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The Telegraph
The Telegraph
National
Chris Price

Wednesday evening UK news briefing: Suella Braverman quits as Home Secretary with withering letter

Evening Briefing logo
Evening Briefing logo

Good evening. MPs will vote on the Prime Minister's fracking plans in what has become an effective "confidence vote" in her leadership, as her Home Secretary resigns and she pledges to honour the "triple lock".

Evening briefing: Today's other essential headlines

'Downright dangerous' | Up to 45 baby deaths could have been avoided at an NHS Trust whose treatment of pregnant mothers led to "significant harm", a damning review has found. Repeated and serious failings in care of babies and mothers at East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust led to some newborns being brain-damaged and others dying. Women faced a "downright dangerous" culture.

The big story: Braverman departs as Home Secretary

Today's Prime Minister's Questions was meant to kick start the fightback for Liz Truss but she faces a tense battle tonight to save her job. 

Suella Braverman has departed as Home Secretary in the latest below to the Prime Minister. Ms Braverman was only in the role for 43 days and said she was resigning after a "mistake" surrounding sending an official document from her personal email. 

She also criticised the "tumultuous time" under the Prime Minister in a withering exit letter aimed squarely at her former boss. 

Ms Truss had already cancelled a trip away from Westminster at the last minute as she faces what is widely being seen as a "confidence vote" this evening. 

The Prime Minister has ordered backbenchers to support her contentious fracking policy, even though many have openly expressed their opposition to it. 

No 10's hardline approach will be seen as a major gamble, raising the stakes with a rank and file already in a mutinous state over her leadership. 

With the vote set to take place at around 7pm, our live blog will have the latest.

Suella Braverman has left her role as Home Secretary - Anadolu Agency
Suella Braverman has left her role as Home Secretary - Anadolu Agency

Earlier, the Prime Minister had told MPs "I am sorry and I have made mistakes," as she appeared at Prime Minister's Questions for the first time since the mini-Budget U-turns. 

She channelled Peter Mandelson as she told MPs "I'm a fighter, not a quitter" and surprised the Commons by committing to maintaining the triple lock on state pensions just a day after Downing Street suggested it could be scrapped. 

The announcement means millions of retirees will receive the biggest pay rise on record as the state pension soars to £10,600 a year next spring.

Ben Wilkinson warns the state pension is unsustainable – and something has to give.

No confidence letter

Even before Ms Braverman's departure and tonight's high stakes vote, the state pensions decision had not been enough to secure total confidence in her position as Prime Minister. 

William Wragg, a vice chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs, publicly announced he has submitted a letter of no confidence in her leadership as he savaged the Government over its mini-Budget. 

Janet Daley says the Prime Minister's performance at the despatch box proved she is all too willing to abandon the free market cause and Patrick O'Flynn says she is fighting on shamelessly

Christopher Hope analyses the forces behind the fledgling fightback, which comes as it was reported that one of her most senior aides has been suspended following anger about negative briefings about Sajid Javid

Jason Stein, a special advisor to the prime minister, faces an investigation by the Cabinet Office.

Soaring inflation

Adding to Ms Truss's difficulties are soaring prices, which have returned to growing at double-digit levels today. 

Cash savers will see their wealth destroyed by soaring inflation, which has jumped back to a 40-year high. 

Moreover, the Treasury will be forced to find an extra £11bn next year after the Prime Minister confirmed the state pension will rise in line with the cost of living. 

The chairman of John Lewis, Dame Sharon White, said the crisis is hitting the retailer harder than the Covid pandemic and has returned it to the 1970s. 

Here are three things you must do today to beat inflation

Things are no better across the Pond, where one of the US Federal Reserve's rate setters, Loretta Mester, has said the central bank must keep raising interest rates aggressively until there are clear signs that prices are cooling and consumer spending is slowing down. 

Jeremy Warner says the EU cannot insulate itself from the coming cataclysm.

Comment and analysis

Ukraine war: Putin imposes martial law on regions

Vladimir Putin has imposed martial law on the four regions of Ukraine that the Kremlin annexed last month. Martial law hands the military extra powers which the Russian president said were necessary to counter the "security risk" to the regions. Putin also announced that extra security powers will be granted to the Russian-installed leaders of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It comes on the same day that Moscow-installed officials in Kherson city told civilians to evacuate in anticipation of a Ukrainian attack. Stay up to date here as Hamish de Bretton-Gordon warns why the worst is yet to come in Ukraine.

Wednesday interview

'You offend one person and suddenly you're an Islamophobe'

Shehan Karunatilaka only got three hours sleep after the Booker Prize ceremony - Andrew Crowley
Shehan Karunatilaka only got three hours sleep after the Booker Prize ceremony - Andrew Crowley

Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka tells Claire Allfree how he wrote a story about a 'radicalised' youth and then opted to remove it from a collection

Read the full story

Sport briefing: Hundred will save county cricket - Key

Tymal Mills will replace Reece Topley in England's T20 World Cup squad after Topley was ruled out of the tournament through injury, just three days from England's opener against Afghanistan. International T20 cricket is less than 20 years old but it is a format in which some of our most treasured heroes would have thrived. Scyld Berry names England's greatest Twenty20 XI. In a exclusive interview, Rob Key reflects on his first six months in charge of England men's cricket and says The Hundred will save the county game. In football, the collapse of relations between Liverpool and Manchester City has reached its nadir. Oliver Brown assesses the 72 hours that took the rivalry to the next level.

Editor's choice

  1. Take our quiz | Inside the minds of Airport Dads (we all know one)
  2. Scientology, Opus Dei and the Mormons | The truth about Britain's 'weirdest' town
  3. Till, review | The shocking racist murder that still haunts America today

Business briefing: Hong Kong spends big to lure firms

Hong Kong has launched a $3.8bn (£3.4bn) fund to lure international businesses back after its zero-Covid policy and authoritarian crackdown crippled the city state’s economy. Asos has laid out survival plans as it swung to a £32m loss and warned that the cost-of-living crisis will result in younger shoppers spending less on clothes this year. The online fashion retailer, whose shares have slumped by as much as 80pc in the past year, has launched a major cost-cutting push. Meanwhile, Netflix has added subscribers for the first quarter in three to halt the streaming decline triggered by the cost-of-living crisis. Shares rose 15pc in after hours trading as investors cheered the unexpectedly strong results.

Tonight starts now

Trip to theatre | Two old codgers nodding off in a nursing home is a typically sly premise for Something in the Air by Peter Gill. This new memory play dances between past and present, and can be unforgiving. For something more uplifting, Hayao Miyazaki's beloved anime My Neighbour Totoro, a 1988 sleeper hit for Japan's famed Studio Ghibli, has been triumphantly brought to the stage in a RSC production. There is a definite "reimagining" of the classics trend in post-lockdown theatre, and 400 years after Molière's birth, Birmingham Rep's revival of Tartuffe is quake-in-your-seat comedy gold that hits the satirical bull's-eye.

Three things for you

And finally... for this evening's downtime

Meet the Carlines | A new show celebrates the life and work of this brilliant, bohemian family of artists. Florence Hallett tells their story of war, tragedy and a bizarre domestic soap opera.

If you want to receive twice-daily briefings like this by email, sign up to the Front Page newsletter here . For two-minute audio updates, try The Briefing - on podcasts, smart speakers and WhatsApp.

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