, who'll become the fifth Conservative Party prime minister in just over six years and the third just within this parliamentary term, according to CNN.

The ongoing political turmoil has resulted in heavy criticism of the Conservatives, also known as the Tories, as well as a call for an immediate general election, especially by those in the opposition party. (The U.K.'s next general election is not due until at least 2024, following Boris Johnson's victory in 2019). Some have also viewed Truss' failure as a failure of democracy. Should Britain hold an immediate general election, and what do the recent failures say about the country?

Britain desperately needs a general election

Britain's Conservative Party has been facing immense pressure to hold a general election, with some arguing that it is necessary. John Cassidy, a columnist at the New Yorker, wrote that despite the Tories holding the majority in the House of Commons, "common sense, basic decency, and Britain's reputation as a healthy democracy" demand an immediate general election.

He's not the only one to feel that way. An official Parliament petition has gathered almost 800,000 signatures calling for an immediate general election due to the chaos. Additionally, during Truss' resignation speech, protesters in the back could be heard shouting "general election now" — a clear call for change.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, has insisted that "the British public deserves a proper say on the country's future." Cassidy concurred with the statement, writing, "Who could disagree that it's time for the voters to be heard?"

The Tories are in their flop era

One criticism that has strongly emerged from the fiasco is the recognition of the failures of the modern Conservative Party. While the party was once renowned for its credibility, including its legendary leaders like Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, guest writer Peter Oborne argued in The New York Times that now "the Conservatives are synonymous with chaos."

Overall, many are tired of the party's antics, with Starmer also saying that Britain cannot afford "another experiment at the top of the Tory party." According to polls, support for the Conservatives is at its lowest level in history, at a mere 14 percent. The opposition Labour Party has seen its support skyrocket, currently hovering around 53 percent of the vote by comparison. Data by Electoral Calculus predicts that if elections were to be held today, the Labour Party would likely gain 304 seats while the Tories would lose 317 seats — putting the probability of a Labour majority at almost 100 percent.

In his column, Oborne describes how Truss' failure has made Britain a "global laughingstock" and the "Conservative Party must collectively take responsibility" for choosing her even though "she was obviously not up to the job."

"Their obstinacy is ensuring the ruination of Britain."

A failure of democracy

While many are calling for a general election, there are a number of reasons why it likely won't happen. U.K. general elections are usually held once every five years, meaning the next one is due before Jan. 2025, CNN reports. Since poll numbers for the Tories are so low, they are likely not eager to hold an election that they would almost certainly lose.

This unfortunate political reality has caused many to look upon the current situation as a failure of democracy. A member of the Conservative Party in Parliament, Charles Walker, said in reference to his own party that he's "had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box, not because it's in the national interest but because it's in their own personal interest."

Since Boris Johnson and other candidates have dropped out of the running, 42-year-old Rishi Sunak is set to lead the country. Before that recent turn of events, though, Johnson had appeared to be seriously in consideration, which one person said "feels like such a letdown of democracy." Rafael Behr, a columnist for The Guardian, wrote that the Conservative Party "[harbors] in its ranks the idolatrous sect that worships character traits exactly opposite to the ones required for sound government" in response to the possibility of Johnson being given another chance as prime minister.

With Sunak's victory, there is still an air of doubt after the two prime minister failures. Laura Beer wrote in a CNN opinion piece, "Changing leaders twice in the course of a parliamentary term without consulting the British electorate is the political equivalent of whacking your brother just because he annoyed you."

She continued saying that not giving the electorate the chance to voice their opinions "would risk further eroding faith in Britain's democratic process, at a time when democracy is under significant threat around the globe."

The U.K.'s Liz Truss is eligible for a lifetime taxpayer-funded allowance of 115,000 pounds or $129,000 a year as ex-Prime Minister, despite only serving for 44 days. She resigned as Britain's prime minister on Thursday after failed fiscal plans put Britain's economy in turmoil.

With her resignation, Truss became eligible for the Public Duty Costs Allowance (PDCA), which is a reimbursement plan for costs incurred by former prime ministers for their "special position in public life," The New York Times reports. It was created in 1990 to "assist former Prime Ministers still active in public life."

According to the guidance of the PDCA, the allowance is not to be used to fund the private lives of the former prime ministers and can only be used for costs involving fulfilling public duties.

Even so, it has brought scorn from some who believe her allowance should be refused due to the economic turmoil she caused while in office, the Times continues. Christine Jardine, spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office of the Liberal Democrats said in a statement, "Truss's legacy is an economic disaster — for which the Conservatives are making taxpayers foot the bill."

Truss also became the shortest-serving prime minister in Britain's history, also raising questions as to whether she should be eligible for PDCA at all, CNN reports. Some of the opposition has called her selfish. "She's not really entitled to it, she should turn it down and not take it," said Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party.

It has been another turbulent week in British political history after Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned from her post just six weeks after she came to power.

In a statement made outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday afternoon, Truss said that she could not “deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party” and had spoken to King Charles to tender her resignation. She is to remain as PM until a successor is chosen in a leadership election that is to be “completed within the next week”, she said.

Truss is now the holder of an ignominious record as the shortest-serving prime minister in modern British political history and leaves her party in chaos as – in the words of the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason – they attempt to “dredge a name” out of their ranks to avoid going to a general election.

As the Conservative Party leadership race begins, former prime minister Boris Johnson has reportedly flown back from a holiday in the Caribbean to launch his campaign – just three months after he was ousted from the job by his own MPs. His allies say they are confident he can secure the 100 backers needed to get his name on the ballot.

Johnson’s former chancellor turned leadership rival Rishi Sunak has also secured early backing from MPs, as has the leader of the House of Commons Penny Mourdant, who was knocked out in the fifth round of the last leadership race, which took place over the summer.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• Citizens across China have marked the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 20th congress this week as officials came together in Beijing for the occasion. President Xi Jinping is expected to begin an unprecedented third term as the CCP’s leader and military commander-in-chief.
• A Hong Kong pro-democracy protester described how he was beaten in a “barbaric” attack by Chinese diplomats after being dragged into their consulate grounds in Manchester.
• Iranian competitive climber Elnaz Rekabi was greeted by hundreds of supporters at Imam Khomeini international airport outside Tehran as she returned home from the Asian championships in Seoul, South Korea, where she had competed without wearing a hijab.
• BBC chair Richard Sharp insisted that the broadcaster’s “best days are ahead” as the institution turned 100 this week.

A power outage that hit nearly 2,000 customers in Oregon has been blamed on a squirrel, reported UPI. Portland General Electric said 1,953 customers in East Salem lost power for around 90 minutes after a squirrel caused disruption. This is not the first time a rodent has been blamed for an outage. Dominion Energy said about 10,000 customers in Virginia lost power last month when a squirrel came into contact with substation equipment. Power was restored after about an hour.

Lettuce beats Liz Truss

A 60p lettuce has beaten Liz Truss in a tabloid stunt to see which would last the longest. “Lettuce wins as Liz leafs,” said the Daily Star after Truss announced her resignation. The paper began live streaming the vegetable on 14 October as the prime minister's grasp on power began to wobble. “Will Liz Truss still be prime minister within the 10-day shelf-life of a lettuce?” the newspaper asked. The stunt was inspired by The Economist which called Truss an “iceberg lady” with the “shelf life of a lettuce”.

UK’s first wild bison birth for a millennia

The first wild bison has been born in the UK for a millennia after “surprise pregnancy”, said The Guardian. When three bison were released in Kent in July as part of a rewilding project, the rangers were unaware one had a “secret passenger on board”, said the paper. The female calf was discovered when rangers did not see the mother, who had found a secluded location to give birth. Bison conceal their pregnancies to prevent predators targeting pregnant animals or their offspring.

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Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, who infamously lasted a short 11 days under former President Donald Trump, has offered up his take on U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss' early resignation.

"Liz Truss lasted 4.1 Scaramuccis," the ex-official tweeted Thursday morning, using the length of his White House tenure as an official unit of measurement. Truss served for a total of 45 days.

Scaramucci also commented on the viral lettuce gag orchestrated by British tabloid The Daily Star, in which Truss' faltering hold on power was pit against the short lifecycle of a pedestrian head of lettuce.

The lettuce won out in the end, but at least Truss "outlasted the milk in the refrigerator. I wasn't able to do that! Kudos," Scaramucci added.

"1 Scaramucci = carton of milk," he went on. "1 Truss = head of lettuce."

Alright, but what grocery item is a Kardashian?

If you think your day is off to a bad start, well, at least you're not short-lived U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose extremely-truncated tenure was outlived by a well-dressed head of lettuce.

The embattled Truss resigned from her position as leader on Thursday, after her policies triggered economic turmoil and inspired rebellion within her Conservative party. She served for just six weeks.

But independent British tabloid The Daily Star has been preparing for this moment since at least Oct. 14, when it shared a livestream titled "Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?" The popular video, reportedly inspired by a quip from The Economist, per The New York Times, originally featured a photo of Truss next to a bland head of lettuce purchased at a Tesco grocery store for about 68 cents, per the Times. The leafy green was later dressed up with eyes, a smile, and a floppy head of blonde hair, among other gags.

Of course, the lettuce won out in the end. After she resigned, "[s]omeone flipped the photo of [Truss] face-down on the table, colorful lights swirled, and a recording of 'God Save the King' played on repeat as nearly 20,000 people watched live," the Times writes.

As of 10 a.m. ET Thursday morning, the stream also featured some celebratory alcohol and a few fruit and vegetable friends to keep the lettuce company. The text "This lettuce outlasted Liz Truss" was plastered in big letters onto the screen, just above the ticker: "Breaking: The lettuce will make a speech to the nation at 18:00."

Liz Truss announced her intention to resign as the United Kingdom's prime minister on Thursday, only six weeks into her tumultuous term. Her departure makes her the shortest-serving U.K. prime minister in history, CNN reports.

In a statement outside Downing Street, Truss said she would be stepping aside so that her replacement could be chosen within the next week, following mounting pressure from her own Conservative Party's legislators. They said they lost faith in her leadership capabilities, per CNN.

During her brief statement, Truss said, "I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected," per The New York Times. She said she had informed King Charles III of her resignation and would remain in her position until a leadership election chose her successor.

Truss' tenure as prime minister has been marked with controversy and economic uncertainty as she struggled to gain control after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's departure over the summer. Her announcement signals more trouble for the ruling Conservative Party, which has struggled to regain public confidence since Johnson stepped down, per CNN.

Truss' efficacy as a leader was called into question after her former Treasury secretary Kwasi Kwarteng released a mini-budget featuring proposals for steep tax cuts that threw the British economy into chaos. The value of the British pound plummeted to a record low against the U.S. dollar, and Truss subsequently fired Kwarteng. The government worked to reverse her tax proposals, but the damage was already done as Truss's approval rating fell dramatically, the Times reports.

The Liz Truss era is off to quite the disquieting start.

According to a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll released Monday, Britain's new prime minister has a net approval rating of negative 61 percent, down 13 percentage points from a similar poll last Thursday. Only 9 percent of respondents approve of her overall performance, while 70 percent disapprove.

Truss is underwater even within her own party, with 67 percent of 2019 Conservative voters disapproving of her performance. "Among those who would vote Conservative now, her net approval is -15 percent," R&WS notes.

Meanwhile, Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is seeing a bump in his approval rating, which jumped 3 points from last Thursday to a net positive 8 percent, R&WS reports. Starmer also leads Truss "by 47 points on who would be the better prime minister at this moment — larger than any lead Starmer had held over [former Prime Minister Boris Johnson] before Johnson resigned."

Truss was named Conservative Party leader and the next U.K. prime minister in early September, following an internal party election in which she prevailed over former finance minister Rishi Sunak. She replaced the outgoing Johnson, who stepped down in the wake of numerous scandals, including the COVID-19 protocol-flaunting controversy known as "partygate." And though many expected the start of Truss' term to be turbulent, "few were prepared" for her policies to, after just six weeks, trigger a "financial crisis, emergency central bank intervention, multiple U-turns, and the firing of her Treasury chief," writes The Associated Press.

