A summary of today's developments
The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is set to delay a 1p cut in income tax to help plug a black hole in the public finances that had reached £72 billion, according to the Sunday Times. Hunt is expected to announce that plans to reduce the basic rate of income tax next April will be pushed back by a year.
Long Covid could be contributing to labour shortages in the UK, the governor of the Bank of England has said. Andrew Bailey made the comments at a G30 seminar in Washington.
Bailey said he spoke to the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, yesterday and they had an “immediate meeting of minds”. He said there was a “very clear and immediate meeting of minds between us about the importance of fiscal sustainability”.
In his speech, Bailey said that inflationary pressures will need a “stronger response” than previously anticipated in August. He said the bank ”will not hesitate” to raise interest rates to meet the inflation target.
The chancellor has admitted that his medium-term fiscal plan to be unveiled on 31 October will in effect be a full budget. Jeremy Hunt told ITV’s Robert Peston on Saturday that he would “pretty much” be delivering a “proper” budget.
Keir Starmer has accused Liz Truss of “grotesque chaos”, referencing Neil Kinnock’s famous 1985 conference speech. Speaking in Barnsley, an area where he said Labour would have to win 14 battleground seats, he referenced the “grotesque chaos of a Tory prime minister handing out redundancy notices to her own chancellor”.
Actor Miriam Margolyes said she wanted to tell Jeremy Hunt “Fuck you, bastard” after appearing on Radio 4 immediately after the new chancellor. She made the comments on the Today programme at the end of an interview about the death of Robbie Coltrane.
Jeremy Hunt said the PM wants him to be “completely honest” with the country and that there will be difficult decisions ahead. He refused to specify which departments, but he said he will require “all departments”, including health, to make savings, and that some taxes will have to go up.
Hunt said the Liz Truss administration has made “mistakes” and that there are “difficult decisions ahead”. He was speaking on Sky News.
Labour has signalled it will be boycotting the World Cup in Qatar next month, citing the treatment of construction workers and the criminalisation of same-sex relationships.
Updated
Senior Conservatives will this week hold talks on a “rescue mission” that would see the swift removal of Liz Truss as leader, after the new chancellor Jeremy Hunt dramatically tore up her economic package and signalled a new era of austerity, writes Toby Helm and Michael Savage.
A group of senior MPs will meet on Monday to discuss the prime minister’s future, with some wanting her to resign within days and others saying she is now “in office but not in control”. Some are threatening to publicly call on Truss to stand down after the implosion of her tax-cutting programme.
In a rearguard action to prop up the prime minister, her cabinet allies tonight warned MPs they would precipitate an election and ensure the Tories were “finished as a party” if they toppled a second leader in just a few months.
Health chiefs, public sector unions and teaching leaders expressed horror after the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, appeared to usher in a fresh era of austerity, and the threat of more misery for cash-strapped hospitals and schools, writes Mark Townsend and Michael Savage.
In his first interviews since dramatically replacing Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, Hunt provoked widespread alarm by promising “very difficult decisions” for government budgets.
The NHS Confederation, which represents the healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, warned the prospect of further cuts was “incredibly grim”.
The head of the largest teaching union for England and Wales denounced Hunt’s attempt to placate the financial markets as “disastrous” and “scary” for schools, while another teaching union, NASUWT, said deeper cuts would cause “immeasurable damage to children’s learning”.
Meanwhile the GMB, which represents more than 500,00 public sector workers, said the Tories’ decade of austerity from 2010 scarred the country and stagnated the economy, adding: “The British people are being used as lab rats in a terrible Tory economic experiment.”
Labour has signalled it will be boycotting the World Cup in Qatar next month, citing the treatment of construction workers and the criminalisation of same-sex relationships.
Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary, said: “Of course I am looking forward to the World Cup and I’ll be cheering England on.
“But we cannot avert our eyes from the problems in Qatar.
“Dozens of construction workers have been killed putting this tournament on.
“And LGBT England and Wales fans are having to put up with the tournament being played in a country where their sexuality is criminalised.
“I’m excited to cheer on the England team from my sitting room and from my local pub.”
The historic town of Downham Market in Liz Truss’s South West Norfolk constituency should be a personal bulwark in political crisis and economic turmoil. This weekend, confidence in the prime minister in her own Conservative heartland was ebbing away.
While officials in Downing Street contemplate whether Truss is now in her last days of office and MPs plot possible succession, the verdict on her record among the stalls, coffee bars and busy shopping streets of the market town was harsh.
Sitting in the town’s Greggs bakery, Ian Bond, 74, a retired engineering manager who was born in Downham Market, said he considered the mini-budget “Black Friday” for the Conservative party.
Updated
The Sunday Times is reporting that the PM’s intermediaries contacted allies of Sajid Javid, the former chancellor, last week to gauge his appetite for a return to the Treasury to replace Kwasi Kwarteng.
The newspaper said Javid’s conditions were too much for Liz Truss to accept.
“Sajid would have only done it if he had complete control,” one ally of Javid’s said.
Three sources said Javid had insisted on full autonomy over tax-and-spend policies, the freedom to appoint his own political team and the reinstatement of Sir Tom Scholar, the veteran Treasury permanent secretary who was unceremoniously sacked by Kwarteng and Truss on their first day in office.
Chancellor to 'delay 1p income tax reduction'
The new chancellor Jeremy Hunt is set to delay a 1p cut in income tax to help plug a black hole in the public finances that had reached £72 billion, according to the Sunday Times.
Hunt, who replaced Kwasi Kwarteng in the role yesterday, is expected to announce that plans to reduce the basic rate of income tax next April will be pushed back by a year.
The cut to 19 per cent will now take effect at the time previously proposed by Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, who was Liz Truss’s main leadership rival.
Updated
Crossbench peer Lord Jim O’Neill said he presumed there would not be many “tensions” between Jeremy Hunt and the Prime Minister, because otherwise the government is “finished”.
The former chief economist at investment bank Goldman Sachs told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “I can’t imagine how the Prime Minister could afford to lose him quickly if she wanted to stay on herself.
