Afternoon summary
Liz Truss has vowed to review all tax rates to help struggling households and businesses through the cost of living crisis, in her latest break from Treasury orthodoxy. In interviews in New York, the new prime minister also said she was prepared to be unpopular as she delivered pro-growth policies, such as lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses (see 3.35pm), and rejected claims her economic plan would prompt the Bank of England to raise interest rates (see 4.18pm).
Truss has given her full support to the No 10 chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, after it emerged he was questioned as a witness as part of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquiry into alleged bribery in Puerto Rico.
Mel Stride, the Tory chair of the Treasury select committee has urged Kwasi Kwarteng to allow independent forecasts for the public finances to be published alongside his mini-budget on Friday
Keir Starmer is set to face increasing pressure at Labour’s conference over embracing electoral reform, with delegates expected to approve a motion calling for the party to replace first past the post with a proportional system.
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Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Troubles legacy bill 'can be improved', says new Northern Ireland secretary
The government bill aimed at addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s Troubles can be improved, Chris Heaton-Harris, the new Northern Ireland secretary, has said. Speaking in Belfast, he said:
I know it is a bill that can be improved and so I’m looking forward to the House of Lords offering some views on how it can be improved. I know there is no ideal solution on legacy.
Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
Truss says pubs will be among 'vulnerable businesses' getting help with energy bills for more than 6 months
Liz Truss also recorded an interview at the top of the Empire State Building with ITV’s Anushka Asthana. Much of it echoed what she said in her BBC and Sky interviews, but she there were some fresh lines too. Here they are.
Truss said that pubs would be among the “vulnerable businesses” that will get ongoing support with energy bills after the initial six-month support package runs out. Details of the whole initative are due to be announced tomorrow, fleshing out the cursory outline given by Truss in her statement to MPs before the Queen died. Asked what would happen to companies needing help for more than six months, Truss replied:
For businesses that are vulnerable, who don’t the wherewithall to invest in their own energy supply, we will be providing support in the longer term. That does include businesses like pubs.
The business secretary [Jacob Rees-Mogg] is conducting a review of exactly which businesses will be included; that review will be completed within three months. I can reassure people who own pubs that they are exactly the type of businesses that will get that longer term support.
She did not rule out extending into the next financial year some of the specific measures in place this winter to help poorer households with energy bills. The Truss energy price guarantee is due to last two years, but measures announced by Rishi Sunak earlier this year, offering targeted help to poor households, pensioners and disabled people, only last over the winter. Asked what could be done to help these groups after spring, Truss said: “Next year, of course, we will continue to assess the situation as we move forward.”
She brushed aside claims that George Osborne’s corporation tax cuts did little to increase business investment. This argument is accepted by many economists, and even Rishi Sunak, the former Tory chancellor, believed the investment bonus from the corporation tax cuts was limited. A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research says a “race to the bottom” on the headline tax rate on company profits has failed to boost investment. But when this was put to Truss, she replied:
When corporation tax was reduced we did see more revenue coming into the exchequer. And what we are going to be doing on corporation tax is keeping it at the same level and keeping it competitive compared to other countries.
Truss suggested “vested interests” were opposed to the plan to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses. When asked who these vested interests were, Truss said she was making a general point about vested interests being opposed to reform.
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The Labour MP Kevin Brennan says he has had surgery for prostate cancer and should require no further treatment. He has written about it in a Twitter thread.
Some personal news – a thread - last week I had surgery at UHW Cardiff for prostate cancer – I am recuperating very well and should require no further treatment. (1/6)
— Kevin Brennan MP (@KevinBrennanMP) September 20, 2022
Keir Starmer has paid tribute to Rosie Cooper, who is stepping down as a Labour MP (See 11.51am). He said:
Rosie’s commitment to the Labour party and to West Lancashire as their member of parliament since 2005 has been inspiring.
As well as being a dedicated champion for her constituents in parliament, Rosie has paved the way for the deaf community and future generations by securing the British Sign Language Act.
Her constituents hold Rosie in the highest regard, a testimony of 17 years of hard work and commitment to them. I know she’ll be missed.
Cooper is expected to formally resign to allow a byelection later in the autumn.
