End of day summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
Liz Truss is set to win the Tory leadership contest by a decisive margin next month, according to an exclusive Sky News poll. The foreign secretary has a 32-point lead over her rival, Rishi Sunak, in the poll, which was published today. The gap between the two candidates to replace Boris Johnson has narrowed – Truss had a 38-point lead in the last poll – but the foreign secretary is still set to win by large margin.
Future Tory leadership contests should be run faster, a cabinet minister has said, saying he would have been “happy if this whole process was over more quickly”. James Cleverly, a backer of Truss, said it would be right if the two-month process were curtailed in future.
Britain’s first double-digit inflation in more than four decades has cast doubts on the plausibility of the tax cuts being promised by Truss and Sunak during their leadership battle, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has said. Following news that the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to July, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said higher inflation would mean extra spending on welfare benefits, state pensions and on debt interest.
Two-thirds of all UK households will be trapped in fuel poverty by January with planned government support leaving even middle-income households struggling to pay their bills, according to research. It shows 18 million families, the equivalent of 45 million people, will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.
The leader of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, has suggested unions are on the brink of calling for “synchronised” strikes over widespread anger at how much soaring inflation is outpacing wages. Speaking from a picket line in Euston as railway workers staged another strike in their dispute over pay and conditions, Lynch predicted “a massive response coming from working people”.
Margaret Ferrier has pleaded guilty to breaching Covid rules by travelling on a train between Scotland and London after being told to self-isolate in September 2020. In a hearing at Glasgow sheriff court on Thursday, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West admitted that she culpably and recklessly exposed the public to risk of Covid-19 infection.
Truss is to be “empty chaired” by farmers after snubbing the rural hustings scheduled for tomorrow. Sunak is due to address members of the National Farmers’ Union tomorrow, but despite pleas from the president of the NFU, Truss has refused to attend.
Keir Starmer is facing a potential revolt from union leaders and party members over banning his shadow cabinet from joining picket lines at the Labour party conference next month. Momentum has launched a campaign aimed at persuading Labour’s MPs and leadership into backing striking workers in the run-up to the conference in Liverpool at the end of September.
We’ll be closing this liveblog shortly. Thanks so much for joining me. I’ll be back again tomorrow.
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Momentum tries to get Labour MPs to back strikers in revolt against Starmer's stance
Keir Starmer is facing a potential revolt from union leaders and party members over banning his shadow cabinet from joining picket lines at the Labour party conference next month.
Momentum has launched a campaign aimed at persuading Labour’s MPs and leadership into backing striking workers in the run-up to the conference in Liverpool at the end of September.
Launched two days before the next set of rail strikes called by the RMT, the campaign comes amid a backlash within Labour to Starmer’s ban on shadow ministers attending picket lines. Trade union leaders, including those usually loyal to the Labour leader, have reacted with fury to the picket line ban.
The campaign, Labour for labour, has been launched with Sam Tarry, who was sacked as shadow transport minister for attending a picket line with striking rail workers. Other MPs supporting it include Zarah Sultana, Jon Trickett and Dawn Butler.
Tarry said that by firing shadow ministers such as himself for standing on picket lines, Starmer was “in danger of driving a wedge between Labour and the millions of working people desperate for real relief” in the cost of living crisis.
He added:
There are seven million trades unionists in Britain - we need their votes to win power.
Momentum wants members to pass motions in their constituency Labour party (CLPs) to send to Labour conference at the end of September, with the aim of forcing the party’s leadership to instruct shadow ministers to attend picket lines.
The left-wing campaign organisation also said it was confident that the conference would see trade unions and party member delegates unite against Starmer’s position, in a major blow to his authority.
The series of ongoing strikes in response to the cost of living crisis have posed a headache for Starmer, who has seen his instruction not to attend picket lines ignored by multiple shadow ministers, including Lisa Nandy, a Labour whip, Nav Mishra, and shadow employment rights minister Imran Hussain.
Zarah Sultana MP said the cost of living crisis was getting worse while the Tory government “sits on their hands”.