“So in that sense, he’s got a lot of influence but his dilemma is the backbenches of this peculiar era of the Conservative Party is just full of so many different factions and many of them will be put out by Jeremy’s own history as evidenced by the fact he failed to become leader twice but also by what he implied now has to happen.”
He added: “I’m making what might be a really naive assumption that he’s only taken this job because he’s been given carte blanche by a desperate prime minister.”
Updated
Astonishing as it may sound to someone who has not paid attention to politics since about 2016, after little more than a month in office, a consensus is building that Liz Truss could be finished as prime minister.
But who could succeed her as the Conservatives’ fifth prime minister since 2016? Candidates include runner-up in the last contest Rishi Sunak, defence secretary Ben Wallace, and, of course, Truss’s predecessor, Boris Johnson.
Read the full story here:
Kwasi Kwarteng argued against scrapping the top 45p rate of tax in last month’s mini-budget but was overruled by Liz Truss, according to a report by the Mail on Sunday.
The paper said sources claimed Kwarteng wanted to wait until next year before introducing the measure for fear of “doing too much at once”, but was told: “No, let’s go for it.”
The mini-budget, delivered on 23 September, shook market confidence in the long-term ability of the government to pay its debts, causing the pound to plummet and the cost of government borrowing to soar.
The scrapping of the 45p rate was among the package’s most controversial measures.
Truss sacked Kwarteng on Friday as part of an attempt to reassure the markets and calm unrest on her own backbenches.
The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is due to deliver a fiscal statement on 31 October.
Updated
MPs from across the Commons have been paying tribute to Sir David Amess on the anniversary of his murder.
Former home secretary Priti Patel said Sir David was an “outstanding public servant full of kindness, energy and integrity” who was killed in a “senseless attack on democracy”.
Sharing a photo of herself with Sir David, Conservative MP Alicia Kearns called him a “wonderful friend” and said “a man so full of love and joy shall never be forgotten”.
Labour’s Marsha de Cordova said she was remembering a “kind, caring and dedicated public servant”, while David Lammy called him a “politician who cared deeply about his constituency, animal welfare and so many issues beyond”.
The prime minister, Liz Truss, her predecessor, Boris Johnson, and the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, have all also paid tribute.
Today my heart is with our wonderful friend Sir David Amess' wife Julia and their children.
— Alicia Kearns, MP for Rutland and Melton (@aliciakearns) October 15, 2022
A man so full of love and joy shall never be forgotten, and his absence is felt.
He was a true public servant. pic.twitter.com/3t4LxLequl
Updated
Almost a fifth of all households in Britain will be spending more on housing costs by the end of 2024, analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank has found.
The group said the average mortgagor would be paying £3,500 a year more in the fourth quarter of 2024 than they were in the third quarter of 2022, and that the additional spend would be £26bn overall.
In London, the average additional spend rises to £5,500.
The thinktank said that, by the end of 2024, more than 1.8 million mortgaged households will see housing costs take up at least 10% more of their household income.
It added that by the first quarter of 2027, almost no mortgaged households would be unaffected by the rise in rates.
Writing on Twitter, Resolution Foundation chief executive Torsten Bell said the changes would be a “massive deal” for the economy.
Updated
Liz Truss’s premiership now depends on the success of the financial statement due to be delivered on 31 October, one of her MPs has said.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the backbench 1922 Committee, had it put to him by LBC that should the statement fail to restore market confidence in the government, Truss would have to go.
“I think that’s exactly right,” he said. “I think a huge amount rests on that.
“If that statement – and God forbid, I hope this won’t be the case – doesn’t manage to satisfy the markets and satisfy everybody else, and the economy’s still in chaos, then I think we would be in a very difficult situation.”
He added that he was not “anticipating that happening”.
“I think [new chancellor] Jeremy Hunt is a man of sufficient calibre that he will come up with a solution that does command the confidence of the markets,” he said.
“And let’s hope, for the British people, … that does happen.”
'A huge amount rests on Liz Truss' financial statement.'
— LBC (@LBC) October 15, 2022
1922 Committee Treasurer, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown says if Liz Truss' new financial plan coming out on Halloween day doesn't satisfy the markets, 'she's gone'.@mattfrei pic.twitter.com/eFstTnYdCG
Updated
New analysis by the Trades Union Congress has found that payouts to shareholders have increased three times faster than workers’ wages since the 2008 financial crash.
Shareholder handouts, through both dividends and companies buying back their own shares, have soared £440bn above inflation since 2008. Meanwhile, wages have fallen, growing £510bn less than inflation.
The TUC says the findings are evidence that firms do have the capacity for wage increases if they allow their workers a greater share of a business’s wealth.
“Too many businesses are lining shareholders’ pockets without giving workers a fair deal,” said the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Here's a summary of the latest developments...
Long Covid could be contributing to labour shortages in the UK, the governor of the Bank of England has said. Andrew Bailey made the comments at a G30 seminar in Washington.
Bailey said he spoke to the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, yesterday and they had an “immediate meeting of minds”. He said there was a “very clear and immediate meeting of minds between us about the importance of fiscal sustainability”.
In his speech, Bailey said that inflationary pressures will need a “stronger response” than previously anticipated in August. He said the bank ”will not hesitate” to raise interest rates to meet the inflation target.
The chancellor has admitted that his medium-term fiscal plan to be unveiled on 31 October will in effect be a full budget. Jeremy Hunt told ITV’s Robert Peston on Saturday that he would “pretty much” be delivering a “proper” budget.
Keir Starmer has accused Liz Truss of “grotesque chaos”, referencing Neil Kinnock’s famous 1985 conference speech. Speaking in Barnsley, an area where he said Labour would have to win 14 battleground seats, he referenced the “grotesque chaos of a Tory prime minister handing out redundancy notices to her own chancellor”.
Actor Miriam Margolyes said she wanted to tell Jeremy Hunt ‘Fuck you, bastard’ after appearing on Radio 4 immediately after the new chancellor. She made the comments on the Today programme at the end of an interview about the death of Robbie Coltrane.
Jeremy Hunt said the PM wants him to be “completely honest” with the country and that there will be difficult decisions ahead. He refused to specify which departments, but he said he will require “all departments”, including health, to make savings, and that some taxes will have to go up.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said the Liz Truss administration has made “mistakes” and that there are “difficult decisions ahead”. He was speaking on Sky News.