The poll was conducted Oct. 16 among a sample of 2,000 eligible voters, and its margin of error for the full sample is ± 2.19 percentage points, with a 95 percent confidence interval.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss, in her first substantive act as Britain's leader, unveiled dramatic tax cuts in a mini-budget released Sept. 23. The markets hated her combination of steep tax cuts and higher spending in a period of high inflation, the British pound fell to a record low against the dollar, government borrowing costs shot up, and Truss' approval rating plummeted into single digits. The Bank of England had to step in to prop up financial markets.

On Friday, Truss sacked her treasury secretary and longtime ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, the coauthor of her supply-side budget. She replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, a former health secretary and foreign secretary who has supported her rival, Rishi Sunak, in the Conservative Party leadership race to replace ousted Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Truss had already dropped some of her proposed tax cuts, and Hunt suggested over the weekend he will toss the rest of her keystone budget plans. With markets still jittery, Hunt will release an interim statement Monday laying out new budget priorities, ahead of a longer mid-term budget update Oct. 31.

"There has to be, in a pretty short time, an apology and a fundamental reset of the government by the prime minister," Conservative lawmaker Robert Halfon said Sunday. "The government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice to carry out ultra, ultra free market experiment."

"Truss is still prime minister in name, but power in government has shifted to Hunt," The Associated Press reports. Hunt said on Sunday that Truss is "in charge," adding, "She's listened. She's changed. She's been willing to do that most difficult thing in politics, which is to change tack." But the Conservatives have to decide if Truss is permanently damaged goods in the eyes of the voters. Her party currently has a substantial majority in Parliament, but "polls suggest an election would be a wipeout for the Tories, with the Labour Party winning a big majority," AP notes.

"This is a hand-to-mouth government, living hour by hour," BBC political editor Chris Mason wrote Monday. "If you pick up the hint of panic in the air, you're right, too." Monday's statement by Hunt "is about two things. Restoring the government's financial credibility. And propping Liz Truss up in office," Mason adds. "Both remain imperiled and no one can be quite certain what will happen next."

At the start of the week, Liz Truss set out to quell dissent within Tory ranks as ministers returned to Westminster from party conference season amid reports of plots to oust her.

After a series of bruising meetings with Conservative MPs in the days that followed, criticism of her leadership had only intensified by Friday afternoon. The prime minister responded by sacking her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and announcing a U-turn on their plan to halt a rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25%.

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has been appointed as the new occupant of No. 11. During a Downing Street press conference this afternoon, the PM told reporters that she had taken action to “make sure we have economic stability” during a “a very difficult time globally”.

BBC Newsnight’s political editor Nicholas Watt reported that a group of senior Tories plan to “call publicly” on Truss to resign next week following Kwarteng’s sacking.

In the opposition camp, Keir Starmer put his party on “election footing” by restructuring Labour’s top team. Starmer told Labour staff that the “government’s collapse has given us a huge chance”.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• Buckingham Palace is reportedly reconsidering whether Queen Consort Camilla should wear the controversial Koh-i-Noor diamond when she is crowned alongside King Charles III next year
• Newly declassified records revealed that Cold War double-agent Kim Philby could have been unmasked more than a decade before he fled to the Soviet Union
• Members of the Swedish and Dutch royal families came together in a glamorous state visit
• Scientists believe that microbes on ancient Mars may have triggered life-destroying climate change.

Kwasi Kwarteng is to unveil his debt-cutting plan almost a month earlier than planned in a bid to reassure jittery markets following weeks of economic turmoil.

The chancellor will “rush forward” his statement and the release of forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to 31 October, said the Financial Times, as “he attempts to prove he can get a grip on the public finances and fill in a fiscal hole” left by £43bn of tax cuts.

The plan – to be revealed before the Bank of England votes on whether to raise interest rates for an eighth time this year – is expected to include further “supply-side” reforms aimed at growing the UK economy.

What is supply-side economics?

The macroeconomic theory came to prominence in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, and is based on the idea that the supply of goods and services within the economy is a main driver of growth.

Supply-side economics is similar to “trickle-down” economics, in which wealth benefits are felt by all classes. However, the latter is based on the idea that targeted tax cuts are more effective than the general tax cuts and deregulation at the core of supply-side economics.

Such deregulation may include changes to rules on planning, childcare, immigration, agricultural productivity and digital infrastructure. Kwarteng’s plan is also expected to include further post-Brexit loosening of regulation governing the UK’s financial services sector.

Supply-side economics is visually represented in the so-called Laffer Curve, which charts the theoretical relationship between rates of taxation and government revenue. The curve was created by Reagan-era US economist Arthur Laffer, who argued that lowering tax rates boosts government revenue through higher economic growth.

As Liz Truss and her allies have repeatedly stated, the key point is “growing the economic pie”, with the ultimate goal of benefitting everyone, rather than worrying about exactly how the pie is divided up.

This theory has been challenged by a series of economists in recent years. A London School of Economics analysis of 18 OECD countries between 1970 and 2020 found that big tax cuts for the rich increased the share of national income earned by the top 1%, but had no significant effect on the wider economy in terms of unemployment or GDP per capita.

What are the Truss government’s options?

Supply-side economics “used to have a bad name”, wrote economist Allison Schrager for Bloomberg. But “a more modern view” of the theory has won “converts on both the right and the left”, although “how to achieve it is dividing policymakers”.

One policy that Kwarteng may consider could be relaxing Britain’s strict Sunday trading laws, “which increases convenience for the consumer by allowing larger superstores to stay open for longer, giving shoppers greater choice and encouraging them to make purchases”, said The Independent.

“But the downsides of such a step have to be taken into account too,” the news site continued. The measure “could eat into the tactical competitive advantage awarded to smaller shops and increase the likelihood of their larger retail rivals cannibalising trade and developing a monopoly”, which would leave customers “with fewer options and held hostage to flatlining prices”.

The chancellor has already announced the introduction of new “investment zones” with greater tax reliefs and allowances and easier planning processes. Other reforms could include tax reliefs to companies developing low-carbon technologies; building new rail links between cities to encourage trade; and investing in a faster broadband network to support businesses.

The “long-term success” of the government’s growth plan “now largely hinges on these supply reforms”, said Ryan Bourne, chair in public understanding of economics at the Cato Institute think tank, in an article for Conservative Home. These supply-side plans “have always been more important that the modest net tax cuts”, he added.

Will it work?

A “key problem” with Kwarteng’s plan is that “there seems less scope for a supply-side boost than in the early 1980s”, said MoneyWeek.

The Times’s economics correspondent Arthi Nachiappan explained that “today the UK already boasts some of the lowest headline corporate tax rates among rich countries”. But these low taxes have “failed to generate substantive growth and productivity”, he added.

Pundits are suggesting that, having already bowed to political pressure to abandon the scrapping of the top rate of tax, the government’s supply-side revolution may be dead in the water.

Rather than stimulating the UK's economy, Truss’s first financial update as prime minister “very nearly killed it – and with it, perhaps, the notion that supply-side economics is a good fit for the challenges of the 21st century”, said Canada’s National Observer.

Liz Truss made a number of speeches this week with the aim of strengthening relationships – between members of her party, and between the UK and its international neighbours.

At the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, the prime minister stressed that her three priorities for the economy are “growth, growth and growth”, adding: “I will not allow the anti-growth coalition to hold us back.” She indicated that these anti-growth opponents included taxi-riding North Londonders, the “Twitterati” and podcasters.

Yesterday, Truss addressed the leaders of 43 other European countries during the inaugural meeting of the European Political Community in Prague. In an op-ed published by The Times, the PM said that while she welcomed the opportunity for collaboration during the forum, “it must not be a talking shop. I want concrete action.”

Meanwhile, industrial action continues to cause disruption across the UK. Rail workers took part in a strike on Wednesday, and will walk out tomorrow as part of a continued pay dispute with the government. The Royal College of Nursing has also begun balloting its members as to whether or not to strike – the first time in the union’s history it has taken such action.

The PM is reportedly planning to extend laws that will mean minimum services must be provided across all public sectors during industrial action.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• Brazil’s presidential candidates Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro will again head to the polls at the end of this month after neither politician secured 50% in the first round of voting.
• The UK is reportedly hoping to sign a new natural gas deal with Norway to shore up supplies amid warnings of blackouts this winter.
• The death of an Iranian teenager has raised tensions further as protests continue after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died while in police custody three weeks ago.

Liz Truss is refusing to say whether benefits will rise in line with inflation as her government looks to make billions of pounds in savings to pay for controversial tax cuts.

Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, the prime minister told the BBC that “we have to be fiscally responsible” and reduce the national debt.

Although disability benefits and carer’s allowance “must increase in line with inflation by law”, said the broadcaster, “no decision has yet been made on whether a rise will be linked to prices or wages” for working-age benefits such as Universal Credit.

‘New front in Tory infighting’

Speculation about Truss’s economic plans has been mounting after Treasury Secretary Chris Philp said last week that a commitment by Rishi Sunak to uprate benefits in line with inflation was “under consideration”.

Both the former chancellor and Boris Johnson vowed to increase benefit and pension payments next April in line with this September’s Consumer Prices Index measure of inflation, “which is currently 9.9%, subject to a review by the work and pensions secretary”, the BBC reported.

Raising benefits in line with wages instead could save an estimated £5bn, amid reports that government departments have been asked to set out plans for “efficiency savings”.

According to the i news site, experts have calculated that the policy shift “would amount to a cut of four percentage points and cost the average low-income working family with two children more than £1,000 a year”.

The possible move risks another row within the Tory party and cabinet as Truss faces unrest following the disastrous fallout from last month’s mini budget. The benefits battle “looks set to be the new front in Tory infighting”, said The Telegraph, which reported “unease at the top of government, with some cabinet ministers understood to believe that refusing to increase benefits by inflation is a ‘non-starter’”.

Former Tory leadership contender Penny Mordaunt told Times Radio this morning that increasing benefits in line with inflation “makes sense”.

“We want to make sure that people are looked after and that people can pay their bills,” the Commons leader said. We are not about trying to help people with one hand and take away with another.”

An unnamed cabinet minister told The Times that pushing ahead with a curb to benefits would be “mad” and “politically unsustainable” as households across the UK struggle with the cost of living.

But another told the paper that increasing benefits at a rate higher than wages are increasing would be “unfair”. Allies of Truss reportedly asked: “How can it be right that someone who gets up at 6am and works hard all day is seeing their pay go up by 5% or so and someone who is not working and is on benefits gets a 10% rise?”

Weighing up priorities

Despite the threat of a Tory revolt, No. 10 “is preparing to question whether it is fair for people on benefits to get inflation-linked rises while scores of workers get real-terms pay cuts”, said The Telegraph. Record-low levels of unemployment in Britain is also “leading to calls for more to be done to incentivise people to take jobs”, the paper added.

The Times reported that “some in government believe Truss’s U-turn on scrapping the 45p rate of tax will make it easier to impose real-terms cuts in benefits”.

“In an effort to mitigate a backlash,” the paper continued, “some are seeking to link any Universal Credit squeeze to the £650 cost-of-living payments being given to eight million households claiming the benefit this winter.”

But Work and Pension Secretary Chloe Smith was “thought to be resisting this line of argument and is warning against attempts to see the welfare budget as an easy source of savings”. She told the Tory conference yesterday that “protecting the most vulnerable is a vital priority for me and this government”.

The Treasury is understood not to have yet made formal suggestions” to Smith’s department, said The Times, and the minister stressed that “she would not make a decision for at least two weeks”, until the inflation data for last month has been reviewed.

The threat of Austerity 2.0 is looming as Tory ministers prepare to “trim the fat” from the welfare state amid the fallout of Liz Truss’s planned tax cuts.

Following a backlash from voters and Conservative MPs, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has confirmed that proposals to axe the 45p top rate of income tax, announced in his mini budget just ten days ago, are being scrapped. But spending cuts needed to pay for the government’s other tax giveaways and borrowing spree are “raising the prospect of a return to austerity”, said ITV News’ political correspondent Carl Dinnen.

Speaking ahead of the Tory party conference, which kicked off in Birmingham on Sunday, Levelling-up Secretary Simon Clarke told The Times that Britain had been “living in a fool’s paradise” but now needed to reduce public spending to help to fund the government’s £45bn worth of tax cuts. Truss ally Clarke warned that Whitehall departments would have to “trim the fat” from the “very large welfare state”.

What is the government planning?