She continued:
As a party, Labour should stand with workers standing up for their jobs and livelihoods, by backing an inflation-proof pay rise and getting down to picket lines. Whether it’s rail workers or posties or firefighters, these workers – and the trade unions that represent them – are the beating heart, not just of the labour movement, but of the country.
Hilary Schan, Momentum co-chair agreed:
Britain is on the brink – with the Tories missing in action, now is the time for Labour to champion real relief for the millions of people suffering in this cost of living crisis.
Keir Starmer needs to get off the fence and stand on the picket lines with working people fighting for their livelihoods, whether it’s rail workers or posties. What’s more, he should come out for the inflation-proof pay rise the people of this country deserve.
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Rail passengers have faced another day of disruption, with the union leader Mick Lynch warning the dispute could go on “indefinitely” unless ministers intervene in talks.
Only 20% of train services were running on Thursday due to strike action across Great Britain that involved more than 45,000 rail workers, who are members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) and TSSA unions.
Commuters were told to only try to travel if absolutely necessary, with further disruption planned on Friday and the weekend. In London, bus drivers and London Underground workers plan to strike in the coming days.
Lynch, the RMT’s general secretary, said the strikes could be prolonged “indefinitely” unless the government ended its stance of refusing to get involved in negotiations.
Read more here:
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Rishi Sunak’s habit of slightly awkward interactions with the everyday world has continued after he talked of enjoying McDonald’s breakfast wraps – an item that disappeared from the fast food chain’s UK menu nearly two-and-a-half years ago.
The former chancellor was speaking to ITV’s This Morning programme a day after he was photographed at a branch of McDonald’s, where again he appeared to struggle slightly to make a contactless card payment.
Asked by the show’s hosts Rochelle Hughes and Andi Peters what he had eaten, Sunak said it had been about 7.30am, and so he ate a bacon roll with ketchup and pancakes.
“If I’m with my daughters then we get the wrap,” the Conservative leadership hopeful continued. “My eldest daughter – if I’m with her, it’s the wrap with hash browns and everything in it. It’s what we do.”
However, a McDonald’s spokesman confirmed that the chain had stopped selling breakfast wraps in March 2020, a move made permanent with an announcement in January this year.
A source from Sunak’s campaign said he had eaten the wraps with his children when they were on the menu: “I think given he has barely seen his kids in the last two-and-a-half years, it’s likely he hasn’t been to McDonald’s in that time.”
During his time as a minister, and especially amid the battle to succeed Boris Johnson, Sunak and his team have sought to present the wealthy former banker as someone nonetheless in touch with the concerns of voters.
A photoshoot for the budget in March, when he was still chancellor, showed Sunak at a petrol station filling up a car that later turned out to be borrowed. He was then pictured trying to pay by holding his bank card up to a barcode scanner, rather than the payment machine.
On This Morning on Thursday, Sunak received a half-mocking round of applause from within the studio after the hosts said his McDonald’s photo shoot showed him successfully paying with a card. “I’ve managed to work it out,” he joked.
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Full story: MP Margaret Ferrier pleads guilty to breaching Covid rules
The MP Margaret Ferrier has pleaded guilty at Glasgow sheriff court to breaching Covid rules by travelling on a train between Scotland and London after being told to self-isolate in September 2020.
The former Scottish National party politician, who now sits as an independent MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, was suspended from her party after the rule-breaking came to light in October 2020.
She immediately referred herself to the police and to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
Read more here:
Liz Truss is to be “empty chaired” by farmers after snubbing the rural hustings scheduled for tomorrow.
Her leadership rival, Rishi Sunak, is due to address members of the National Farmers’ Union tomorrow, but despite pleas from the president of the NFU, Truss has refused to attend.
The foreign secretary would probably have been asked about the accusations on Wednesday by the environment secretary, George Eustice, that she refused to enshrine animal welfare standards in trade deals.
The NFU’s president, Minette Batters, said it was a “shame” Truss did not want to attend the hustings, adding:
It doesn’t bode well – George Eustice has made his comments – you would think she would want to put her marker down.