That’s it from me, Miranda, for today. Handing over shortly to Christy Cooney. Thanks for reading.
Updated
Here’s the full story on Starmer speech this morning (see also 11.52am):
Long covid could be among factors affecting UK labour shortages, says Andrew Bailey
Long covid could be contributing to labour shortages in the UK, the governor of the Bank of England has said.
Andrew Bailey told a G30 seminar that labour shortages are largely being driven by an increase in older people choosing not to work, with possible reasons including long covid, people with long-term health conditions being reluctant to work during the pandemic, and public health systems not treating people as promptly in a covid environment.
Climate change, he said, must be factored into “our everyday business”.
Updated
Bank of England governor says he had 'immediate meeting of minds' with new chancellor
Andrew Bailey says he spoke to Jeremy Hunt yesterday and that they had an “immediate meeting of minds”.
During questions at a G30 seminar in Washington, Andrew Bailey said during their conversation there was a “very clear and immediate meeting of minds between us about the importance of fiscal sustainability”.
Hunt, he said, is now working on his 31 October financial statement.
Baily said that although he issued a statement on the Monday after the mini-budget, it is “not something I make a habit of doing”.
He said the two most important factors on fiscal policy are the importance of sustainability and having the Office for Budget Responsibility involved.
The OBR, he said, is “now very much back in the picture”.
Updated
The UK financial crisis is a punchline during questions at the G30.
Updated
Bank of England governor says in difficult times UK must be 'very clear' on its framework of intervention
Andrew Bailey ends by saying that as the situation in the UK demonstrates, “in these difficult times, we need to be very clear on this framework of intervention”.
The MPC [monetary policy committee of the bank] is not using the stock of asset holdings as an active tool of monetary policy at present. As we have made clear over a number of years, once bank rate was away from the lower bound, and could move in both directions, the intention was to unwind the stock of QE gradually and predictably, and in a way that wasn’t bound to underlying economic conditions. Instead, monetary conditions are now steered by bank rate, the primary instrument of policy. Should monetary conditions prove too loose to meet the inflation target, given the economic news, it’s bank rate that responds. And whatever the source of any disturbance to monetary conditions, the MPC is free to offset those disturbances by means of its primary instrument, bank rate.
Updated
UK financial markets experienced 'violent moves' in recent weeks, says Bank of England governor
The governor of the Bank of England tells the G30 that UK financial markets have experienced “some violent moves in the last few weeks, particularly at the long-end of the government debt market”.
Andrew Bailey said:
This has put the spotlight on flaws in the strategy and structure of one important part of a lot of pension funds. The Bank of England has had to intervene to deal with a threat to the stability of the financial system, our other core objective.
Updated
The war in Ukraine has led to a “huge negative shock to real income”, affecting the most vulnerable and least well off most in the UK, says Bailey.
For us at the Bank of England, it has created a huge challenge for monetary policy. Inflation is well above its 2% target.
He describes the energy price cap as a “major intervention” but “understandable”.
Updated
The UK economy has been “buffeted by very large disturbances in the last two and a half years or so” as a result of Covid, supply chain issues, a shrinking labour force and the war in Ukraine, he says, adding: “These disturbances are very large”.
In the UK, the rise in energy prices means that household spending on energy as a share of income could plausibly be a full 2 percentage points higher this winter than in 2019. This is a bigger increase than we saw in the energy crises in the 1970s.
The disturbances that have come since Covid hit have been supply-side effects in the UK – supply chains, shrinkage of the labour force, cuts in the supply of natural gas to Europe as a whole. I want to draw out a number of points from this.
Updated
Andrew Bailey is now at the podium …
Updated
Bank of England governor to say inflationary pressures will need 'stronger response' than expected
In his speech, published ahead of time, Andrew Bailey is expected to say that inflationary pressures will need a “stronger response” than previously anticipated in August.
The governor of the Bank of England is expected to say in a few minutes:
Recently, the UK government has made a number of fiscal announcements, and has set 31 October as the date for a further fiscal statement.
The MPC [monetary policy committee] will respond to all this news at its next meeting in just under three weeks from now. This is the correct sequence in my view.
We will know the full scope of fiscal policy by then. But I will repeat what we have said already. We will not hesitate to raise interest rates to meet the inflation target. And, as things stand today, my best guess is that inflationary pressures will require a stronger response than we perhaps thought in August.
Updated
Neil Irwin, chief economic correspondent at Axios, comments: “For the record, you never want to be the central banker of the moment if at all possible.”
Updated
Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, is about to speak at the G30 37th annual international banking seminar in Washington, DC. I’ll be monitoring for interesting comments.
His speech in full has been published ahead of time by the Bank of England here.
He is introduced as the “central banker of the moment” to laughs from the audience.
Updated
31 October fiscal plan will in effect be fully fledged budget, admits Hunt
The new chancellor has admitted that his medium-term fiscal plan to be unveiled on 31 October will in effect be a full budget.
Jeremy Hunt told ITV’s Robert Peston on Saturday that he would “pretty much” be delivering a “proper” budget.
“We’re going to be talking about tax,” he said. “We’re going to be talking about spending, we’re going to be talking about medium- and long-term plans.”
This morning, in a series of interviews, he refused to be drawn on specifics but said all departments, including health and defence, would be subject to spending cuts and refused to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation (more from earlier here).
In his full interview with @peston, Jeremy Hunt addresses taxes, Liz Truss, universal credit and the mini-budget.https://t.co/EHI0Unfuok pic.twitter.com/J4eRkl7Hl9
— ITV News (@itvnews) October 15, 2022
Updated
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has said his party is ready for a general election, claiming Liz Truss is a “lame duck”.
He told BBC Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland that the party is “not afraid” of an election and that Truss’s government is at “the end of the road”.
He said:
She’s prime minister just in name. Keir Starmer is absolutely right to demand a general election. He’s also right to highlight that we don’t want just this government to lose, we want to deserve to win.
Updated
David Davis claims that no Conservative really wants another leadership contest, which he said will “make the party look stupid”.