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Truss rejects claims her economic policies will prompt Bank of England to raise interest rates
Liz Truss has also recorded an interview with the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason. As she did in her Sky News interview, she insisted that she was willing to take unpopular decisions in her quest to promote growth. (Sky’s Beth Rigby was asking about Truss’s decision not to implement a new windfall tax on energy companies – a plan backed by two-thirds of voters; Mason was asking Truss about her proposal to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses.)
PM Liz Truss says she is prepared to take "difficult decisions" like lifting the cap on bankers' bonuses
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 20, 2022
"What I want to see is a growing economy," she tells @ChrisMasonBBC https://t.co/k4JkdV7dWU pic.twitter.com/8WxWvTZMNN
Here are some other lines from the BBC interview.
Truss said she did not accept that her economic policies, which include substantial tax cuts, would encourage the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Most economists believes that cutting tax on the scale planned will be inflationary, leading the Bank to raise interest rates by more than otherwise planned. But Truss said she did not accept this. When Mason put it to her that her plans would result in people paying more for their mortgages, Truss replied:
I don’t accept that analysis. And in fact, the energy package that we announced and the business secretary will be saying more about that this week, is projected to lead to a lowering of inflation by up to five percentage points, because a lot of the cost of inflation has been driven by higher energy prices, primarily caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine. So the intervention the UK government is undertaking will help reduce inflation and also boost economic growth.
She refused to accept that the recent fall in the value of the pound was a cause of concern. Asked if she was worried about it, she replied: “My belief is that Britain’s economic fundamentals are strong. We have relatively low debt compared to the rest of the G7. We have strong employment.”
She suggested lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses would make Britain more attractive to investors and more competitive.
She said the UK needed to do more to help people who are economically inactive into work. (There is growing concern about the large number of people in their 50s and 60s who have left the labour market. In a recent article for the FT, Camilla Cavendish blamed ill health and the NHS backlog.)
Truss defended her proposal to cancel planned corporation tax increases, saying “corporation tax needs to be competitive with other countries”.
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Q: What is your message to people worried about interest rates going up, and about a tough winter?
Truss says her government will be taking every step and straining ever sinew to get the economy going.
We will get through this, she says.
And that’s the end of the interview.
Truss says the UK has had low growth because it has had relatively low capital investment.
Yet the UK has one of the best financial centres in the world, she says.
She says she wants to see that money “put to good use across the country”.
Q: But people care about fairness too, don’t they?
Truss says that is an argument of the left. She says, by keeping taxes down, she will grow the economy. And that will lead to tax revenues going up.
Truss says she does not accept the claim that tax cuts will not help people generally.
People care about things like seeing roads built, or getting better mobile phone coverage, she says.
Truss says she is prepared to be unpopular as she sets out policies to deliver growth
Sky News is broadcasting an interview with Liz Truss by Beth Rigby, the Sky political editor.
Q: Why is it fair for people to take the pain of higher energy bills when energy companies are making such big profits?
Truss says the plan to deal with energy bills will cost the government money. The government also has a plan to guaranteed long-term energy supply, she says.
She says she would not allow the burden to fall on people and businesses.
Q: But you would rather the taxpayer foots the bill than business?
Truss says on Friday the chancellor will explain how this will be paid for.
The energy plan is likely to reduce inflation by five percentage points, and encourage growth, she says.
Q: Labour’s policy, a windfall tax, is backed by 68% of the public. You are prepared to be unpopular, aren’t you?
Truss replies: “Yes. Yes, I am.”
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Biden says he's 'sick and tired of trickle-down economics' ahead of meeting with Truss
Liz Truss is due to have her first proper meeting with Joe Biden, the US president, tomorrow. It is not obvious what prompted him to post this on Twitter about half an hour ago, but it suggests that his bilateral with Truss tomorrow won’t be a meeting of minds.
Liz Truss is more committed to trickle-down economics than any other British prime minister taking office at least since Margaret Thatcher in 1979 (and even Thatcher was in power for nine years before she finally got round to slashing the top rate of income tax to 40%). Biden says he is “sick and tired” of this approach because it never works.
I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics. It has never worked.
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 20, 2022
We're building an economy from the bottom up and middle out.
Drakeford says he is still waiting for first proper chat with new prime minister
The Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, has revealed that he has not yet had a chance to have a proper introductory conversation with the new prime minister, Liz Truss.