During the Tory leadership contest, Truss said she was not planning “public spending reductions” despite proposing vast tax cuts. But last week she said that her ministers were looking for cuts across government and that there are “plenty of areas” where taxpayers’ money could be saved.

According to The Sunday Times’ political editor Caroline Wheeler, Kwarteng has told ministers that “we have a duty to live within our means” and has ordered spending reductions in their departments.

In an approach “similar to that of the former chancellor George Osborne, who set up the public sector efficiency challenge”, Wheeler wrote, Kwarteng is also “launching a reprioritisation, efficiency and productivity review across the public sector”. This review will re-examine “existing spending commitments” and repurpose budgets to deliver the government’s “core priorities”, including growth.

Be in no doubt, Wheeler warned, “austerity 2.0 is on the way”.

The Resolution Foundation has also predicted that Britain’s public sector is heading for a replay of the austerity imposed by the David Cameron-led coalition.

Truss’s government “is likely to need to announce fiscal tightening of between £37bn-£47bn” a year in order to meet commitments to be reducing national debt by 2026-27, the independent think tank reported. The “painful” policy choices facing the Treasury include cutting public investment projects and “uprating benefits (including the state pension) by earnings instead of inflation”.

“To avoid even deeper spending cuts, the prime minister will also need to abandon her pledge to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030,” the foundation added.

The Sun reported yesterday that government insiders had confirmed that benefits “may only rise in line with earnings rather than inflation next year, as ministers look to cover the cost of the £650 energy bailout for Universal Credit claimants”.

The Guardian said that Tory MPs had “hinted at a deep unease” about spending cuts, with at least 14 “publicly expressing concern about the plans”.

Former cabinet minister Damian Green, who chairs the One Nation group of Conservative MPs, told a rally at the Tory conference that the party should always be about “helping people make the most of opportunities whatever their background”.

“If we end up painting ourselves as the party of the rich and the party of the already successful, then funnily enough most people won’t vote for us,” Green added.

What next?

An unnamed former cabinet minister described Truss as a “dead woman walking” who would not last until Christmas if she refused to U-turn on cutting the 45p tax rate, The Mirror’s political editor John Stevens reported yesterday.

Former chancellor Osborne told Channel 4’s The Andrew Neil Show that it was also “touch and go” whether Kwarteng would survive the fallout.

The chancellor’s announcement today that the much-criticised cut was being ditched “may quell some of the political criticism”, said the BBC’s chief political correspondent Nick Eardley. But Labour has warned that “the damage is done – that the increase in the cost of borrowing has already happened and that will mean higher mortgage rates”, Eardley added.

Kwarteng has promised to publish the government’s medium-term fiscal plan to get debt falling, along with economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), on 23 November. He also aims to set out reforms to support growth, including changes to business regulations, planning rules and immigration policies.

But for now, “All eyes” will be on Kwarteng’s speech at the Tory conference this afternoon, ahead of Truss’s speech on Wednesday, said Rachel Wearmouth in The New Statesman.

“If neither manages to satisfy the markets and MPs that they have a plan to transform their fortunes,” Wearmouth warned, “their demise may only be a matter of time.”

What is it about French tycoons and British phone companies? While Patrick Drahi lays siege to BT, another “French rebel”, Xavier Niel, has begun storming the ramparts of Vodafone, said Jamie Nimmo in The Sunday Times. Niel has built a 2.5% stake worth £750m in the UK mobile phone giant via his Atlas Investissement vehicle.

The founder of the Iliad telecoms empire is something of a celebrity entrepreneur in France, his profile raised by his long-term relationship with the heiress to the LVMH fortune, Delphine Arnault. Niel’s exact plan for Vodafone is anyone’s guess. He has left the market, and the company’s top brass, guessing.

“Brexit was supposed to awaken a latent buccaneering spirit,” said Tom Braithwaite in the Financial Times. “And so it has. For the French.” The Iliad/Vodafone tilt is just one of “a flurry of cross-Channel deals” struck on a single day last week, involving tech, satellite and recycling companies. Is this some kind of “dastardly” French plot? Bankers point instead to the relative decline in valuations and currency. Prepare for a rash of American companies to join the French “at the UK’s bargain bin”.

“Even before sterling got this low, foreign corporate and buyout bidders were taking advantage of relative dollar strength to pounce on London-listed companies,” said Chris Hughes on Bloomberg. Thanks to Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, this “UK is cheap” narrative has “gotten another leg”.

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity recently drew up a list of 100 companies it considers to be targets – including ITV, Next, Greggs, BAE Systems, Flutter and The Week’s publisher, Future, said Ben Marlow in The Daily Telegraph. The most “vulnerable” are the “cheap and cash rich”. The “rock bottom pound” has turned some of our best companies into “sitting ducks”.

Prime Minister Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng are refusing calls for a U-turn after their radical tax-cutting “mini-budget” plunged the markets into turmoil this week.

The government’s controversial fiscal strategy, which included plans to implement some £45bn worth of tax cuts, prompted the pound to fall to an all-time low against the dollar and raised the prospect of further interest rate hikes from the Bank of England (BoE) to deal with spiralling inflation.

In a highly unusual move, the BoE was forced to announce a £65bn emergency intervention to avert an economic crisis in the wake of the mini-budget, buying billions of pounds’ worth of government bonds to prevent people’s pensions being put at risk.

Truss defended the plans in a round of broadcast interviews on BBC local radio yesterday, describing the mini-budget as “decisive action” that had to be taken in order to “get the economy moving”.

But both Truss and Kwarteng today met the government’s independent economic forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, which has demanded a “rethink” of the government’s fiscal strategy, according to The Times.

Meanwhile, Labour is enjoying its largest poll lead since the Tony Blair years, after a YouGov survey found that 54% of voters would back Labour in a snap general election with only 21% supporting the Tories. The 33-point lead is the party’s highest in almost three decades.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• Two gas pipelines between Russia and Germany, Nord Stream 1 and 2, have been damaged in explosions, with several European leaders quick to claim that sabotage was a likely cause.
• An investigation into the death of Marc Bennett, a British travel industry boss, in Qatar has reportedly uncovered fresh evidence that he was detained and tortured by the country’s secret police in the final weeks of his life.
• Vladimir Putin’s plan to send 300,000 new conscripts to support his war in Ukraine is facing increasing resistance in Russia as anti-mobilisation protests spread across the country.

Liz Truss is in Prague for the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC), a new forum proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron to bring together EU nations and those outside the bloc.

The meeting is a 44 nation-strong “smorgasbord of speeches, one-to-one meetings and roundtables in the Czech capital”, said Politico’s London Playbook, “with the Russian war in Ukraine and the resulting fuel crisis dominating the agenda”.

The prime minister will make her second speech in as many days, seeking this time “to convince the gathering that the UK has continued to play a leading role in Europe despite Brexit”, said Sky News.

Truss will tell her fellow European premiers: “Europe is facing its biggest crisis since the Second World War and we have faced it together with unity and resolve. We must continue to stand firm - to ensure that Ukraine wins this war, but also to deal with the strategic challenges that it has exposed.”

Described by The Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin as an “ardent convert to Brexit”, Truss has remained sceptical about the EPC and she set out some of these reservations in an op-ed for The Times.

“I welcome the opportunity to work with leaders from across the continent in this new forum,” she wrote. “But this must not cut across the G7 and Nato, and it must not be a talking shop. I want to see concrete action.”

Part of the reason Truss is attending is because “British diplomats have been reassured that the EU is not going to dominate the body”, said The Guardian’s Rankin. But while her attendance will be viewed as a “mark of unity”, there is nobody who “expects the gathering to resolve deep and lingering post-Brexit conflicts”, she added.

What is the EPC?

The summit is the brainchild of Macron, who hopes it can bring together European nations from within and outside the EU.

The French president announced it in May, in a speech to mark Europe Day. He said that leaders had a “historic obligation” to form a “new European organisation” that “would allow democratic European nations to find a new space for political cooperation, security, cooperation in energy, transport, investment, infrastructure [and] the movement of people”.

The EPC includes the leaders of the EU, as well as candidate countries such as Ukraine, the western Balkans and Turkey, and neighbours that explicitly do not want to be in the union, such as Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

Why is Truss attending?

Truss’s new-found enthusiasm for the group will “raise eyebrows”, said The Independent, given she was explicitly critical of the project just a few months ago when she was foreign secretary.

In June, she said she did not “buy into” a Europe-wide political community. But in a significant volte-face, the prime minister has now even expressed willingness to host the next summit of the EPC in London.

Truss is said to believe that the new group offers an opportunity to rebuild the UK’s relationship with the EU in the wake of Brexit. “It’s good that the EU is thinking about their relationship with us after Brexit and vice-versa,” said one Truss supporter.

The UK’s participation in the summit could also help to ease tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU that has proven most controversial.

Is Truss’s attendance a risk?

For Truss, rejoining a European political project is a “high-risk” move, which comes at a “sensitive time”, Politico said. This is especially so considering the broadly eurosceptic complexion of her Conservative Party post-Brexit, not to mention the fact that “she is already battling to save her skin”, the news site added, after a “disastrous” first few weeks in office.

The move has certainly proven popular with Tories who did not want Britain to leave the UK. Former cabinet minister David Lidington, who backed Remain in the Brexit referendum, said yesterday that Truss’s attendance would be a “very welcome development”.

What does the EU think of the project?

“Critics, within the EU, are wary of what they see as a ‘vague’ French-led project,” the BBC reported.

Some have expressed concern that France, “a known sceptic of EU expansion”, will use the EPC as a way to create a “parking lot” for countries who want to join the EU. However, Brussels officials have stressed that the new community will not “replace” its own enlargement policy.

Many within the EU have welcomed the UK’s participation in the group. They see Truss’s decision to attend as a “positive signal” after the UK’s relationship with Europe turned “sour” under Boris Johnson, particularly over the Northern Ireland Protocol, said the FT.

“[Truss’s] participation sends a positive signal about broader neighbourhood engagement,” a senior EU diplomat told the newspaper. “It would have equally been worrying if she had decided not to attend.”

In what he called a “fiscal event” – a Budget in all but name – Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng this morning outlined a series of measures he believes will boost growth, including what he claims are the biggest tax cuts in a generation.

Here’s the chancellor’s growth plan explained in seven bullet points.

• Income tax

The chancellor announced that he is cutting the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 19% from April 2023, a year earlier than the previous government had planned. For higher wage earners, the “additional” rate of 45% (for those paid more than £150,000) will be scrapped, with a new single top rate of income tax of 40% (for earnings above £50,270).

Currently, people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland pay 20% on annual earnings from £12,571 to £50,270. That will drop by 1% from next April. Rates in Scotland are different.

In his speech to the Commons, the chancellor said: “We will review the tax system to make it simpler and fairer,” he said, adding that “we will embed tax simplification in government”.

Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Kwarteng’s statement was an “admission of 12 years of economic failure” by the government. “It is all based on an outdated ideology that says if we simply reward those who are already wealthy, the whole of society will benefit,” she added. “They have decided to replace levelling up with trickle down.”

• Stamp duty

The chancellor also announced a cut to stamp duty, which is paid when people in England and Northern Ireland buy property.

Coming into operation today, the tax-free band is being doubled from houses worth £125,000 to £250,000. And it will be raised to £425,000 for first-time buyers.

According to Kwarteng, the measure will mean that 200,000 more people will be relieved of paying stamp duty.

“For the average first-time buyer, however, the tax changes are unlikely to make a difference,” said The Telegraph. The average first-time buyer home costs £254,110, “a price which already fell below the previous £300,000 nil-rate band”.

• Energy

To counter the effects of rising energy prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the government announced three key steps: an energy price guarantee, equivalent support for businesses, and an energy markets financing scheme delivered by the Bank of England.

The total cost for this package of measures, Kwarteng said, is in the region of £60bn for the six months from October.

According to The Guardian’s political correspondent Aubrey Allegretti, Kwarteng attempted to “pin the blame for inflation and spiralling energy bills directly on Putin.

“After the criticism the Conservatives faced over the summer for months of inaction while the leadership contest dragged on, the chancellor [tried] to counter that narrative by claiming the new prime minister, Liz Truss, acted with ‘great speed’,” Allegretti added.

• Shopping

The mini-budget also introduced VAT-free shopping for overseas visitors, while cancelling planned increases in the duty rates for beer, cider, wine and spirits.