The former Brexit secretary said many of his colleagues are “sitting in a shocked sense of terror on the prospects of being re-elected”.
He told GB News:
The shock effect of that budget two weeks ago has rattled around the world really. It has rattled around the financial markets, both international currency markets and markets which have an impact on pensions. It rattled around politics and a lot of our colleagues are sitting in a shocked sense of terror on the prospects of getting re-elected.
So, yesterday, frankly, it scorched the flow, in a sense, but it’s still a grim prospect for the Conservative party and the government. That being said, I think the removal of Kwasi Kwarteng was inevitable.
He was very responsible for the loss of credibility two weeks ago, that’s what happened, it wasn’t the numbers in the market, it was the credibility of the program in the markets, and so I suspect she had no choice but to replace him.
Jeremy Hunt, he said, has so far today “shown to be very self-assured, and he’s clearly creating space for action by talking about cancelling the various cuts and talking about bringing spending under control. He’s certainly got off to a good start.”
The thing that is on her [Truss’s] side is that nobody really wants another leadership contest. It will make the party look stupid and it will be uncomfortable, and painful even. I don’t see the prospect of a so-called unity candidate being probable.
Updated
How Brexit nearly scuppered the festival of Brexit. Ben Quinn reports:
For some, the whole project was supposed to be a celebration of Britain’s departure from the EU. Which means there is more than a little irony in the fact a main concern of the “festival of Brexit” organisers was the impact of leaving itself.
Disruption to the supply of workers and materials, as well as increased costs, emerged as one of the risks overshadowing the project, according to records.
The £120m festival was controversial from the moment it was first announced by Theresa May in 2018, but this week was in the firing line once again after the spending watchdog said it is investigating – after a series of rebrandings – Unboxed: Creativity in the UK amid concern visitor numbers were less than 1% of early targets.
Though the festival failed to win over many who voted remain in 2016, some in the arts sector are suspicious the latest attacks have been led by Tory politicians, with some already on record as being unhappy at an apparent drift from the original idea of a post-Brexit festival that would showcase “the best of British creativity”.
Days after Julian Knight, the Tory chair of the Commons culture committee, said the project had been a “catastrophic failure”, its organisers remained guarded while there was no sign of its chief creative officer, the arts impresario Martin Green.
SNP Westminster leader says government a 'shambles', calls for general election
Ian Blackford said a succession of Conservative leaders have “collectively got us into this mess” and claimed the government is a “shambles”.
Speaking on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, the Scottish National party’s Westminster leader joined growing calls for a general election after chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s departure yesterday.
We’ve really seen the credibility for financial competence, for financial management, of this government really put to bed.
Over the last few years, we’ve gone from [David] Cameron, we’ve had Theresa May, we’ve had Boris Johnson, we’ve now had the shambles of Liz Truss.
None of these prime ministers have acted in the interests of the people of Scotland and collectively they have got us into this mess. It’s not another Tory prime minister that we need. We need away from Westminster, we need independence.
He added:
We want the ability to remove this Tory government. But of course, we’ve had a whole series of shambolic Tory governments over the course of the last few years.
Updated
Boris Johnson has paid tribute to the late David Amess and his family.
The former prime minister tweeted:
On this sad anniversary of the death of Sir David Amess we remember the many good things he stood for: campaigns for animal welfare, city status for Southend and independence for a sovereign parliamentary democracy. A legacy that shines bright. Thinking of Julia and the family.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) October 15, 2022
Keir Starmer has called for the fiscal statement to be brought forward but warned: “You can’t reverse out of a car crash.”
He said changing chancellor will not “undo the damage has already been done” and will be “very hard to reverse”.
“But more than that, after 12 years of Tory failure we actually need a change of government. Tinkering with the people at the top of the Tory party is not the change that we need at the moment,” he told PA Media.
“Sometimes this is the consequence of some awful world event, but this is self-inflicted, made in Downing Street, and everybody knows it.”
The Labour leader said he was worried about inheriting the current government’s finances, warning that people with mortgages without fixed terms will have to pay £200-300 more a month as a result of the mini-budget.
He also accused the Conservatives of failing on knife crime and teenage violence, calling for more community policing.
“That’s what we’re committed to as a Labour party, because I know the importance of community policing and the difference it makes, not just to knife crime but to many, many other sorts of crimes,” he said.
Updated
Diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has written a piece looking at how the ex-foreign secretary once seen as yesterday’s man is now in best position to influence prime minister.
Hunt, a 55-year old, Japanese-speaking Oxford graduate, has previously served as health secretary and foreign secretary after first being elected to parliament at the 2005 general election.
In his first major role in government, from 2005 to 2007, he was the shadow minister for disabled people as a reward for supporting David Cameron - who attended Oxford University at the same time as him.
He has twice unsuccessfully tried to become the party leader. On his first attempt in 2019, he came closest, finishing second in the leadership race with Boris Johnson going on to win.
In the leadership race this year, he put his weight behind former chancellor Rishi Sunak over Liz Truss.
Updated
Key quotes from Sir Keir Starmer’s speech to Labour activists at an event in Barnsley this morning, after urging a general election:
“No doubt we will hear plenty of laughable excuses in the coming days. After 12 years of stagnation, that’s all [Truss’s] party has left, but even they know she can’t fix the mess she has created.
“And deep down, her MPs know something else: they no longer have a mandate from the British people.”
Starmer added: “There are no historical precedents for what they have done to our economy” and accused Truss of “tanking the British economy”.
Starmer called on Hunt to bring the government’s medium-term fiscal plan forward from 31 October, saying: “The crisis we’re facing at the moment is a crisis made in Downing Street and the damage has already been done and is very, very hard to reverse - you can’t reverse out of a car crash.”
“After 12 years of Tory failure we actually need a change of government. Tinkering with the people at the top of the Tory party is not the change that we need at the moment.”