He said he hoped there would be “mutual respect” between the UK and Welsh governments but added:
There has been no opportunity as yet to test the appetite of the new prime minister for such an approach. On the day he was appointed Boris Johnson telephoned me and the first minister of Scotland.
He said the same thing happened when Theresa May and David Cameron became UK PM.
But, speaking at first minister’s questions in the Welsh Senedd, Drakeford added:
I understand that the new prime minister has not had the first week she would have expected. And now the prime minister has left the country. I hope it will not be long delayed before she does find an opportunity to speak with the elected leaders of other parliaments in the United Kingdom.
Ed Balls, the all-powerful adviser to Gordon Brown when Brown was chancellor, and subsequently shadow chancellor when Ed Miliband was Labour leader, is having an “I told you so” moment on the subject of the proposed UK-US trade deal. (See 9.44am.)
I thought it worth digging out our Harvard-Kings working paper from 2018 - 'On The Rebound: Prospects for a US-UK Free Trade Agreement' - which doesn't look too bad five years on.. @HKS_BizGov @thestrandgroup @PeterASands https://t.co/qm55vLF02M
— Ed Balls (@edballs) September 20, 2022
Here is an extract from the conclusion to the report, written in 2018.
Despite the enthusiasm expressed by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, officials directly involved, and experts with experience of such negotiations, express scepticism that a deal of any significance can be achieved …
The conclusion is clear: a USUK FTA is only going to happen if the UK makes concessions that are unlikely to be politically acceptable and in any case, promises relatively limited upside for UK business. However, the importance of such a deal to the overall Brexit narrative (and specifically, to the case for leaving the customs union) means that the government is likely to continue to behave as if negotiating an attractive deal with the US remains a realistic possibility.
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Commons Treasury committee says it's 'vital' to get new OBR economic forecast alongside 'emergency budget' on Friday
On Friday Kwasi Kwarteng, the new chancellor, will announce a series of tax cuts expected to be worth at least £30bn. As a tax package, it will be far, far bigger than anything in any recent budget, but the Treasury insists that it is a “fiscal event”, not a proper budget.
The official explanation for that is that Kwarteng is acting quickly to implement the promises that Liz Truss made in the Tory leadership contest and that a full budget would take longer, because it would have to include a myriad of other decisions (like duty on cigarettes etc).
But a full budget would also require the publication of a new economic forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, and there are suspicions that Kwarteng is avoiding a budget this week because he does not want the OBR publishing figures that undermine his policy announcements. Over the summer the Liz Truss leadership campaign briefed journalists that her “emergency budget” would not be accompanied by a new OBR forecast, and Kwarteng has said nothing to suggest that Truss has changed her mind, or that OBR figures will be published on Friday.
The OBR has told the Commons Treasury committee in a letter that it could, if necessary, produce a forecast this week, even thought it normally gets more preparation time.
Today Mel Stride, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons Treasury committee, has released the text of an open letter to Kwarteng saying that he should publish an OBR forecast on Friday. Stride said:
As a committee, we have in the past reported to the house that we consider it very important that significant changes to taxation are announced in a fiscal event alongside an OBR forecast. These forecasts are a vital indicator of the health of the nation’s finances, and provide reassurance and confidence to international markets and investors.
There has been a deterioration in our economic outlook since the last OBR forecast in March. There have been significant fiscal interventions since then and we are told there will be further significant interventions including major permanent tax cuts to be announced on Friday. Under these circumstances, it is vital that an independent OBR forecast is provided.
Like all select committees, the Treasury committee has a government majority.
My colleague Heather Stewart says not publishing a new OBR forecast on Friday would be staggering, and a betrayal of what the former Tory chancellor George Osborne intended when he created the OBR in the first place.
So they should - can’t help finding it *mind-blowing* the new chancellor is preparing to spray £100bn+ at the energy markets and overhaul the tax system, without any independent estimate of the impact on the economy/public finances. https://t.co/9Y1UR0l9ju
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) September 20, 2022
Here’s George Osborne, on the creation of the OBR in 2010: “I recognise that this will create a rod for my back down the line, and for the backs of future chancellors.
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather) September 20, 2022
That is the whole point.”
[from this speech] https://t.co/xockGMWAJu
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Scottish government accused of failing to address A&E waiting times 'crisis'
Opposition leaders at Holyrood have called for urgent action after Scotland recorded its worst-ever waiting times for accident and emergency, with fewer than 64% of patients seen within four hours last week.