The move is welcome, said The Sun, because by expanding duty-free shopping into cities, “tourists will have wider access to cheap goodies, and will then be more likely to spend money, boosting the local economy”.

• Bankers’ bonuses

As became clear recently thanks to a leak, the rules limiting bankers’ bonuses are set to be scrapped, with a broader package of regulatory reforms to be set out later in the autumn.

On this point, Kwarteng is “walking a thin line between the various factions of the Conservative parliamentary party”, said Allegretti. On the one hand, he knows that lift the cap “will go down like a cup of cold sick with some colleagues”, but given the news was leaked, “it is unlikely to draw as much outrage as if it had been announced today for the first time”.

• National Insurance

Kwarteng announced that he will reverse the recent rise in National Insurance conributions (NICs) from 6 November.

In April, NICs increased by 1.25% for both employees and employers. The move to scrap this rise “means 28 million workers will have more money in their pockets”, said The Times Money Mentor’s Katherine Denham, adding that “on average, each worker will get an extra £330 in take-home pay over a year”.

• Benefits

Rules around Universal Credit will be tightened by the mini-budget, reducing benefits to people who don’t fulfil job search commitments.

During his statement, Kwarteng said that people will now have to work more hours per week in order still to claim Universal Credit.

Currently, those working up to nine hours a week at the national minimum wage are required to meet regularly with their job centre coach and take active steps to increase their earnings. This will rise to 12 hours from Monday and to 15 hours from January 2023.

Consequently, those claiming “could have their benefits sanctioned if they fail to take active steps to boost their income”, The Daily Record explained.

Liz Truss will commit to spending billions more supporting and arming Ukraine next year as politics finally returns to normal following the Queen’s funeral.

Addressing the UN General Assembly on Wednesday in her first trip abroad as prime minister, Truss will promise that next year Britain will match or exceed the £2.3bn it is spending on military aid this year. The UK is already the second largest military donor to Ukraine behind only the US.

Arriving in New York with what the Financial Times described as “a hawkish commitment to stand by Ukraine for the long haul”, The Times said: “The focus of her speech tomorrow, as well as many of her meetings with other world leaders, will be the war in Ukraine.”

Supporting the embattled country was “a key policy plank” of the Boris Johnson government, said the BBC, and Truss has been clear she intends to continue this, despite the dire impact the war is having on energy prices and the cost-of-living crisis.

The Telegraph reported that she will warn world leaders in New York that now is not the time to “take our foot off the gas” as Ukrainian forces make gains, but rather to put an end to Vladimir Putin’s economic blackmailing of Europe by removing all energy dependence on Russia.

Having suspended political activity and government business during the period of national mourning following the Queen’s death, Truss will look to relaunch her premiership on the world stage, meeting leaders including President Emmanuel Macron of France and US President Joe Biden.

“It will mean the returning political conversation will have a diplomatic air – in its opening few hours at least – rather than an immediately intense domestic scrappiness,” said BBC political editor Chris Mason. “But that will be back before you know it.”

With the nation’s focus on the death of the Queen and accession of King Charles III, the spectre of imminent UK recession has slipped under the radar.

Amid the outpouring of grief for Her Majesty, it has “been easy to disregard the warning from economists that next Monday's funeral for the late Queen – an additional bank holiday, with workplaces and shops closed – will tip the UK into a technical recession”, wrote Allegra Stratton for Bloomberg.

“This must be the most dismal collision of economic analysis with national spirit,” added Stratton, who served as Downing Street press secretary under Boris Johnson.

The UK economy contracted by 0.1% in the second quarter of the year, and latest Office for National Statistics figures show that GDP climbed to just 0.2% in July – fuelling fears of a further decline in the third quarter, which would signal recession.

Will the Queen’s funeral be the tipping point?

Economists are warning that the closure of businesses nationwide for the funeral bank holiday, combined with the impact of the ten-day mourning period on consumer sentiment, “raises the risk of Britain’s already-faltering economy falling into a recession sooner than expected”, The Times reported.

According to the London Evening Standard, the combined cost to the UK economy of “funeral expenses, bank holidays and the coronation of King Charles III next year” could be £6bn or more. Experts estimated the hit to the economy of Monday’s bank holiday alone would be around £2bn.

The Bank of England last month predicted that a recession would begin in the fourth quarter of 2022, as businesses and families continue to struggle with steep price hikes after inflation hit a 40-year high in June.

Economists across the City are now revising their models as the Queen’s death adds “further uncertainty to forecasts”, said The Times.

Investment bank Panmure Gordon had expected that UK GDP would grow by 0.1% in the current quarter, but is now predicting -0.1%. Deutsche Bank also expects GDP growth to be either negative or flat, after previously predicting 0.2% growth.

What about Liz Truss’ energy plan?

The new prime minister suggested during her leadership campaign “that her economic agenda could avoid recession”, said Kate Andrews in The Spectator. “But one of the (many) gambles attached to these comments was what had already happened to the economy before she entered No. 10.”

Truss announced last week that energy bills for everyone in the UK would be frozen at £2,500 for two years, at a cost of around £150bn.

But some economists have warned that Truss’s energy support package “is unlikely to lift it out of its slump any time soon”, City A.M. reports.

“The disappointingly small rebound in real GDP in July suggests that the economy has little momentum and is probably already in recession,” said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at consultancy Capital Economics. “The government’s utility price freeze is unlikely to change that.”

Not everyone agrees, however. Bloomberg analysts Andrew Atkinson and Philip Alrick wrote that “we think the government’s £150bn energy support package means the recession won’t last over the winter”.

What is the long-term outlook?

Looking further ahead, the picture becomes even less clear. Truss’s “plan is likely to curb inflation but force the Bank of England to keep interest rates higher for longer, potentially leading to a contraction next year”, said Stratton on Bloomberg.

At 1.75%, interest rates are currently at their highest level since December 2008. The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee had been widely expected to further raise rates to up to 2.25% this week, but the decision has been pushed back to 22 September following the Queen’s death. The Bank has already lifted borrowing costs six times in a row.

US investment bank Goldman Sachs has predicted that rates may reach as high as 3.25% by the end of this year, while consultancy Capital Economics is a predicting a peak of 3%.

And some experts have predicted that interest rates may be hiked to at least 4.25% by the middle of 2023, in a bid to prevent the bill for energy support from stoking inflation – heaping further pressure on consumers.

King Charles III has led tributes to his “beloved mother”, describing her passing as a “moment of great sadness” for him and his family that would be “deeply felt” around the world.

Liz Truss said Queen Elizabeth II was “the rock on which modern Britain was built”. Britain “is the great country it is today because of her”, the new prime minister continued in a statement from Downing Street.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said the country would “always treasure Queen Elizabeth II’s life of service and devotion to our nation and the Commonwealth”. House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said Her Majesty had “exercised a calm and steadying influence over our country”.

Boris Johnson said that the passing yesterday of “Elizabeth the Great” marked Britain’s “saddest day” and that “wave after wave of grief is rolling across the world”.

“In the hearts of every one of us there is an ache at the passing of the Queen, a deep and personal sense of loss,” added the former Tory leader in his tribute to the monarch, who accepted his resignation as PM on Tuesday.

That sentiment was echoed by the “spiritual leader to the Church of England of which the monarch is supreme governor”, the BBC reported. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby expressed his “profound sadness” and said his “prayers are with the King and the Royal Family”.

Leaders from across the world joined in paying tribute to the monarch and her “remarkable reign”, said Sky News. Emmanuel Macron recalled “a kind-hearted Queen” who was “a friend of France”. Joe Biden described her as “more than a monarch”, saying she “defined an era”.

Canada’s Justin Trudeau said that “in a complicated world, her steady grace and resolve brought comfort to us all”.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Queen's “empathy and ability to connect with every passing generation, while remaining rooted in the tradition that truly mattered to her, was an example of true leadership”.

China’s Xi Jinping said “her passing is a great loss to the British people”, while India’s PM Narendra Modi tweeted that he would “never forget her warmth and kindness”.

The wife of a minister sacked by Liz Truss has branded the new PM an “imbecile” and compared her to a character from The Muppets, reported The Times. Taking to Twitter, Felicity Cornelius-Mercer launched her outburst minutes after Johnny Mercer, the veterans’ affairs minister, was shown the door. She wrote that “this system stinks & treats people appallingly” and said the “best person” she knows was “sacked by an imbecile”.

Oldest mammal identified

The world’s oldest mammal has been identified using fossil dental records, reported CNN. Brasilodon quadrangularis was a small shrew-like creature, around eight inches long, that walked the earth 225m years ago at the same time as some of the oldest dinosaurs. The ancient creature predates the previously confirmed earliest mammal by about 20m years. It was discovered by researchers from the Natural History Museum in London, King’s College London and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Woman detects Parkinson’s through smell

A woman who found she could detect Parkinson’s disease through smell has inspired scientists to develop a swab test that could be used to diagnose it. Joy Milne, 72, told the BBC she knew her husband Les had Parkinson’s more than 12 years before he was formally diagnosed when she noticed he had a “musty, rather unpleasant smell”. Inspired by the Milne, researchers in Manchester have created a new method that they say can detect the disease in three minutes.

Liz Truss takes over as prime minister with Britain in crisis at home and increasingly seen as a diminishing power abroad.

While her victory in the Tory leadership election has been greeted with joy in Ukraine and eastern Europe, where the UK’s aggressive stance against Russia has won widespread plaudits, the response from Brussels and Washington has been more muted.

From being on the “bright side of European politics” to a gaffe-prone “Iron Weathercock”, it is fair to say that international reaction to her appointment has been decidedly mixed.

Russia and Ukraine

Liz Truss’s arrival in Downing Street has been greeted with “scorn and scarcely veiled condescension from the Kremlin, but an outpouring of praise in Ukraine”, reported The Guardian.

Given her tough approach to Russia during her time as foreign secretary and her vow to maintain Boris Johnson’s strong support for Kyiv now she is prime minister, neither reaction is a surprise.

The Kremlin openly mocked her during her visit to Moscow in February, with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov comparing meeting her to “a conversation between someone deaf and someone who is mute”.

True to form, one host on Russian state TV reacted to her victory in the Tory leadership election by declaring: “Stupidity has triumphed: Liz Truss has become the new prime minister… If Boris Johnson achieved Brexit, she wants to achieve something entirely different – the end of the world.”

Yet in Ukraine, her move into No. 10 has been greeted with exuberant enthusiasm. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said British-Ukrainian ties were already at “an unprecedentedly high level”, adding: “We in Ukraine know her well – she has always been on the bright side of European politics.”

Europe

Reaction to Truss’s victory has also divided Europe. Her conversion from committed Remainer to Brexiteer zealot and her threat to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol has meant that her appointment was greeted with caution in Brussels.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen offered her obligatory congratulations but added that she wanted a “constructive relationship” with Truss, “in full respect of our agreements”.

This last point was reiterated by European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic, who has been leading the Brussels side in talks on implementing the Brexit arrangements.

Truss alarmed diplomats at home and in Paris this summer when replying that “the jury was out” on whether French President Emmanuel Macron was a friend or foe of the UK.

The BBC’s Europe editor, Katya Adler, reported that “off the record – European politicians view Truss’s words as a political gaffe, ‘ill-befitting the future leader of one of the world’s most powerful nations’, as a senior EU figure said to me.”

Referencing her changing views on a range of issues from Brexit to the monarchy, French commentators have taken to calling her the “Iron Weathercock”. A parody of Margaret Thatcher’s famous nickname – the Iron Lady – the term was first coined in the French financial newspaper Les Echos earlier this year and has since caught on.

Italy’s Corriere della Sera also compared Truss to Thatcher but described the new leader’s speeches as more “robotic”.

Politicians in eastern Europe, meanwhile, who openly applaud the UK for its tough stance towards the Kremlin, have been “unreservedly warm”, said Adler.

Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, tweeted a photo of her alongside the former foreign secretary, saying: “I’m confident our partnership will only grow.”

China

Like Russia, China has made little secret of its disdain for Truss’s hawkish approach towards Beijing, and her victory is “likely leading to a ramping up of anti-China rhetoric that will solidify years of rising tensions”, said Nikkei Asia.