Updated
Some more detail about the Miriam Margolyes on-air swearing incident currently causing a stir:
Updated
More from Keir Starmer’s Barnsley speech (see also 10.36am) this morning to Labour’s Yorkshire and the Humber regional conference:
This region is also important to this Labour party and our shared journey, from the pain of defeat four times, to a moment where the prospect of serving our country again no longer looks impossible. Because it’s in Yorkshire and Humber where we took our biggest steps. In Batley and Spen, where we beat back the forces of division with Kim Leadbeater. Fantastic. In local elections where we’ve made important gains, taking control of Kirklees. Wins for Oliver Coppard and Tracy Brabin – two shining examples of what Labour can do in power. And as Rachel mentioned in June, with Simon Lightwood in Wakefield, our first byelection gain for a decade.
We have more to do of course. The road to a fairer, greener Britain runs right through this region. Fourteen battleground seats, 14 – and we must win them all. We need Luke Charters as the Labour MP for York Outer, Anna Dixon winning in Shipley, Marie Tidball here in Penistone and Stockbridge. We need them in as Labour MPs at the next election.
When I became leader, I knew we had a huge task ahead. We had to change our party and prepare for power all in one go. Not change for change’s sake. Change with a purpose, to make our Labour party fit to serve our country. That’s why we had to rip antisemitism out by its roots, why we had to show our support for Nato is non-negotiable, show we want business to thrive and prosper, shed unworkable policies. Country first, party second.There’s always more work to do – I know that. I know how hard it’s been for people on the receiving end from those who can’t face up to the change we need. But always remember that together we have changed our party. The British people are looking at us again and we can return their gaze with confidence.
Britain is crying out for clear leadership - Labour must provide it. We must turn our collar up and face the storm. Stand with working people. Meet their ambitions for real change. And build a new Britain, together. A Britain that is fairer, greener, more dynamic. Where we grow the economy and raise living standards for everyone, not just a privileged few, tackle climate change by creating new jobs, new industries, new opportunities, redesign our public services to unleash opportunity and provide security, restore faith in politics as a force for good, get Britain’s hope, its confidence and its future back.But it won’t be easy. I would love to stand here and say Labour will fix everything. But the damage they’ve done to our finances and public services means things are going to be really tough. We can’t take irresponsible risks with the country’s finances. We must be the party of sound money. You can’t build a fairer, greener Britain without first restoring economic stability.
Every policy we announce will be fully costed. A new Office for Value for Money will make sure public spending targets the national interest. And we should be clear about what this means. It means not being able to do things – good Labour things – as quickly as we might like.
As a great Labour leader once said: “You can’t play politics with people’s jobs, with people’s services or with their homes.” As clear a warning against the dangers of “rigid dogma” and “impossible promises” as you will ever see…You might recognise it – I certainly do. But not just in that great footage of Neil. No. I see that attitude – the very same thing he was fighting against – in the behaviour of the Tories these past few weeks… And now we see the result. The “grotesque chaos” of a Tory prime minister handing out redundancy notices to her own chancellor! And conference, there are no historical precedents for what they’ve done to our economy.
Britain has faced financial crises before. But the prime ministers and chancellors who wrestled with them all acted fast. When their policies ran against the rocks of reality, they took decisive action. But this lot, they didn’t just tank the British economy. They also clung on. Clung on as they made the pound sink, clung on as they took our pensions to the brink of collapse, clung on as they pushed the mortgages and bills of the British people through the roof.
They did all of this. All of the pain our country faces now is down to them. And there’s still one person clinging on. The prime minister. No doubt we will hear plenty of laughable excuses in the coming days. After twelve years of stagnation, that’s all her party has left. But even they know she can’t fix the mess she’s created. And deep-down, her MPs know something else. They no longer have a mandate from the British people.
To end this national emergency once and for all, we also need a long-term plan, a plan that will deliver cheaper bills for working people - now and in the future growth and jobs in every part of our country and real independence from tyrants like Putin, who weaponise fossil fuels and threaten our security.This is the central mission of the next Labour government. We will turn Britain into a green growth superpower. And driving us forward will be a goal that puts us ahead of any major economy in the world: 100% clean power by 2030. A goal that means investment in wind, solar, nuclear, hydrogen, green steel and carbon capture. Training for plumbers, electricians, engineers, software designers, technicians, builders. A national sovereign wealth fund that generates growth and private investment. Insulation for 19 million homes. And Great British Energy. A publicly owned company that takes advantage of the opportunities in clean British power and turns them into good, secure, high-paid British jobs.
The argument for our plan is simple. Clean energy is already cheaper than fossil fuels – nine times cheaper. Working people need more of it. Britain needs to own it. And the jobs and growth it creates must be shared with every community. British power to the British people.
This is why I’ve always said we will fight the Tories on economic growth. It’s not just their record - the worst decade for growth in two centuries. The “vicious cycle of stagnation” as the former chancellor calls it. It’s that we have a clear and practical plan to spread the opportunities of the future to every community in Britain. That’s why we struggle for growth – we lock too many communities out of the wealth we create, create too many jobs that are low paid and insecure. And our public services aren’t strong enough to help working people succeed.
The Tory trickle-down fantasy has no answer to this. Working people won’t be better off because we make the rich richer. It’s fantasy economics - if you leave this many people behind a nation cannot grow fairly.
Don’t forget it, never again can we let the Tories claim to be a party of aspiration. Labour is the only party that can get home ownership rising again. And we will do it with a new set of political choices, a Labour set of political choices.
We will set a new target – 70% home ownership. And we will meet it our way. No more buy-to-let landlords or second homeowners getting in first … Distorting the market in places like the Yorkshire Dales. We will back working people’s aspiration, help real first-time buyers onto the ladder with a new mortgage guarantee scheme, reform planning so speculators can’t stop us getting shovels in the ground. My message is this. If you’re grafting every hour to buy your own home: Labour is on your side. Labour is the party of home ownership and aspiration in Britain today.
But conference, let’s not kid ourselves. The next two years will be tough. The Tories will never give up on power – that’s not who they are. And because of their record, because of the state of Britain, they’re getting desperate. With so little that’s good to defend, they’ll lash out. So no complacency. No let up. Take nothing for granted. We need to be prepared, disciplined, relentlessly focused on the future, spend each day working to earn the trust of the British people, provide the leadership this country so desperately needs and walk towards a better future.