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives said the data from Public Health Scotland showed hospitals were being “overwhelmed”, and accused Humza Yousaf, the health secretary, of failing to act.
The data showed nearly 10,000 people waited for more than four hours before being seen last week, 3,400 for at least eight hours, and 1,257 for more than 12 hours. NHS Forth Valley, which covers Falkirk and Stirling, had a four-hour rate of 38.3%; NHS Lanarkshire, which covers towns such as East Kilbride and Hamilton, 51.9%, and NHS Fife 56.2%.
NHS Lanarkshire has a warning to patients on its website which reads: “Our services are under EXTREME PRESSURE”, and urges people with non-critical injuries to call an NHS advice line first.
Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, said:
Today’s harrowing statistics are proof positive of this SNP government’s life-threatening inaction.
[While] frontline NHS staff work tirelessly around the clock, Humza Yousaf has completely failed to make any meaningful attempt to address the underlying problems or control this crisis. If we are to avoid a full-blown humanitarian crisis this winter then the government must act now.
Yousaf said hospitals across the UK were struggling to cope, but said the NHS had been given £50m extra to improve emergency care. He added:
Notwithstanding this, I am clear that the current level of performance is not acceptable, that is why I am determined to improve performance and am working closely with boards on a number of measures to reduce pressure on hospitals.
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The first biography of Liz Truss will be out in time for Christmas, according to one of its authors, James Heale, diary editor of the Spectator. He is working on the book with Harry Cole, political editor of the Sun.
Excited to be working on the first biography of Britain’s new Prime Minister with @MrHarryCole and @HarperCollins.
— James Heale (@JAHeale) September 20, 2022
You can preorder here in time for Christmas:https://t.co/oE5CqB8v66 pic.twitter.com/3FrNJFmDHr
Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory deputy chairman, is also writing a Truss biography. His will be out later, because he wants it to cover her first year in office.
'Not every measure will be popular' - Truss admits voters may not like all her pro-growth measures
Liz Truss has said that she is willing to implement unpopular policies in her quest to boost growth in the UK.
Speaking to reporters on her flight to New York, she seemed to defend the much-criticised proposal to lift the cap on bankers’ bonuses by saying: “Not every measure will be popular.”
She also indicated that as prime minister she would be willing to argue explicitly that “growing the size of the pie” (ie, growing the economy) matters more than ensuring it is fairly distributed. This is a view shared by many Conservatives, but most of Truss’s recent predecessors as party leader would not have said so as bluntly as Truss is prepared to do (for example, in her interview with Laura Kuenssberg two weeks ago).
My colleague Pippa Crerar has a full write-up of what Truss said to reporters last night about her desire to promote growth through tax cuts here.
Higher energy bills a price worth paying for UK security, says Truss
Higher energy bills are a price worth paying to guarantee the UK’s security from foreign aggressors, but the cost should not be passed on to householders, Liz Truss has said. My colleague Pippa Crerar has the story here.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the No 10 spokesperson said that, as well having a bilateral meeting later today with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Liz Truss will also have one with the Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida.
Truss also has a meeting with Gitanas Nausėda, the president of Lithuania.
And she will be visiting the Ukrainian Institute of America, where she will meet Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, as well as the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. At the institute Truss will view an exhibition on Russian war crimes.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, is also in New York for the UN general assembly (UNGA). Today he will have his first meeting in his new post with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken
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And while we’re on about people “overegging” things (see 11.37am), my colleague Jennifer Rankin, the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent, says the Labour party is wrong to present the government’s failure to get a trade deal with the US as a grievous blow to the economy (see 9.40am).
I understand the politics behind Labour's line on stalled US-UK trade deal "terrible news for the economy". But the economic benefits were going to be negligible (0.2%) and would almost certainly carry a cost for British farmers. https://t.co/bAXXaqhVL0
— Jennifer Rankin (@JenniferMerode) September 20, 2022
Rosalind McCall has become the first new member of the Scottish parliament to swear allegiance to King Charles III, after she took her seat at Holyrood on Tuesday morning.
McCall, known as Roz, has taken one of the Scottish Conservatives’ list seats for Mid Scotland and Fife after Dean Lockhart, a former lawyer and convener of Holyrood’s net zero, energy and transport committee, quit parliament to take up a job at a net zero company.