UK farmers have felt undercut by post-Brexit trade deals with other countries, which have threatened to hold agriculture abroad to lower standards than those that farmers at home are forced to comply with.
New Zealand farmers were delighted by the trade deal Truss signed, with a recent report on New Zealand news describing UK farmers as “sacrificial lambs”, because of the no-tariff imports agreed by the deal. It explained how the UK’s less intensive farming methods could mean they are soon outpriced by New Zealand.
Truss’s team said she “cannot turn up to everything” and was making an effort to speak to tens of thousands of Conservative members across the country.
However, Batters said the recent drought and cost of living crises mean it is more important than ever that Truss speaks to farmers. She hopes that even though Truss is missing the organised hustings this Friday, she will meet farmers in coming weeks to discuss rural policy.
She said:
I have offered to meet her anywhere. I’ve offered to do it virtually, we aren’t tied to any location or anything. But it doesn’t look likely.
Read more here:
Margaret Ferrier has pleaded guilty to breaching Covid rules by travelling on a train between Scotland and London after being told to self-isolate in September 2020.
In a hearing at Glasgow sheriff court on Thursday, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West admitted that she culpably and recklessly exposed the public to risk of Covid-19 infection.
Ferrier admitted wilfully exposing people “to the risk of infection, illness and death” by visiting various places in the Glasgow area and London having been told to self-isolate in late September 2020.
She had the SNP whip removed in 2020 after the allegations emerged and has come under pressure to resign from her seat, but remains an MP.
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Rishi Sunak rejected Labour’s proposal to freeze energy costs as a “blunt instrument” that would benefit those who do not need the support.
He told ITV’s This Morning:
I think that’s a very blunt instrument that actually provides a lot of support for people who don’t need it, and at a time when inflation is already running really high it’s really risky, I think, for a government to borrow an enormous amount of money and pump that into the economy.
His dismissal of the policy also seemed to attack the plans of his rival, Liz Truss, with Sunak continuing:
It’s a big gamble because at a time when inflation is already high, interest rates are already going up and many people will have loans and mortgages and they will be worried about that.
If the government embarks on a spree of just borrowing tens and tens and tens of billions of pounds, that means inflation could get worse, it’s like putting fuel on the fire and that’s the mistake we made in the 70s. I don’t want to repeat that mistake and I’d be really worried about plans that suggest that is the right thing to do.
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The Tory leadership contender Rishi Sunak insisted he can deliver all of his pledges after economists said promises of large tax cuts were implausible.
He said he would help society’s most vulnerable through the cost of living crisis, telling ITV’s This Morning:
I can guarantee that all of the things I’ve just told you about will happen because that is what government should be about.
It should be about under-promising and over-delivering, that’s how you restore trust in government and politics. We’ve probably not had enough of that.
That’s why in this leadership race I’ve not been making lots of easy promises that I think are false.
I would rather lose than say things I don’t think can be delivered – I’d rather be honest with people.
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Two-thirds of all UK households will be trapped in fuel poverty by January with planned government support leaving even middle-income households struggling to pay their bills, according to research.
It shows 18 million families, the equivalent of 45 million people, will be left trying to make ends meet after further predicted rises in the energy price cap in October and January.
An estimated 86.4% of pensioner couples are expected to fall into fuel poverty, traditionally defined as when energy costs exceed 10% of a household’s net income, and 90.4% of lone parents with two or more children.
The study by the University of York also shows huge regional variation in the cost of living crisis with 57.9% of households in the south-east predicted to be struggling with energy bills by January, compared with 70.9% in the West Midlands and 76.3% in Northern Ireland.
The figures come after inflation soared to a 40-year high of 10.1% – heaping more pain on households as the costs of food, energy and fuel continue to rise.
Asda’s chairman, Stuart Rose, criticised the government– which will fund a £400 universal energy grant in October as well as further support targeted at the poorest families – for a “horrifying” lack of action over inflation. “It’s going to be painful for everybody,” he told BBC radio.