Since becoming foreign secretary last year, China's state-owned media have called her “a radical populist” and described her China-related speeches as “crazy”, said The Guardian.

While Beijing has yet to issue a formal statement on her appointment as prime minister, a prominent Chinese journalist offered a similarly pessimistic view of the UK’s future under Truss.

“Truss will likely be one of Britain's most mediocre prime ministers,” tweeted Hu Xijin, a commentator for the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Global Times. “Truss has the will to be Britain’s ‘new iron lady’, but she may not have Thatcher’s fate,” he added.

US

The Guardian reported that the Biden administration is “well aware that Truss is no ideological bedfellow and that she has carefully cultivated connections with the Republicans, but on US foreign policy priorities, confronting and containing China and Russia, there is confidence in Washington that she will be a reliable ally”.

Ishaan Tharoor in The Washington Post wrote: “It seems Truss’s defining attribute may be a certain brand of political opportunism,” adding that she “will struggle to muster Johnson’s irrepressible – or delusional, critics would contend – optimism”.

“Ultimately, Truss sees the United Kingdom as first among partners rather than one of the pack,” said the US-based Atlantic Council think tank, “committed to Britain as a leader in a host of areas, whether or not they are where the country is most effective.”

With a financial crisis in full swing and divisions in her own party to contend with, “Truss will struggle to be the mistress of her own destiny”, said Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times.

“She is going to have to be one of the great premiers just to be a merely good one,” he concluded.

A long and bitter summer of political campaigning comes to an end today as the Tory leadership contest enters its final hours.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have spent the last eight weeks battling it out in a protracted leadership election as they’ve tried to persuade Conservative Party members that they have what it takes to lead the party and the country.

Truss is expected to emerge victorious, having widened her lead over Sunak by a significant margin, although the official announcement of who will step into Boris Johnson’s shoes will be made at 12.30pm on Monday.

Johnson has counted down his final days in office by embarking on a farewell tour of the UK. In one of his final acts as prime minister, he committed £700m of government investment to a new nuclear power station – Sizewell C in Suffolk.

During a speech at the site, Johnson said he was “absolutely confident” that the plant “will get over the line” in the next few weeks, although ultimately it will be up to his successor to provide the rest of the funding to finalise the deal with French-owned utility firm EDF.

In Pakistan, more than 33 million people have been displaced by deadly flooding, with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif describing the disaster as the “toughest moment” in his country’s history.

Pakistan has said it is paying the price for global climate change, despite contributing only 1% of the world’s global greenhouse gas emissions. “We are suffering from it but it is not our fault at all,” Sharif told a press conference on Tuesday.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the South Asian nation had been devastated by a “monsoon on steroids” and the “climate catastrophe” had killed “more than 1,000 people, with many more injured”.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• The UN has accused China of “serious human rights violations” in a landmark report on allegations of abuse in Xinjiang province.
• Shamima Begum, the British woman who left the UK aged 15 to join Islamic State, was smuggled into Syria by a spy working for Canadian intelligence, and Britain later conspired to cover up Canada’s role in the operation, a new book has claimed.
• Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to recapture the strategically important city of Kherson from Russian forces.

Liz Truss is reportedly to approve a series of oil and drilling licences in the North Sea in a bid to tackle the UK energy crisis.

According to The Times, the Tory leadership front-runner intends to green light the licences in one of her first acts as prime minister, “as part of a long-term plan to ensure Britain’s energy security”.

The paper also reported that Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who is widely tipped to become chancellor under Truss, and his expected replacement, Jacob Rees-Mogg, have been meeting oil and gas companies to negotiate a deal to secure energy supplies this winter.

Truss’s ‘two-pronged’ North Sea plan

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has made the immense task of reducing the global economy’s addiction to fossil fuels even more daunting”, said the Financial Times.

Existing pledges to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 were “already challenging enough”, said the paper, but now “governments and companies are scrambling to balance their green ambitions with the new imperatives of energy security”.

Truss’s North Sea plan, which The Times described as “a two-pronged approach that involves securing more gas from Norway while maximising domestic production”, comes “against the backdrop of a continent-wide scramble to secure gas supplies before the winter, after Vladimir Putin began choking off pipeline flows amid a geopolitical standoff over his invasion of Ukraine”, said The Guardian.

“The biggest problem is spiking natural gas prices,” added Foreign Policy, with European supplies costing around ten times more than they were on average over the last decade and about ten times higher than they are in the US.

The specific problem for the UK, said The Guardian, is that it “relies more heavily on gas than most European countries and has very little storage after the closure of the Rough facility off the Yorkshire coast in 2017”.

While boosting supplies “will strengthen UK efforts to fight off blackouts this winter and potential supply crunches”, said City A.M., it is “unlikely to tame ultra-high prices” in the immediate term, a view which was also supported by The Times.

The House of Commons climate change committee has previously said it takes an average of 28 years for an exploration licence to lead to oil and gas production, while the Daily Express reported that “many experts and campaigners have claimed that providing more exploration licences is unlikely to immediately ease prices as the gas and oil will be sold on global markets”.

For example, British oil and gas production rose by 26% in the first six months of the year, according Offshore Energies UK, “yet prices are still soaring and are only expected to get worse”, said the Express.

What about fracking?

The Telegraph reported that the current chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, is “eyeing measures to turn the tide of public opinion on fracking”. This is part of a twin approach to provide better incentives for investors to back gas projects while persuading residents to support extracting shale gas amid concerns it contaminates the environment and causes earthquakes.

The paper pointed to a softening of public opinion following the spike in energy prices, with support for fracking doubling over the past year.

Are renewables the answer?

Plans to open up more North Sea oil and gas fields and end the moratorium on fracking “are not exactly in keeping with Britain’s net zero efforts”, said Politico. They “are unlikely to go down well with the green lobby after this summer’s record-breaking temperatures”.

The Labour Party chair, Anneliese Dodds, said more oil and drilling licences in the North Sea was not the answer, while Greenpeace chief UK scientist, Dr Doug Parr, warned the UK’s dependence on gas was among the factors driving up bills. He called for faster action to promote new wind and solar projects, as well as improving energy efficiency by insulating UK homes, “which are among the leakiest in Europe”, according to The Guardian.

As part of Labour’s proposals to keep energy bills frozen at their current rate, the party has also proposed long-term plans to insulate 19 million homes in the UK within the next ten years.

The Telegraph reported that Treasury officials are also looking at a new system that would break the link between the price of low-carbon electricity and that of natural gas, which “would allow energy suppliers to take advantage of the comparatively cheaper cost of electricity generated by wind and solar farms – and pass on the savings to households and businesses”.

Yet while renewables may well provide the long-term solution to improving energy security and insulating countries from future crises, the switch to green energy is still expected to take years.

Elon Musk warned it could be “some decades” away when he told an energy conference in Norway on Monday that the world needed to continue extracting oil and gas while it develops renewable energy.

Claiming it is “one of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced”, the Telsa tycoon said that “realistically I think we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilisation will crumble”, Sky News reported.

Soaring energy bills are fuelling a “cost of doing business crisis” that may force countless British companies into liquidation, ministers and lobbyists are warning.

Companies are not covered by Ofgem’s energy price cap, instead negotiating bespoke fixed-term contracts with suppliers. And with many of those contracts expiring this year, “the majority of UK companies are due to renegotiate their electricity and gas contracts in October”, the Financial Times (FT) reported.

Paul Wilson, policy director at the Federation of Small Businesses, told the paper that “winter could spell the end for many businesses and they need help now”.

Fourfold increases

Latest estimates by consultancy Cornwall Insight “show that businesses looking for a new contract this autumn will have to pay more than four times the price they paid for their electricity in 2020”, said the FT.

Calls for urgent action to help mitigate the price hikes pile further pressure on Tory leadership hopefuls Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak to explain their plans to support businesses.

The British Chambers of Commerce has proposed a five-point plan to help its members. The plan includes giving watchdog Ofgem “further powers to strengthen regulation of the energy market for businesses”.

In a letter to the government and the two leadership candidates, the lobby group also called for a temporarily reversal of the planned rise in National Insurance contributions; a temporary cut in VAT to 5%; and expansion of overseas work visas to ease the labour shortage crisis.

British businesses are already struggling to stay afloat. Latest official data shows that 1,800 companies in England and Wales registered for insolvency last month, up by 27% from July 2019, before the pandemic struck.

Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has reportedly asked Treasury officials to produce recommendations for Boris Johnson’s successor on how the state could help companies. The options are expected to include offering grants to small companies; business rate holidays; temporary exemptions from VAT; and the recrafting of Covid-19 loan schemes.

‘Going to be a bloodbath’

Businesses owners are warning that their companies are “in jeopardy” because of energy price rises, the FT reported.

“I’m more concerned for my business over the next 12 to 18 months than I was during the pandemic,” Gareth Fulford, who runs a restaurant in Cheltenham, told the paper. “It’s going to be a bloodbath unless there’s government help.”

The devastation is expected to hit businesses all over the UK. The latest business confidence monitor for Scotland by the Institute of Chartered Accountants “found sentiment to be in negative territory, with only Wales recording a lower reading”, reported The Scotsman. Scottish firms told the accountancy network that they were struggling to cope with tax, labour market and transport issues, as well regulatory requirements and soaring inflation.

A UK government spokesperson said: “We understand that people are struggling with rising prices, and while we can’t shield everyone from the global challenges we face, we’re supporting British businesses to navigate the months ahead.”

Energy bills should be frozen for six months to ensure that people across the UK do not “pay a penny more” for their gas and electricity this winter, Keir Starmer has argued.

Unveiling a £29bn proposal to help tackle the cost-of-living crisis, the Labour leader said that preventing expected price rises in October and January would save families an average of £1,000 each.

According to The Times, polling indicates a majority of the public are behind Labour’s plan, including three-quarters of Tory voters, “as ministers come under pressure to do more to address the ‘national emergency’ of living costs”.

What is Labour proposing?

At the heart of Labour’s plans is a freeze in the energy price cap funded by an extension to the so-called windfall tax on oil and gas companies, backdated to the start of this year.

This would see the price cap, which is forecast to hit £4,266 in January, remain at its current level of £1,971 a year for households until April 2023.

Starmer said this would save families hundreds of pounds while also helping bring down inflation by four percentage points. The latest forecasts from the Bank of England suggest inflation, which hit 9.4% in June, could peak at more than 13% later this year.

The cap freeze would be paid for by raising £8bn from an increased windfall tax on the soaring profits of oil and gas companies and scrapping the £400 energy rebate announced by the government for the autumn. A further £7bn would be saved by lowering government debt interest repayments through lower inflation. The Labour plan would also involve support for people not protected by the price cap, and a scheme to ensure people on prepayment meters do not have to pay more for their energy than people paying monthly.

Starmer also promised to reduce energy demand and lower bills in the long term by insulating 19 million homes over the next decade.

What has the reaction been?

Tory leadership frontrunner Liz Truss is putting tax cuts at the centre of her cost-of-living response, but a YouGov poll of almost 1,800 adults for The Times “suggests a public appetite for more radical measures”, said the paper. Only one in eight respondents said they “could afford rising energy bills without reducing their standard of living”.

Charities including the Salvation Army have warned that children will go hungry if ministers do not increase their existing support package to cover rising energy bills.

With Labour’s plans receiving positive reactions on the front pages of the Daily Mirror, i paper and the widely read commuter paper Metro, Politico said: “It’s a rare moment of breakthrough for Starmer.”

The Guardian reported that his announcement was “welcomed” by the Liberal Democrats. And the left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank backed the twin arguments that a price freeze funded by a windfall tax would “prevent soaring energy bills from pushing millions into debt and destitution, and hold down ever rising inflation which is a risk to the UK’s economic stability”.

What do the critics say?

With support for a cap freeze widespread, critics of Labour’s plans have instead focused on how the plan would be paid for, and what would happen once the six-month freeze ends next April.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, told The Telegraph that the £7.2bn saving on interest payments on national debt was an “illusion” as inflation would increase unless the huge subsidies remained permanent beyond six months.

Allies of Tory leadership contender Truss reportedly issued a similar warning that “any freeze has to come to an end”. Dismissing Starmer’s plans as a “sticking plaster” solution that is “not a substitute for a more consistent policy”, an unnamed ministerial ally cited the failure of freezes in the 1970s to ultimately keep prices or inflation down.