A former Tory councillor in Perth & Kinross, she had been due to take her seat earlier this month but that was delayed by the Queen’s death at Balmoral. Instead, McCall’s swearing-in became the first bit of business when Holyrood resumed on Tuesday.
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Labour's Rosie Cooper indicates she will stand down as MP to take new job as chair of NHS trust
Rosie Cooper has indicated that she intends to stand down as Labour MP for West Lancashire to take up a new job as chair of the Mersey Care NHS foundation trust. In her statement announcing the move Cooper says that events in recent years have “undoubtedly taken their toll” – a reference to Cooper being targeted by a neo-Nazi who was jailed for life in 2019 for plotting to kill her.
Statement from West Lancashire MP Rosie Cooper pic.twitter.com/yJ6nbMaeIh
— Rosie Cooper MP (@rosie4westlancs) September 20, 2022
Cooper’s statement implies she will resign and trigger a byelection. At the last election she had a majority of more than 8,000 over the Conservatives, and in a byelection Labour would be expected to hold the seat very easily.
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No need for Truss to apologise to Macron for not saying whether he was friend or foe, says Donelan
Liz Truss is due to meet Emmanuel Macron, the French president, at the UN this afternoon. It will be their first proper meeting since she scandalised mainstream diplomatic opinion during the Tory leadership contest by refusing to say whether she considered him a friend or foe. The response from Macron was seen as considerably more statesmanlike.
Michelle Donelan, the culture secretary, was asked about Truss’s comment this morning. She could have said said that Truss was just making a joke (which was probably at least half true – look at the expression on Truss’s face in the video clip), but it is never wise to contradict the boss and instead Donelan defended what Truss said. Asked if Truss should apologise to Macron, Donelan told Times Radio:
Well, absolutely not. The prime minister is entitled to make comments on any topic she should see fit to do so. So I don’t think she needs to apologise.
But on LBC Donelan did sound more conciliatory. She said it would be a mistake to “overegg” the comment made by Truss, and she claimed the PM has had “many warm conversations” with Macron over the past week.
Global Justice Now, which campaigns for a fairer global economy, has welcomed the news that there will be no UK-US free trade deal in the next few years. Jean Blaylock, its trade campaign manager, said:
It’s a real relief that there’s no immediate prospect of a US-UK trade deal, as Liz Truss has shown few signs she could negotiate her way out of a chlorinated chicken box.
The experience of the Australia trade deal is that Truss is willing to sacrifice almost anything she is asked to sacrifice to get a deal – and food standards, environmental protections and labour rights suffer as a result.
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About 250,000 people queued to see Queen’s coffin in London, says culture secretary Michelle Donelan
About a quarter of a million people queued for up to 17 hours to see the Queen’s coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall, Michelle Donelan, the culture secretary, said this morning.
She also refused to say how much the government spent staging the state funeral for the Queen, but she said “the British public would argue that that was money well spent”.
My colleague Tobi Thomas has the story here.
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The Liberal Democrats say Liz Truss is personally to blame for the failure of the UK to strike a trade deal with the US (see 9.44am) because she used to be international trade secretary, and then foreign secretary. In a statement Layla Moran, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, said:
This is the latest broken promise on trade from Liz Truss and the Conservatives. Businesses up and down the country are tangled in red tape, farmers have been sold down the river, and now it turns out that a deal with one of our largest partners is not even on the table.
Liz Truss’s cack-handed diplomacy over the Northern Ireland protocol has become a major roadblock to getting this vital trade deal even started.
Any competent political party would have made sure the trade and then foreign secretary responsible for this series of failures would be held responsible. Instead, the Conservatives have made her prime minister.
Culture secretary claims 'tweaks' to make online safety bill less restrictive will only relate to adults, not children
In her first PMQs as prime minister, Liz Truss said that under her premiership there would be “tweaks” to the online safety bill to ensure it did more to protect free speech. The bill is currently at report stage in the House of Commons, which means MPs have already spent many hours debating it, but the government could still table amendments in the Commons or in the House of Lords.
In her interviews this morning Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, claimed that the changes proposed by Truss would not affect the measures in the bill protecting children. They would only relate to ensuring “we’ve got the balance right in terms of free speech in relation to adults”, she said.