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SNP calls on Scottish Conservatives to 'grow a backbone' and tell Truss to resign
The Scottish National party has challenged Scottish Conservatives to “grow a backbone” and tell Liz Truss to resign.
Mhairi Black, the SNP’s spokesperson for Scotland, said the prime minister is on “borrowed time” and has driven the UK to the “brink of recession”.
She called on Scottish Conservatives to “earn some respect from colleagues and voters in Scotland” by urging her to resign.
Liz Truss’ premiership is over - she is running on borrowed time.
It is therefore on the Scottish Tories to end their silence, grow a backbone and call for her to go.
The prime minister has driven the UK to the brink of a recession, and left the housing market on the verge of crashing – all within weeks of taking office. Sacking the clueless chancellor will not cut it.
Despite knowing their colleagues at Westminster have zero respect for them, by calling for the prime minister to resign, at least the Scottish Tories would earn some respect from colleagues and voters in Scotland.
This shambolic Tory-made economic crisis has once again shown why Scotland needs to break free from the shackles of this outdated, dysfunctional Westminster system.
With independence, we can escape the chaos of Westminster control for good and rid ourselves of Tory government’s once and for all.
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Labour leader accuses Truss of 'grotesque chaos', referencing Kinnock speech
Keir Starner has accused Liz Truss of “grotesque chaos”, referencing Neil Kinnock’s famous 1985 conference speech.
Speaking in Barnsley, an area where he said Labour would have to win 14 battleground seats, he referenced the “grotesque chaos of a Tory prime minister handing out redundancy notices to her own chancellor”.
Starmer said that when he first became party leader, he knew Labour would have to “change and prepare for power in one go”.
Sir Keir Starmer is delivering a speech at a regional Labour Party conference in Barnsley.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 15, 2022
The Labour leader says when he became leader he knew the party would have to 'change and prepare for power in one go'
👉 https://t.co/vc2NHkh5Q3
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/U6MXL0F4yi
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Thinktank says Hunt's efficiency savings are politically unviable
The Institute for Government thinktank has said that, historically, any efficiency savings are likely to come from public sector staff cuts and pay freezes.
But amid widespread labour shortages and strikes, the thinktank’s programme director, Nick Davies, said he does not see how this is politically viable.
The main sources of ‘efficiencies’ in the 2010s were holding down public sector pay and cutting staff
— Nick Davies (@NJ_Davies) October 15, 2022
Given there are major workforce shortages and strikes across public services already, I just don’t see how tightening things further is political viable https://t.co/1Z0eJxY2QL
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Tobias Ellwood, a senior Conservative and MP for Bournemouth East, has welcomed Jeremy Hunt’s arrival, describing him as a “wise inclusion” in the government.
He said he was “glad to be off the naughty step” after having the whip restored following his party suspension for missing a confidence vote in the summer.
Glad to be off the (Odesa) naughty step & back in Pty as we enter this re-set.
— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) October 15, 2022
J Hunt’s wise inclusion evokes my recent article.👇
We thrive when governing as ‘One Nation’ Tories harnessing a coalition of talent - solving economic crises via sound money & fiscal responsibility. pic.twitter.com/4MLI1EX975
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John Redwood, a Thatcherite Conservative MP, has warned Hunt that “you cannot tax your way to higher growth”.
The new Chancellor needs to complete the spending plans, forecasts and Growth strategy. The 31% rise in business tax he proposes is bad for jobs and investment so he will need more positive ways of seeing off recession and encouraging business growth.
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) October 15, 2022
The PM is right to want growth, creating more better paid jobs and expanding UK production of more of our own food, energy and industrial goods. We need to fight world recessionary forces. There will be more borrowing this year whatever policy is chosen to see us through.
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) October 15, 2022
You cannot tax your way to higher growth. If you tax too much you end up borrowing more as you have a worse slowdown.
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) October 15, 2022
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Miriam Margolyes’ sweary Today performance (see also 8.48am) reacting to Jeremy Hunt being hailed by some as the best moment of the Radio 4 programme’s history:
👀Miriam Margolyes not holding back on what she said to Jeremy Hunt when they met on way into studio.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) October 15, 2022
“When I saw him there I just said ‘you’ve got a helluva job, the best of luck’. What I really wanted to say was ‘fuck you, you bastard’, but you can’t say that”. https://t.co/WCid0YYkI0
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The Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, reports on how Kwasi Kwarteng’s fate was sealed by the IMF orthodoxy he rallied against:
In a way, it was appropriate that Kwarteng’s last full day in the job should have been in Washington, because the International Monetary Fund is the ultimate bastion of the economic orthodoxy the Truss government has been battling against for the past six weeks. Kwarteng’s epitaph as chancellor might well be: I fought the orthodoxy and the orthodoxy won.
The IMF’s unhappiness with the UK first surfaced two weeks before the annual meetings in Washington, when it put out a statement in the wake of September’s tax-cutting mini-budget saying the measures were likely to “increase inequality”, and it did not approve of large and unfunded stimulus packages when inflation was so high.
This week, the IMF turned the screw. Tuesday, the day before Kwarteng’s arrival, saw the release of the Fund’s two flagship publications: the world economic outlook and the global financial stability review. Both were critical of the UK, pointing out that the Treasury was adding to the cost of living at the same time as the Bank of England was raising interest rates to bring down inflation. It was, one official put it, like two people fighting over a car’s steering wheel.
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Peter Walker asks: If Liz Truss is ousted, who could replace her as prime minister?
Jeremy Hunt's key points from this morning...
On his first full day as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt has done a series of interviews in which he made several points, he:
Refused to commit to increasing benefits in line with inflation, but claimed he is “very sensitive” to the needs of the poorest.
Claimed Liz Truss has “listened” to people about the crisis caused by the mini-budget. She will be judged at the next election by what she does over the next 18 months.
Said all government departments, including health and defence, will face spending cuts. There were “difficult decisions” to come.
Pledged that money that would have been received from the health and social care levy will be protected.
Said some taxes will rise, and others will not come down “as much as people hoped”.
Claimed the Conservatives are united “around the most important issues”, including growth and Brexit.
Said he will meet with Treasury officials later today and with Truss tomorrow.