Other critics of Labour’s proposals claim it would mean big handouts to wealthy voters, with Professor Richard Murphy, of Tax Research UK, warning that they included £10bn of subsidies to the richest 20% of UK households.

However, Labour Party sources have argued that bills are rising so much there are now relatively few families who will not need help.

Those “worried about huge state spending will argue the plan opens the door to continually subsidising profit-making energy firms, with no end in sight”, said The Mirror, while “those on the left meanwhile will ask why [Starmer] hasn’t gone the whole hog and re-nationalised the industry”, as suggested by former prime minister Gordon Brown last week.

Sky-rocketing energy bills are set to cause a winter of suffering, but calls for urgent measures to protect poorer households have been dismissed during the bitter Conservative leadership election.

Consultancy agency Cornwall Insight sounded the alarm this week as it warned that typical household energy bills could reach £4,266 a year by next January, but Boris Johnson rejected demands for immediate emergency plans until a new prime minister is installed next month.

This morning, leadership contender Rishi Sunak attempted to grasp the nettle, challenging his rival Liz Truss to follow suit. But frontrunner Truss gave little sign she was prepared to take further action at the latest party hustings in Cheltenham last night.

Meanwhile, the UK appears to be heading into a drought after the driest start to a year since 1976 and with temperatures forecast to soar this weekend.

To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to the latest developments in the news and other global events, put your knowledge to the test with our Quiz of The Week.

Need a reminder of some of the other headlines over the past seven days?

• The FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in a search allegedly linked to his handling of classified and sensitive material.
• The US Senate passed a $750bn bill to tackle climate change, healthcare issues and soaring inflation in a major victory for the Democrats ahead of the November mid-term elections.
• A temporary ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian militants following three days of fighting which marked the most serious flare-up in the region since May 2021.
• Fighting and shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine have intensified calls from the UN to access the facility to try to avoid a nuclear disaster similar to Chernobyl.

Boris Johnson and Tory leadership candidates should tackle the cost-of-living crisis with an emergency budget or risk condemning millions “to a winter of dire poverty”, Gordon Brown has warned.

Writing in The Observer yesterday, the former prime minister and chancellor said that “a financial timebomb” was set to “explode” in October as fuel prices are set to rise for the second time in just six months.

He called on outgoing prime minister Johnson, as well as leadership hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, to agree on an emergency budget this week and said Parliament should be recalled if they failed to do so.

The two candidates have “resorted to claiming the moral high ground” over debt and taxes, but “there is nothing moral about indifferent leaders condemning millions of vulnerable and blameless children and pensioners to a winter of dire poverty”, he said.

How high will energy bills go?

Brown’s comments come on the heels of a dire forecast from the Bank of England last week that inflation could soar as high as 13% in October – far higher than the 2% inflation the central bank is mandated to maintain.

It also comes amid predictions that “typical household energy bills will hit more than £3,600 a year this winter”, said the BBC, rising from an average of £1,400 a year in October 2021. It is a figure “about £550 higher than the regulator predicted in May”, when the government last announced a support package to help households contend with bill rises, said Politico’s London Playbook,

How could households be impacted?

In what could be a warning sign of a worsening crisis to come, The Guardian reported that more than half of Britons are already “cutting back on their gas and electricity usage at home due to the worsening cost-of-living crisis”, as rising costs hit vulnerable groups such as pensioners and the disabled the hardest.

An estimated 24 million people in Britain used less gas and electricity between 30 March and 19 June, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Charities have also warned that “the magnitude of bill increases” mean many lower-income households will have to choose “between eating and heating their homes this winter”, said The Guardian.

And the raft of support packages offered by the government is unlikely to be enough to bridge the gap left by rising costs. A report commissioned by Brown and carried out by Professor Donald Hirsch at Loughborough University, found that the support offered to low-income households will not offset the losses they face amid the cost-of-living crisis, with some families up to £1,600 worse off a year.

The report found that the additional £1,200 offered to the poorest in society cannot compensate for the “three blows” to household income from October 2021 to October 2022, namely the loss of the £20-a-week benefits uplift, an annual uprating out of line with inflation forecasts, and a jump in the energy cap. This means that the worst-off households cannot bridge the gap, according to the report’s analysis.

What can be done?

The government has pointed to the additional support it is offering to households throughout the year, worth some £37bn, but has reiterated that Johnson has “made clear” that any “major fiscal decisions should be left for the next PM”, said London Playbook

In an interview with the Financial Times, Conservative leadership contest frontrunner Truss said: “Of course I will look at what more can be done. But the way I would do things is in a Conservative way of lowering the tax burden, not giving out handouts.”

Leadership rival Sunak hit back at the comments, saying it was “simply wrong to rule out further direct support” for struggling households this winter, but Truss backer Penny Mordaunt claimed he had “misinterpreted” her comments.

A range of suggestions to tackle the cost-of-living crisis has been discussed by experts in recent weeks, said The Guardian's economic editor Phillip Inman. Options could include lowering the energy price cap, implementing a bigger windfall tax than the one introduced by Sunak as chancellor, introducing more generous benefits, and capping wages in the City in order to stave off a wage-price spiral.

Amid the growing energy crisis, support for Don't Pay UK, a campaign calling for a million households to cancel their energy bills amid surging costs, has gained rapid support. But charities and legal experts have warned the non-payment of fuel bills could have “disastrous” financial and legal consequences, reported The Big Issue.

The Bank of England said yesterday that the UK will fall into recession as it unveiled the biggest rise in interest rates for 27 years.

In an alarming set of forecasts for the economy, the bank said inflation would surge above 13%, causing the worst squeeze on living standards for more than 60 years.

It predicted that the UK would enter a recession in the last three months of this year, and that it would turn into the longest downturn since 2008. The economy is expected to “keep shrinking until the end of 2023”, said the BBC.

What the editorials said

“There is little uncertainty about what lies in store in the short term,” said The Times. The rise in interest rates and soaring energy prices will cause “the steepest decline in living standards on record, with household disposable income forecast to fall by 3.7% over the next two years”.

The Telegraph said that the Bank of England’s outlook is “grim” and “it is possible that even the Bank’s latest forecasts could underestimate the misery to come”. The Daily Mail agreed, warning its readers that “even tougher times are hurtling down the track for British families”.

The Guardian questioned the effectiveness of the Bank’s move to hike rates, arguing it will “achieve precisely zero” in bringing down the price of wheat or oil on global markets. “All higher rates do in this scenario is add to the economic pain by making mortgages and credit card bills another worry for families already stressed about paying for energy and food,” it said.

What the commentators said

“If global energy costs remain where they are,” said Faisal Islam, economics editor of the BBC, the recession “will then last the whole of next year, with inflation barely below 10% even in a year's time”. This would not only affect householders but those in power, too. “Make no mistake, a forecast such as this would mean a wrecking ball to the forecasts for government borrowing,” he added.

The situation will make keeping a roof over your head harder, said Vicky Spratt, housing correspondent for The i newspaper. She wrote that rising interest rates mean we can expect “rent rises, rising monthly mortgage repayments and higher interest rates for first time buyers”.

What happens next for the UK economy will depend largely on who wins the Conservative leadership election, said ITV’s Robert Peston. “For Tory members, the choice for their leader and the UK's prime minister would be between lower immediate taxes with Ms Truss or lower immediate interest rates with Mr Sunak,” he wrote.

However, he added, “for the avoidance of doubt, neither Mr Sunak or Ms Truss are promising anything that would persuade the Bank of England the UK can escape a significant recession, a significant contraction in national income, this year”.

Are there any positive signs?

Glimmers of hope are few but those worried by rising interest rates might be encouraged by the news that market expectations of future rises are falling.

Writing in The Spectator, Ross Clark noted that the forward yield curve showed that while in June markets were expecting the Bank of England’s base rate to peak at 3.59% in July 2023, this week markets are expecting rates to peak at 2.85% in June 2023 – “quite a chunky downwards revision”.

And some prices are already beginning to fall. The Guardian said earlier this week that the trend in underlying inflation – which excludes fuel, food, tobacco and alcohol – is “encouraging”, with core inflation falling for two months in a row from 6.2% in April to 5.8% in June.

There are also suggestions that the UK will recover quickly once the crisis eases. “Our economy is in far better shape to bounce back once this global crisis is over,” said the Daily Mail, “and with unemployment low, we should be better placed than most European countries to recover”.

Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have launched an immigration “arms race” as they embark on a crucial week in the Conservative leadership contest.

As the two rivals prepare to go head-to-head in a series of TV debates, the former chancellor is trailing Foreign Secretary Truss in polls of Tory party members, who will choose their next leader and prime minister. Both are seeking to position themself as the candidate most likely to get a grip of illegal immigration, an issue that “frequently ranks near the top of the concerns of party members”, said the Financial Times.

What is Sunak proposing?

In a ten-point plan released on Sunday, Sunak proposed to tackle immigration by imposing a cap on the number of refugees the UK accepts; narrowing the definition of those entitled to claim asylum; and enhancing powers to detain, tag and monitor illegal migrants. His plan also includes housing migrants seeking asylum on disused cruise ships moored around the country rather than in hotels, which costs £5m a day.

And he put forward a measure making “aid, trade and visas conditional on a country’s willingness to cooperate on returns” of migrants who have illegally entered the UK. The current system is “broken” and there is “absolutely nothing racist” about wanting secure borders, said Sunak, who claimed that people who came to the UK legally also want action to crack down on those who do not.

Unveiling his immigration plan, the would-be leader said that if he won the contest, a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron to find a solution to small-boat crossings would be top of his agenda. The result could be a new cross-government taskforce, he suggested.

His proposals were immediately “picked apart by Truss allies”, The Independent reported. Critics said detail was lacking on how the refugee quota would work and claimed that some of Sunak’s plans amounted to a “rebrand”. Allies of Truss also suggested plans to house illegal migrants on cruise ships would amount to arbitrary detention and a breach of both domestic and international law.

What are Truss’ plans?

Setting out her own plans in a series of tweets on Sunday, the foreign secretary promised to extend the Rwanda migration scheme to other countries; to not be constrained by the European Convention on Human Rights; and to increase front-line Border Force staff by 20% while doubling Border Force Maritime staffing levels.

Her “most controversial” pledge, according to The Times’ political editor Steven Swinford, was to explore “all possible turnaround tactics” to deter Channel migrant crossings by effectively forcing back small boats. Boris Johnson was “keen to pursue the idea, and the Home Office investigated schemes including using cutters to block migrant boats and the use of wave machines”, wrote Swinford. But the plans “were dropped after officials refused to implement them amid concerns for loss of life”.

What about the Rwanda asylum scheme?

Research by international initiative More in Common found that Conservative Party members cared more than other members of the public about the issue of how to handle refugees who cross the Channel in small boats.

The government’s controversial plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed “has been the subject of fierce criticism” since being announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel in April, said CNN.

But with the plan proving popular among Tory members, the two final candidates in the race to become the UK’s next PM have both vowed to extend the policy.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Truss called the scheme “the right policy” and said she intended “to see it through to full implementation”. She would expand the project by exploring similar partnerships with other countries, Truss added.

Sunak is making similar promises, despite claims by a Whitehall source that the ex-chancellor had previously “dragged his heels over the Rwanda partnership”, according to The Telegraph.

Hitting back at critics, Sunak’s campaign said he would do “whatever it takes to get our partnership with Rwanda off the ground and operating at scale and pursuing other migration partnerships”.

What has been the reaction been?

Truss and Sunak have “entered into an arms race as to who could go further in their bid to limit the numbers of people entering the UK”, said the i news site’s political correspondent Richard Vaughan.

As they compete for the backing of “an audience that is much more hardline than the general public”, Sunak and Truss are “happy for the time being to engage in a battle over which one has the most extreme immigration policies”, agreed The Guardian’s Aubrey Allegretti. But “that may change when the winner is confronted with having to win over tens of millions of voters instead of about 180,000 party members”.

Both candidates’ proposals have faced widespread criticism. Oxfam warned that any plan to link UK aid payments to countries’ cooperation with immigration removals was “cruel”. Sam Nadel, the charity’s head of government relations, said that “if anything, this shows that the heat of campaigning leads to bad policy”.