She told the Today programme:
I’m not going to announce today exactly how we’ll be changing [the bill] because the due process will be to do that in parliament.
But that element is in relation to adults. The bits in relation to children and online safety will not be changing. And that is the overarching objective of the bill, and why we put it in our manifesto.
But Donelan did not explain how the provisions in the bill could be made less restrictive for adults without the ability of children to access harmful material also being affected. Social media companies have been notoriously bad at enforcing age controls.
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Ministers to review Channel 4 privatisation and scrapping of BBC licence fee
Ministers are reviewing the decisions to privatise Channel 4 and to scrap the BBC licence fee, Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, has said. My colleague Jessica Elgot has the story here.
Truss says UK military aid to Ukraine in 2023 will match, or exceed, military aid offered this year
Liz Truss will address the UN general assembly on Wednesday. In another item of news to emerge from her trip overnight, No 10 has said she will promise that UK military aid to Ukraine in 2023 will match, or exceed, the military aid offered this year. In its news release Downing Street says:
The UK is already the second largest military donor to Ukraine, committing £2.3bn in 2022. We have trained 27,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces since 2015, and in the last year we have provided hundreds of rockets, five air defence systems, 120 armoured vehicles and over 200,000 pieces of non-lethal military equipment.
Last week saw the largest commercial road move of ammunition since the second world war as tens of thousands more rounds of UK-donated artillery ammunition went to the front lines in Ukraine.
The precise nature of UK military support in 2023 will be determined based on the needs of the armed forces of Ukraine. However, it is expected to include equipment like the multiple launch rocket system, provided to Ukraine by the UK and others, which has been decisive in allowing Ukraine to re-gain over 3,000 square kilometres of territory in recent days.
UPDATE: This post has been corrected to say Truss is addressing the general assembly on Wednesday, not Thursday.
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Truss’s admission talks on trade deal with US have been shelved is ‘terrible news for UK economy’, Labour says
Good morning. As my colleague Pippa Crerar reports, it turns out Barack Obama was right after all. When it comes to a free trade deal with the US, post-Brexit Britain really is at the back of the queue.
Liz Truss admitted that she did not expect talks on a free trade deal with the US to start “in the short to medium term” while speaking to reporters last night on her plane over to New York, where she is attending the United Nations general assembly. No one who has followed progress towards the “massive” free trade deal once promised will be surprised by the substance of what Truss said; it has been clear since Joe Biden won the US presidential election that for the time being the deal is all but dead. But the fact that Truss was prepared to admit this quite openly is notable. Last year, on a similar trip to the US, Boris Johnson was more evasive.
In answering the question candidly, Truss was also burying a commitment in the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto, which said:
Our goals for British trade are accordingly ambitious. We aim to have 80 per cent of UK trade covered by free trade agreements within the next three years, starting with the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
The Truss comment also marks the return of No 10 as a news-generation machine. After the death of the Queen, all government business was put on hold and even the sources who give journalists unattributable briefings more or less clammed up. But now political news is back. We will be hearing more from Truss later today, and this morning Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, has done a full interview round. I will summarise the key points shortly.
Labour opposed Brexit in 2016, but under Keir Starmer it is now presenting itself as the party that would “make Brexit work”, and it now routinely attacks the Tories for failing to implement Brexit properly. Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow international trade secretary, says Truss’s admission that the US free trade deal won’t happen is “terrible news” for the economy. He says:
The admission that there is no prospect of a trade deal with the USA is terrible news for the UK economy – it is costing billions in lost potential trade opportunities and holding back growth.
There is no doubt that the blame for this mess lies at the door of the prime minister, who tarnished the UK’s international reputation as foreign and international trade secretary. This is an embarrassment for Liz Truss.
The Conservative manifesto promised a trade deal with the United States by the end of this year, now this has no chance of being delivered.
Only the fresh start a Labour government can provide will rebuild these international relationships and run a trade policy focused on growth.
Parliament is not sitting today. Here is the agenda.
Lunchtime (UK time): Liz Truss is expected to record interviews in New York, where she is in a visit to attend the United Nations general assembly.
Around 4pm (UK time): Truss is due to hold a meeting with Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
Also, at some point today Brandon Lewis, the new justice secretary, is due to hold a meeting with the Criminal Bar Association to discuss the barristers’ strike.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com
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