Stated it was a “mistake” to cut taxes for the wealthiest and to “fly blind” without the confidence of the Office of Budget Responsibility.
Declined to give any specific commitments about his fiscal statement on 31 October.
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Liz Truss has also paid tribute to the late David Amess (see also 9.06am) on the first anniversary of his murder.
The prime minister said:
On the anniversary of Sir David Amess' death, we cherish his memory and remember his enormous contribution to politics, to the people of Southend and to the country.
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) October 15, 2022
My thoughts today are with his wife Julia, the Amess family and to all those who knew and loved him. pic.twitter.com/Tt44GQeHjG
Shadow chancellor declares 'Tory crisis' after Jeremy Hunt's first interviews
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has responded to Jeremy Hunt’s first interviews by declaring a “Tory crisis – made in Downing Street and paid for by working people”.
She condemned the “contradictory, chaotic messages coming from Downing Street”, which she said are “totally unacceptable”.
She said:
The damage has been done. It’s clear they’ve got no plan to clean up their mess. At a time when people’s mortgages are skyrocketing and businesses have no certainty, the contradictory, chaotic messages coming from Downing Street are totally unacceptable.
We don’t just need a new chancellor; we need a Labour government. Only Labour offers the leadership and plan Britain needs to fix this crisis and grow the economy.
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Boris Johnson’s former press secretary Will Walden has said that Jeremy Hunt is tantamount to a “caretaker prime minister”.
Trussonomics is clearly “being jumped”, he told Sky News, and Liz Truss “didn’t come close” to calming nerves in yesterday’s press conference. The prime minister’s performance was, he said, “tone deaf” and did not show empathy.
‘It feels like game over’: From the Guardian’s political editor, Pippa Crerar:
Within minutes of the announcement that she had made it to the final two in the Tory leadership contest in July, Liz Truss sent Tory MPs a message on social media.
“Thank you for putting your trust in me,” she tweeted. “I’m ready to hit the ground from day one.” Her post was quickly deleted and the word “running” was added in.
But her initial message could not have been more prescient.
Ever since she took over as prime minister just 38 days ago, Truss’s premiership has been hurtling downwards towards the hard earth of economic reality. She is now fighting for her political survival.
That is after a chaotic 24 hours during which Truss and her chancellor insisted publicly they were sticking to the plan not to put up corporation tax – even as officials were privately briefing the exact opposite.
Kwasi Kwarteng’s middle-of-the-night dash back from Washington confirmed the situation had reached crisis point. As the sun rose over Westminster, rumours he was about to be sacked were already spreading. One No 10 insider claimed Truss already knew she wanted him to “carry the can” over the mini-budget disaster – while he was telling reporters he wasn’t going anywhere.
Truss will be hoping that sacking Kwarteng as chancellor will take the heat off her, at the very least buying her some valuable time to try to steady the mutinous Tory ship. But as his departure letter – and her reply – showed, their radical plan to rip up the economy to boost growth was very much a joint endeavour.
Kwarteng stressed to the prime minister that it was “your” vision, while she responded that “we share the same vision”.
Despite the finger pointing, the pair have been on the same ideological journey for years, with the ill-fated budget fleshed out over coffee and biscotti in Kwarteng’s Greenwich home way back in August.
The rest of the article is here:
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The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has joined tributes to David Amess, a year after the Conservative MP’s murder.
The 69-year-old was stabbed to death while meeting constituents in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 15 October 2021.
Starmer tweeted:
Remembering our friend & colleague David Amess, on the 1st anniversary of his senseless death.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 15, 2022
David’s commitment to public service, carried out with inherent, consistent kindness, will forever be admired.
Thinking of his wife & children, hoping memories of him bring comfort.
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Kwarteng says Truss has only bought herself 'a few weeks' by sacking him
On today’s front page of the Times, Kwasi Kwarteng says Liz Truss has only bought herself “a few weeks” by sacking him as chancellor and reversing the mini-budget.
THE TIMES: @trussliz fights for survival #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/r1fq2Rzr54
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) October 14, 2022
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Actor Miriam Margolyes says 'Fuck you, bastard' about Jeremy Hunt live on air
Actor Miriam Margolyes said she wanted to tell Jeremy Hunt ‘Fuck you, bastard’ after appearing on Radio 4 immediately after the new chancellor.
Speaking on the Today programme at the end of an interview about the death of Robbie Coltrane, she said:
When I saw him [Hunt] there, I just said: ‘What a hell of a job, the best of luck.’
And what I really wanted to say was: ‘Fuck you, bastard,’ but you can’t say that.
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Hunt insists Truss won leadership election 'fair and square' but admits: 'Some people, including me, didn't vote for the PM'
How long will Liz Truss be PM, Hunt is asked? “I think what the country wants now is sustainability.”
He adds: “When we are judged at a general election we will be judged by what we deliver over the next 18 months.”
He said he does not want to “pretend it’s not been a very difficult few weeks”, but claims Conservatives are united in parliament around growth and Brexit success.
He admits:
We had a leadership election. Some people, including me, didn’t vote for the prime minister, but we recognise she won it fair and square.
Hunt insists Truss “has listened” after the mini-budget fallout.
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Hunt says UK already has debt at 97% of GDP and tax cuts must be 'sustainable'
On the pledge to cut personal income tax, he says he “very much” hopes it can be cut, but that he needs to look at everything “in the round”.
Insists tax cuts must be sustainable and funded.
UK already has debt at 97% of GDP, he says, the highest level of debt since the 1960s.
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Hunt says
There are going to be no easy choices, it’s going to be very difficult.
He adds: “Lots of things people are hoping for won’t happen, but we will be thinking about the most vulnerable as we take these decisions.”
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“Of course” Britain needs to support the war in Ukraine but the Ministry of Defence will also face cuts, Hunt says.
He says he cannot guarantee the PM’s pledge to grow defence spending.
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Hunt says the UK has a “massive amount going for us”, but the reason it remains a top economy is because the country has been prepared to make “tough decisions” – and this moment is one of them.
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The new chancellor says he is “very sensitive” to people at the bottom of the income scale but will not commit to not cutting benefits. “I’ve only been in the job for a matter of hours,” he says, adding that he will be sitting down with the Treasury team later today.