Experts have also questioned the likelihood of either of the candidates’ policies ever being implemented, “given the legal and practical issues”, The Times’ Swinford reported. Robert McNeil, deputy director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, told the paper that “these policies don’t really offer anything new”.

“They’re all just doubling down on things that are either already happening or have been dismissed as legally problematic or unlikely to work,” McNeil added.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has insisted the first flight deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda will take off despite a series of legal challenges and criticism from the Church of England.

The BBC estimated that only seven or eight people are “set to be flown to the east African nation’s capital Kigali” tonight as part of the government’s five-year £120m trial.

But Truss said the flight would “establish the principle” of the scheme and the government was prepared to “face down” any further challenges in court.

Blanket legal challenges

In a “significant win” for the government, the Court of Appeal yesterday rejected “last-ditch legal bids” to block today’s Rwanda flight, said ITV News.

Lawyers for two refugee charities, Detention Action and Care4Calais, and the PCS union, which represents Border Force staff, argued that the policy was unlawful. In a statement, Care4Calais claimed that refugees would not be safe and may have their human rights violated.

However, on Friday, a High Court judge ruled that there was “material public interest” in allowing the home secretary to implement immigration control decisions and that the risks of the scheme outlined by the claimants were very small and “in the realms of speculation”. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal on Monday.

A second blanket legal challenge from the charity Asylum Aid was also rejected by the High Court yesterday.

“A full hearing on whether the policy is lawful will take place next month,” said ITV.

Individual cases

Individual legal cases have had more success against the government. The BBC said “dozens” of people had already won their cases to be taken off today’s flight and three more legal challenges are due to be heard before the plane departs tonight.

At “the heart of almost all the last-minute appeals” is Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, said Matt Dathan at The Times. This is the right to respect for a private life, a family life, a home and correspondence, enshrined in UK law by the Human Rights Act, which the government hopes to replace with a new Bill of Rights.

It comes as the “entire senior leadership of the Church of England” denounced the Rwanda migrant flights as an “immoral policy that shames Britain” in a letter to the newspaper.

The government insists the move is necessary to stop illegal people-smuggling on both sides of the Channel.

Images of Vladimir Putin facing down Western leaders from the opposite end of a 20ft-long table have made front pages worldwide amid the diplomatic push to stem tensions over Ukraine.

But while many commentators speculated the the Russian president was giving his guests a frosty reception, the socially distanced set-up was actually the result of a separate tiff over Covid-19 safety measures.

Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz both refused to take PCR tests on their arrival at the Kremlin, with a source in the French president’s entourage telling Reuters that “we could not accept that they get their hands on the president’s DNA”.

Thanks but no thanks

“If knowledge is power, knowing the intimate secrets of one's DNA could be a powerful weapon,” said The Independent. And that may explain why Macron and Scholz both “seemed to balk at Russian-administered coronavirus tests”.

Two sources who travelled to Moscow with Macron for the meeting last week told Sky News that the French president was offered the choice of taking a Russian PCR test or keeping his distance from Putin.

The insiders said that Macron opted for the second choice, instead taking a PCR test administered by his personal doctor in France prior to his departure and on his return. “We knew very well that meant no handshake and that long table,” one of the sources said.

Putin’s spokesperson confirmed to reporters that Macron turned down the offer of a Kremlin PCR test, but insisted: “There is no politics in this, it does not interfere with negotiations in any way.”

Days later, Germany's Chancellor Scholz “became the second European leader in a week to refuse a Russian-administered coronavirus test on his visit to the Kremlin”, The Moscow Times reported.

According to Munich-based newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, a German Embassy doctor in Moscow tested Scholz, with Russian authorities invited to observe the test.

Putin, who is said to have received the Russia-developed Sputnik V vaccine, has “adhered to strict health protocols since the start of the pandemic”, The Moscow Times said.

But Macron and Scholz’s concerns about PCR testing extend beyond health issues, according to insiders.

DNA concerns

Neither Macron or Scholz are “known for opposition to Covid-19 countermeasures”, The Independent reported, “so speculation arose that they were trying to keep genetic material out of Russia’s hands”.

“In the high-stakes world of national security and international espionage, global powers are always looking for an edge,” the paper continued. And some experts have suggested that “gene science may one day be a useful addition to the arsenal”.

At the moment, “this may be a case where imagination is getting a bit ahead of what science is actually capable of”. Neither of the two Western leaders directly accused the Kremlin of attempting to harvest their DNA, with Macron’s office stating that the request “did not seem to us to be either acceptable or compatible with our diary constraints”.

“The president has doctors who define with him the rules that are acceptable or not in terms of his own health protocol,” Macron’s team added.

A spokesperson for Scholz said that the chancellor had decided that “he wouldn’t be available” for a Russian PCR test, but insisted: “I wouldn’t interpret too much into that.”

All the same, possessing world leaders’ DNA could prove handy for foreign adversaries one day, according to Professor Denise Syndercombe Court, a leading authority on forensic genetics at King’s College London. “I would have refused as well,” she told The Telegraph.

Court said she would only do a Covid test “with an accredited organisation… because then you can be relatively assured they wouldn’t do anything inappropriate with the material afterwards”.

She explained that “if you’ve got a whole genome, then even if you didn’t know [Macron’s] name, you’d be able to find out who he was” and who his relatives were.

A genetic analysis might also reveal “potential weaknesses” in a rival leader’s health, noted the paper, which pointed out that “sickle cell disease, for example, is the result of just one change in your genome”.

Some experts have also voiced fears that DNA could be used by “rogue states or terrorists” to develop “a bioweapon engineered to harm or kill a specific person”.

Although that notion may seem far fetched, “the French were clearly concerned enough about it to refuse a standard Covid test in the Kremlin – and Germany was keen to follow suit”, said The Telegraph.

And that “may leave Boris Johnson with a difficult decision next time he visits Moscow”.

1. Russia must pull back, or there will be trouble in the pipeline

Liz Truss in The Telegraph

on standing up to the Kremlin

Russian aggression has “loomed for too long” in eastern Europe, says Liz Truss. Writing in The Telegraph, the foreign secretary points out that Moscow has “invaded two sovereign states” and waged a “vigorous campaign to destabilise other democratic neighbours”. Those in and around the Kremlin “must be in no doubt that the free world will not look the other way while they mass more than 100,000 battle-ready troops along Ukraine’s borders”. Moscow “only respects strength”, and the UK government must “maintain a strong response alongside our Nato allies, including the United States”. The military alliance must not be “lulled into a false sense of security by Russia claiming that some troops are returning to their barracks, while in fact the Russian military build-up shows no signs of slowing. There is currently no evidence the Russians are withdrawing from border regions near Ukraine,” she warns. “We must stand up to and defuse Russian aggression now”, because “if we do not, it will embolden not only the Kremlin but aggressors, authoritarians and autocrats across the globe”.

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2. The Prince Andrew affair has shown us how fragile the monarchy really is

Martin Kettle in The Guardian

on exposed vulnerability

The “sleazy content of the allegations” against Prince Andrew and his “boneheaded response to them” have not merely discredited him personally, they have also “shaken the monarchy itself”, says Martin Kettle in The Guardian. The columnist says the Prince Andrew scandal “is a reminder that the institutions of the British state – which very much includes the monarchy itself – may be rather less enduring and secure than they often seem, and a bit more fragile and vulnerable than most of us sometimes think”. He predicts that, after the Queen’s death, newspapers “that have always had it in for Charles will commission polls asking if the public would prefer William to succeed” and “the public will say yes”. The monarchy will then find itself “sliding into becoming the object of controversy from which Elizabeth has, by and large, insulated it. Its vulnerability will be exposed and tested, not least among younger people,” he adds. “The future unity of the new monarch’s kingdom is itself under challenge.”

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3. The time for ‘gradual’ moves on inflation is over

Editorial Board of The Washington Post

on the need for action

“Almost everyone in the United States has a story of recent sticker shock as they went to purchase a car, a couch, a washing machine, a steak or a jar of peanut butter,” says The Washington Post. Alternatively, the shock might have come when they discovered their annual rent notice from their landlord “had jumped by a double-digit percentage”. As the US economy faces “an inflation problem the likes of which haven’t been seen in 40 years”, the Federal Reserve has “been far too slow to even admit there is a problem, let alone to start addressing it”. Demanding a rise in interest rates, the paper says: “This is not a moment for the Fed to fret about how the public and markets will react” because “the first rate hike must send a clear signal to Americans – and the world – that the Fed is ready to get serious about inflation”. The former Fed chief Paul Volcker “once held a Saturday night news conference to declare war on inflation”, the paper says. It is that sort of spirit that is needed as inflation heads “in an ominous direction”.

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4. Home Secretary Priti Patel is making one final push to criminalise protest, with grimly ironic timing

Ian Dunt on The i news site

on a threat to a free society

The government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is “wounded, discredited, mangled and disgraced, but it is not dead”, writes Ian Dunt on the i news site. The government has confirmed that the bill returns to the Commons later this month, and although the Lords “stripped it of some of its most egregious powers”, it “still has the ability to do what the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, always intended it to”, namely “criminalise the act of protest”. It is “grimly ironic” that the new text of the bill was being prepared by Conservative ministers as the party’s chairman, Oliver Dowden, said in Washington that “we conservatives must find the strength to defend the principles of free society on our own”. Even Theresa May, “one of the most authoritarian home secretaries of recent years”, has argued that some measures in the bill go too far. But rather than “watering it down, Patel did the opposite”. “Dowden could not have been more two-faced or misleading in his Washington speech,” Dunt says. “In reality, it is his own administration which currently poses the gravest threat to the values of a free society.”

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5. Damning all drugs is mind-bendingly dopey

David Aaronovitch in The Times

on anti-scientific policy

Commander Julian Bennett of Scotland Yard, author of the Met’s 2018 strategy paper “Dealing with the impact of drugs on communities”, faces the sack for allegedly taking cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms. David Aaronovitch feels that if “Bennett of the Yard” did indeed “contemplate La Vie en rose while self-medicating with that interesting trifecta, he will have done so almost certainly in the knowledge they would do him no harm”. The Times columnist writes that drug classification is based on “mind-bending anti-scientific stupidity” that puts essentially harmless drugs alongside very harmful ones. It will be “ironic” if Commander Bennett did indeed sample the three illegal substances because “he couldn’t have picked better and safer drugs to use or experiment with”; they were “far less hazardous than if he’d gone on a bender with a case of the local Merlot and a box of Havanas”. Bennett is “not a villain but a public pioneer” for “doing what others in authority could usefully do”, he adds. That is “see for themselves just what it is they’re criminalising others from using”.

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Liz Truss has called on Russia to abandon its “Cold War rhetoric” over Ukraine as she and Boris Johnson embark on a diplomatic blitz to ease the eastern European stand-off.

At a meeting in Moscow today, the foreign secretary told her counterpart Sergei Lavrov that he must “respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”, amid fears that Russia plans to invade after amassing 100,000 troops on the neighbouring nation’s border.

Any incursion would be “disastrous for the Russian and Ukrainian people and for European security”, and would have “massive consequences and carry severe costs”, warned Truss, the first UK foreign secretary to visit Russia in four years.

A defiant Lavrov shot back that “ultimatums and threats” were a “dead end” that would “yield nothing”, adding that relations between London and Moscow had reached their “lowest point in years”.

‘Most dangerous moment’

Johnson hoped for a better outcome as he travelled to Brussels and Warsaw for further talks. Ahead of the visits, the prime minister said that Nato must “draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise”.

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Johnson insisted that Britain would not “bargain” with Moscow over the sovereignty and independence of central European allies.

“We are not going to treat the nations at the heart of our Continent as pawns on a chessboard, to be haggled over or sacrifice,” he wrote. “Every independent state, including Ukraine, has a sovereign right to decide its own foreign policy and seek its own alliances.”

The UK has already put 1,000 troops on alert amid fears of “a humanitarian crisis that could lead to a mass displacement of people”, said the i news site.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who will attend talks in Moscow tomorrow, told the BBC’s Breakfast programme that Russia needed to be shown that the UK would "stand by" fellow Nato members.

At a news briefing with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels this morning, Johnson warned that “the stakes are very high” and predicted that the next few days would be the “most dangerous moment”.

In what the broadcaster described as a “surge of UK diplomatic activity”, Labour leader Keir Starmer was also in the Belgian capital today for a meeting with the Nato boss.