“We have been very, very slow in recognising this train coming down the tunnel,” added the Tory peer.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies also warned that “permanent tax cuts” promised by the Tory leadership candidates, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, could exacerbate pressures on the public purse. It suggested short-term government borrowing to support struggling households may be a necessary step for the next prime minister.
The warning that 65.8% of all UK households will be in fuel poverty by January follows revised forecasts from the consultancy Cornwall Insight last week that annual energy bills could top £4,200 from January. Just the week before they had predicted the energy price cap was on track to rise to £3,615.
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The Tory leadership contender Rishi Sunak said he contacted Boris Johnson after resigning as chancellor but the outgoing prime minister has not replied.
Asked if Johnson still talks to him, Sunak told ITV’s This Morning:
No. No, I’ve reached out to him but understandably he’s not replied.
That’s fair, but it wasn’t just me – at the end of the day, 60 other members of the government all resigned as well.
Asked if Johnson took too long to resign, Sunak said:
In the end it went on for a couple of days – it was a bit odd.
The former chancellor insisted he “definitely” still could win the leadership contest despite polls putting Truss as the frontrunner.
Asked if he still has a chance, said: “Yes, definitely.”
He said he has a “shot of being prime minister”, adding:
I’m really excited to keep going, I think my ideas are the right ones.
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Full story: Tory leadership contests should be run faster, minister says
Future Tory leadership contests should be run faster, a cabinet minister has said, saying they would have been “happy if this whole process was over more quickly”.
James Cleverly, a backer of the frontrunner, Liz Truss, said it would be right if the two-month process was curtailed in future.
It came as a poll showed Truss held a 32-point lead over Rishi Sunak in the final weeks of the contest.
The poll found 38% said they had yet to cast their ballots but intended to do so – though the majority said they would vote for Truss.
The YouGov poll with Sky News found the foreign secretary had 66% of members backing her and 34% backing Sunak, excluding don’t knows.
Asked by LBC if it was appropriate to hold weeks of leadership election hustings while the cost of living crisis continued, Cleverly said:
This is the system that is in place. I do think it is legitimate to look at reviewing that.
That is an internal party process rather than a government process, but as I say, government does continue, ministers are still working.
Cleverly said ministers continued to work under Boris Johnson’s government, despite the prime minister taking multiple holidays, but added: “I would have been happy if this whole process was over more quickly.
One of the people contending for this is a backbencher [Sunak] not involved in government at all any more; Liz is the foreign secretary and I know that she is still active in the foreign affairs side of things as well. But yes, of course we would like to see this wrapped up quickly, but we are still working nonetheless.
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Labour MPs standing on a picket line would not “sort out” industrial disputes over the rising cost of living, the shadow education secretary has said.
Asked whether the opposition will be visiting picket lines, Bridget Phillipson told Times Radio:
We want to be the next government, so, if we were the government, we would be around that negotiating table sorting out the dispute, we would be a party to those negotiations.
I don’t think being on a picket line is going to sort this problem out.
I think it is right that we do speak to workers who are affected by all of these cost-of-living pressures that we face, but my priority is making sure that we get a Labour government that is able to fix some of these big problems that we face as a country.
Asked if Labour frontbenchers are allowed to go and stand on a picket line, Phillipson said she has “had no discussion around that”.
Mick Lynch has accused the transport secretary of trying to “flex his rightwing muscles” to get a job under the Conservative leadership candidates Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss.
Speaking at Euston, the RMT general secretary told the PA news agency:
Grant Shapps is getting more and more hysterical.
What I think you’re seeing is a man who’s worried about his future. He’s got to try and flex his rightwing muscles in front of a parade of two really rightwing people who are going to be his boss.
So I don’t know what Grant Shapps is up to. I don’t think the employers really know what he’s up to. And I don’t think the officials at the Department for Transport know what he’s up to.
Last week he threatened to make everyone redundant on the railway by issuing letters called Section 188 letters.