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Taxes will have to go up, says Hunt
The chancellor says the PM wants him to be “completely honest” with the country and that there will be difficult decisions ahead.
He says he won’t specify which departments, but he will require “all departments”, including health, to make savings, and that some taxes will have to go up.
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Again, Hunt says Truss’s “fundamental insight” on the economy is shared by him and the country. He says the “growth paradox” must be solved, but admits that “the way we went about it clearly wasn’t right; that’s why I’m sitting here now”.
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Next for Jeremy Hunt, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He says it was “wrong” to cut the top rate of tax for the highest earners when the government was going to have to ask for “sacrifices” from others to get through the winter.
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New chancellor backs 'fundamentals' of PM's economic plan
On his first morning as chancellor, Jeremy Hunt says he backs the “fundamentals” of Liz Truss’s economic plan (see also 7.38am).
He told Sky News:
The fundamental strategy behind it all, which is that we have to solve the growth paradox if we want well-funded public services like the NHS and to keep taxes low and falling, then we have to increase our growth rate. That is absolutely right and I also would like to be able to cut corporation tax.
But he declined to give any specific commitments about his fiscal statement on 31 October.
I’m not going to make any specific commitments about specific departments now, or indeed on the tax side about specific taxes, because we have to look at these things in the round. And we have to make sure as we take these very difficult decisions, we’re honest with people about the situation we face.
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How long Liz Truss can last as prime minister dominates today’s UK front pages.
The Guardian calls it “a day of chaos”, as Kwasi Kwarteng lasts just 38 days in office and Truss is forced into a “humiliating” U-turn on a planned freeze on corporation tax. It notes Truss’s press conference consisted of “eight minutes, four questions and no apology”.
Guardian front page, Saturday 15 October 2022: A day of chaos pic.twitter.com/hka6yKgdFR
— The Guardian (@guardian) October 14, 2022
The Mirror has clearly heard enough, declaring “Time’s up” in its headline. It reports on growing calls for a general election, and Keir Starmer’s desire for a change of government.
Saturday's front page: Time's up#TomorrowsPapersTodayhttps://t.co/yVjZFD4bRV pic.twitter.com/avmltMuOJy
— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) October 14, 2022
The Telegraph headlines: “Truss clings to power after axing Kwarteng” and reports on “an extraordinary day of reversals in Westminster that left Tory MPs despairing and sped up plotting among some rebels trying to remove Ms Truss”. It says Truss warned during her leadership contest that the looming rise in corporation tax, which will now happen, would trigger a recession.
📰The front page of tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) October 14, 2022
'Truss clings to power after axing Kwarteng'#TomorrowsPapersToday
Sign up for the Front Page newsletterhttps://t.co/x8AV4OoUh6 pic.twitter.com/BTtw0BkHtz
You can read the full paper round-up here:
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Mistakes made in mini-budget, says new chancellor
The new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is on Sky News this morning discussing his plans for the position.
He says the Liz Truss administration has made “mistakes” and that there are “difficult decisions ahead”.
He says:
I want to do the right thing for British people.
It’s a big honour to do the job that I’ve been asked to do by the prime minister, but I want to be honest with people: we have some very difficult decisions ahead.
The last few weeks have been very tough but the context, of course, is coming out of a pandemic and a cost of living crisis.
And the thing that people want, markets want, the country needs now, is stability. No chancellor can control the markets.
But what I can do is show that we can pay for our tax and spending plans and that is going to need some very difficult decisions on both spending and tax.
He adds:
There were mistakes. It was a mistake when we’re going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by the very wealthiest.
It was a mistake to fly blind and to do these forecasts without giving people the confidence of the Office of Budget Responsibility saying that the sums add up.
The prime minister’s recognised that, that’s why I’m here.
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Labour calls for general election
Keir Starmer has called for a general election now regardless of whether Liz Truss is ousted by the Conservatives, saying the government is “completely at the end of the road” and Labour is preparing for power.
In an interview with the Guardian, the Labour leader said Truss had driven the economy “into a wall” while “trashing our institutions”, and changing the prime minister again without allowing the country to vote would not be acceptable.
However, Starmer said he had told his shadow cabinet not to be complacent about the party’s 30 points-plus poll lead, and that Labour was “not going to sit back” but fight for every vote.
He said people were “looking to Labour for the answers to the next election” and the party needed to carry on putting in the work to win the contest, rather than assuming the government’s incompetence would cause the Tories to lose.
“For the good of the country we need a general election.”
Read the full interview here:
Liz Truss clings to power after chaotic day
Good morning. Liz Truss has been prime minister for 39 days but her political future remains far from certain after 24 hours in which she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor, appointed Jeremy Hunt as his replacement and abandoned a flagship economic policy.
The announcement that corporation tax will rise next year (as planned by the previous government) rather than remain at 19% was intended to calm the financial markets after weeks of turmoil brought on by the mini-budget. Yet experts say the new chancellor may still need to find £40bn in spending cuts to make the prime minister’s current policies viable.
As my colleagues report, Truss said staying in her position as prime minister would help to “reassure the markets of our financial discipline”, but the cost of government borrowing rose and the the pound fell after her press conference announcing the changes.
Senior Conservative MPs are plotting how to remove her from office, with some mulling whether to publicly call for her to resign in the coming days. One former cabinet minister said they thought it was “50/50 whether she will make it till Christmas”, adding: “If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of her now then I would, but the problem is the mechanism.”
Labour, meanwhile, is calling for a general election whether Truss stays or goes. Speaking to the Guardian, the party’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said:
Change in personnel at the top of the Tory party is not the change we need. We need a change of government.
We are in the absurd situation where we are on the third, fourth prime minister in six years and within weeks we have a got a prime minister who has the worst reputational ratings of any prime minister pretty well in history.
Their party is completely exhausted and clapped out. It has got no ideas, it can’t face the future and it has left the UK in a defensive crouch where we are not facing the challenges of the future because we haven’t got a government that could lead us to the future.
For the good of the country we need a general election.
Stick with us for all the latest political developments throughout the day.
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