The Times said Starmer’s intervention “represents a watershed moment” as he distances himself from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, a “staunch critic” of Nato.

‘Chasing headlines’

There are doubts over how much any of the UK politicians can achieve for Ukraine, however. Plans by Truss to enact the UK’s “toughest sanctions regime” yet against Russia by today have “fallen through”, denting her influence, The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reported.

Opposition politicians have criticised the delay in rolling out the sanctions legislation, amid “suspicions among opposition MPs that government lawyers are struggling to frame the sweeping and unprecedented new laws”, according to Wintour.

Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for foreign affairs, accused Truss of “chasing headlines” and offering “all words and no action”.

The Guardian’s Wintour pointed out that the UK’s influence is “restricted” since it is not a member of the Normandy format, the four-member group of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine that is expected to oversee the Minsk agreements on the future of the Russian-backed eastern region of Ukraine.

And a former Tory minister warned earlier this week that Truss’s visit to Moscow could play into the Russian president’s hands. Robert Jenrick, who was Johnson’s housing secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour that he “questioned the good sense of going to Moscow and honouring Vladimir Putin at a time when he is so aggressive towards Ukraine”.

The US citizen accused of killing British teenager Harry Dunn in a car crash is to face criminal proceedings two years after fleeing the country and claiming diplomatic immunity.

Former US intelligence officer Anne Sacoolas has admitted that she was driving on the wrong side of the road when her car collided with motorcyclist Dunn, 19, near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019.

Sacoolas, whose husband is also a CIA operative, left Britain for the US shortly afterwards.

Fleeing justice

In December 2019, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) authorised Northamptonshire Police to charge Sacoolas with causing death by dangerous driving. But an extradition request was rejected by the US government, meaning criminal action could not begin.

However, the CPS has now said Sacoolas’s case will go before magistrates next month, with a spokesperson stating that “while the challenges and complexity of this case are well known, we remain committed to securing justice in this matter”.

There are reports that the defendant will appear via video link, but a spokesperson for the law firm representing Sacoolas told The Guardian: “While we have always been willing to discuss a virtual hearing, there is no agreement at this time.”

The Dunns said they welcomed the prospect of a court hearing in their son’s case, with his mother, Charlotte, saying the family is “emotional and overwhelmed” at “the news that Mrs Sacoolas is now to face our justice system”.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted that the government will “continue to support the family to get justice for Harry Dunn”. David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary, added in a statement that “it is right there is now a trial in this tragic case and we hope that it can move forward”.

Will she face jail?

While Sacoolas will now have to face a UK court over the events that led to Dunn’s death, it remains unclear how a sentence would be dealt with if a guilty verdict is delivered.

“If she is found guilty, the UK could seek her extradition from the US,” The Telegraph said. Legal sources have also “suggested another option could see her serve her sentence in the US”.

In March, Sacoolas’s lawyer told the Daily Mail that she would be willing to perform community service in the US and make a “contribution” in Dunn’s memory. But she also warned that “since the charge pending in Britain” would “not usually result in a prison sentence in the US, her client was not inclined to return to the UK to face trial”.

That option is now off the table following the CPS announcement, with a spokesperson for the prosecution service stating that she “has a right to a fair trial”.

The case has caused “ongoing diplomatic tensions” between the US and UK, CNN said.

Radd Seiger, a retired lawyer who advises the Dunn family, told The Times that the agreement to bring Sacoolas before a UK court was the result of “pressure that has been maintained on the US government”. The case is an illustration of “how to stand up to the might of the US government”, he added.

The Dunns’ campaign on behalf of their son included a dramatic moment in October 2019 when they met the then president, Donald Trump, at the White House.

He reportedly “ambushed” them with the news that Saccolas was in an adjacent room. However, Dunn’s parents refused the offer to meet her.

1. In Liz Truss, Boris may have created a force more powerful than he realises

Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph

on the heir apparent

Liz Truss spent the Tory conference “revelling in her new status as Foreign Secretary and posing for selfies with her army of admirers”, writes Fraser Nelson in The Telegraph, adding that her fans “see her as refreshing, entertaining, perhaps a bit naughty”. Nelson, the Spectator editor, suggests that “to find where she was speaking at Tory conference, you just needed to look for the rooms with the longest queues” because she is seen as “the keeper of the Thatcherite flame”. Painting Truss as a potential new “heir apparent” to the prime minister, he points out that “in many ways, she is Johnson’s creation” because “he likes her boosterism, remembers her early support for him and has kept her safe from jobs where she would have to put her low-tax ideals to the test”. While conceding that “it’s too much to say that Johnson has created a rival”, there will be “hard times ahead for him”, believes Nelson. And he “may well find” that “there is someone ready and primed to take over as optimist-in-chief”.

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2. Police culture must change to root out racism and misogyny

Michael Lockwood in The Times

on institutional challenges

Policing in the UK is facing a “watershed moment”, writes Michael Lockwood in The Times. The director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct says the force must “take a long hard look at its own culture and change”. He says he has “raised concerns about police behaviour on social media, racism, stop-and-search and most recently published a review of 101 Taser investigations” but received a “defensive response”. Lockwood’s organisation “remains concerned” about police culture, but “colleagues calling out poor behaviour should be the norm and not the exception”. “Officers need to feel protected in an environment of zero tolerance. You cannot rely on individuals to do this if the culture does not support them.” In the wake of the Sarah Everard case, it’s “now or never for policing to change”.

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3. Newcastle United-Saudi deal: The next time players take the knee they might consider racism in the Gulf state

Michael Day on The i news site

on a dodgy deal

Writing on the i news site, Michael Day tells Newcastle United that “as a Saudi Arabian court upholds a 20-year prison sentence on an aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, for his comments on Twitter, it’s worth reminding ourselves that the House of Saud – your new bosses – are evil”. After a regime-backed consortium seized control of the Premier League club, the news site’s chief foreign commentator points out that the Saudis’ “gifts to the world run from 9/11 to mass starvation in Yemen”, adding that “the next time Callum Wilson, Joe Willock or any of the other Newcastle United players take the knee, it’s going to seem pretty incongruous”. The deal, he says, “gives the impression that money matters more than black lives or any other lives. Doesn’t it?”

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4. The Tories have become the party of optimists. Labour needs its own story

Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian

on the need for cheer

“Miniskirts are back in fashion – a classic signifier of good times, from the swinging 60s to the cool Britannia 90s,” writes Gaby Hinsliff. “And cheery boosterism is in political vogue.” There is a reason for this, says the Guardian columnist: “After a miserable 18 months, much of the country just want to briefly forget its troubles, and Boris Johnson is happy to let it.” The prime minister has made the Tories the “party of optimists”, with Keir Starmer “typecast as the buzzkiller in the corner”. Therefore, she continues, Labour also “badly needs to find a happy place of its own” and to “look… like it’s enjoying itself”. Hinsliff sees “glimmerings” of this mood in Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and MP Wes Streeting, but she wants more. “The Labour party must now show, as its old election anthem once had it, that things can only get better.”

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5. I have watched six people die. It’s time for America to end the death penalty

Clive Stafford Smith in The Independent

on history’s verdict

“I have watched six people die in front of me,” writes Clive Stafford Smith in The Independent. “None had a fatal illness; they were simply slated for death by the US government.” Having campaigned against capital punishment since 1978, the British lawyer argues that “of course it’s not a deterrent; of course it’s a grotesque waste of money; of course we make ‘mistakes’… of course it’s ironic that we kill people who (we think) have killed people in order to show that killing people is wrong”. He adds that “the history books are always ultimately our judge” and that “they do not look kindly upon our earlier notion that we should burn women at the stake because we were convinced that they were witches”. He predicts that “we will eventually kill off the death penalty, if not in my lifetime then shortly thereafter”, leaving its proponents “in an historical hall of shame”. The only question, he believes, is “how many people must die before we get there?”.

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1. No, not everything can be blamed on Brexit

Iain Dale for The Telegraph

on the rush to blame

The Left continued to blame everything on Margaret Thatcher even decades after she left office, but the former PM has “received a reprieve”, said Iain Dale. “There is a new root of all evil to blame for every single bit of bad news going: Brexit.” Writing for The Telegraph, Dale accepted that Brexit has “caused some bumps in the road” but bemoaned the fact that “otherwise sane commentators rush like sheep to embrace every negative story and blame it on the fact we’ve left the EU”. Turning to the energy crisis, he said it has been caused by many things, “some outside our control (like Putin’s stance on the supply of gas)” and others “totally within our control (like green levies and the energy price cap)”. “Why is there a shortage of CO2? Well, it’s got naff all to do with the UK leaving the EU and all to do with increasing gas prices and green levies on the manufacturers of CO2.”

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2. Liz Truss should hug France and empower women

William Hague for The Times

on mixing briefs

“The opening week of the UN general assembly in New York is a prime test of your stamina, patience, recall and persuasiveness,” William Hague said. Writing for The Times, the former foreign secretary had advice for the new occupant of the post, Liz Truss, as she enters this “feeding frenzy”. Despite tensions over the Aukus deal, Truss should “hug France” because the Western alliance “needs to build its breadth as well as its depth”, he said. Truss “has a great opportunity, combining her role as she does with the post of minister for women and equalities” because “around the globe, the countries that least respect the role and rights of women are those most characterised by poverty, conflict or tyranny”. By being an “effective leader for girls’ education, preventing sexual violence and advancing the leadership of women, Liz Truss has the chance to advance one of the most vital causes of the 21st century”, Hague concluded.

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3. Rosie Duffield’s views on transgender people should have no place in the Labour Party

Harriet Williamson for The Independent

on gender identity

After Rosie Duffield, Labour MP for Canterbury, pulled out of her party’s annual conference, saying that she doesn’t want to be “the centre of attention” and fears abuse over her views on self-identification for trans people, Harriet Williamson argued that it is “completely unacceptable to trumpet prejudiced misinformation, as Duffield has been accused of doing”. Writing for The Independent, Williamson said that Duffield’s views are “not just outdated and embarrassing – they are actively harmful”. The MP has come under fire in the past for liking a tweet that said “individuals with a cervix” should be referred to as “women”, and another that described trans people as “mostly heterosexuals cosplaying [costume playing] as the opposite sex and as gay”. Williamson said that “if you deny the identity of transgender people, dismiss the existence of non-binary folk and agree with hateful and bigoted statements about trans people, as Duffield seems to do, your hot air about ‘actively fighting for all human rights’ is utterly meaningless”.

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4. Dump Covid vaccine religious exemptions. There is no Church of Moderna Disbelievers

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times

on a convenient excuse

A Covid-19 vaccine mandate is worth “very little, if anything at all” if it includes exemptions for “sincerely held religious beliefs”, argued the Los Angeles Times. Given “how large a loophole religious exemptions create”, no one should be “remotely surprised” that thousands of Los Angeles employees are lining up to claim religious exemptions from the city’s vaccine requirement for its employees, added the paper’s editorial board. Police are prominent in this trend – “for the most part, these are personnel who come into close contact with the public on a regular basis, said the leader column. “They have an obligation to avoid harming the people they serve. Shame on them.” It concluded that: “Religious convictions – whether newly found as a convenient excuse or long held by sincere believers – cannot trump the importance of bringing the Covid-19 pandemic under control.”

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5. Boris Johnson’s military alliance in the Pacific is reckless post-imperial nostalgia

Simon Jenkins for The Guardian

on vacuous focus

“The Aukus defence deal between Britain, the US and Australia grows murkier by the day,” said Simon Jenkins. “Britain has no conceivable reason for adopting an aggressive position in the Pacific,” he wrote in The Guardian, adding that it is “all arcane post-imperial nostalgia”. The columnist said that “time alone will tell” where tensions between the West and China lead, “but for the west now to open a cold war with China must be beyond stupid, and for Britain especially fatuous”. He reminded us that it is half a century since Harold Wilson formally withdrew Britain from “east of Suez”. “[Boris] Johnson clearly aches to return, to prove that he can somehow punch above his weight and put Britain back on the world stage after Brexit.” However, this “vacuous” focus is misguided, suggested Jenkins, because “British diplomacy should now be concentrated on Europe, overwhelmingly so. One thing Brexit did not alter was geography.”

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