I think he has lost the plot slightly and he needs to get back on track and enable a settlement to this dispute.
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The leader of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, has suggested unions are on the brink of calling for “synchronised” strikes over widespread anger at how much soaring inflation is outpacing wages.
Speaking from a picket line in Euston as railway workers staged another strike in their dispute over pay and conditions, Lynch predicted “a massive response coming from working people”.
Asked by Sky News how close the UK was to a general strike, Lynch said: “Only the TUC can call a general strike.” The TUC’s general secretary, Frances O’Grady, was on the picket line behind the RMT boss as he spoke.
Lynch added: “There is a wave of reaction amongst working people to the way they are being treated. People are getting poorer every day of the week. People can’t pay their bills. They’re getting treated despicably at the workplace. I think there will be generalised and synchronised action. It may not be in a traditional form.
“But we’ve seen the Post Office workers and BT [on strike], we’ve seen the bus workers in London out on strike tomorrow and over the weekend. I think there is a massive response coming from working people because they’re fed up with the way they’ve been treated.”
This week official figures showed pay had fallen behind inflation at a record rate, and the rate of inflation hit 10.1%.
Lynch repeated that RMT workers did not want to be on strike, but said the union would not back down. He said: “We will keep going until we get a negotiated settlement and our members decide whether it is acceptable or not.”
He confirmed that the RMT had rejected an 8% pay increase offer from Network Rail because it was over three years.
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The Tory leadership contest should be “wrapped up quickly” and future leadership election processes could be reviewed to hasten them, the education secretary has suggested.
Asked by LBC radio if it was appropriate to hold weeks of leadership election hustings while the energy crisis continues, James Cleverly said:
This is the system that is in place. I do think it is legitimate to look at reviewing that.
That is an internal party process rather than a government process, but as I say, government does continue, ministers are still working.
Pressed about whether it was a “bad look”, he added:
I would have been happy if this whole process was over more quickly, but as I say, one of the people contending for this is a backbencher not involved in government at all any more. Liz is the foreign secretary and I know that she is still active in the foreign affairs side of things as well.
But, yes, of course we would like to see this wrapped up quickly, but we are still working nonetheless.
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The education secretary has defended Liz Truss’s plans for cutting tax after economists suggested they may not be sustainable.
Asked about the assessment, Truss’s campaign supporter James Cleverly told Sky News:
Frankly what we have seen is the growth of the UK economy may not be as vibrant as we would like.
That is what Liz is pursuing, it is a growth strategy, and if you don’t have a plan for growth you don’t have a plan for government.
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Britain’s first double-digit inflation in more than four decades has cast doubts on the plausibility of the tax cuts being promised by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak during their leadership battle, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has said.
Following news that the government’s preferred measure of the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to July, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said higher inflation would mean extra spending on welfare benefits, state pensions and on debt interest.
The result of inflation being five times higher than a year earlier would be weaker public finances, making it harder for either of the two hopefuls to replace Boris Johnson to make good on their tax pledges, the IFS said.
Truss, the frontrunner to be the next prime minister, has said she would reverse the increase in national insurance contributions and not go ahead with the planned rise in corporation tax next year – with her package estimated to cost £30bn. Sunak has said he would cut taxes but only when inflation is back under control.
But the IFS said in the next financial year – 2023–24 – borrowing was likely to increase by £23bn, because the government would need to uprate benefits and pensions in line with a higher inflation rate at a cost of £4bn and also pay £54bn in higher debt interest on inflation-linked bonds. The spending increases would only be partly offset by a £34bn increase in tax revenues as a result of rising inflation.
The thinktank said there would be additional pressures, probably running into tens of billions of pounds, to continue to support households struggling with higher energy bills and to compensate public services for the impact of higher than expected inflation.
In a new report published today, the IFS said Truss and Sunak needed to recognise the even greater than usual uncertainty in the public finances. Pressures on public services would be more acute, higher spending than planned looked “inevitable” and tax revenues would depend on the length and depth of the recession being forecast by Threadneedle Street.
The thinktank said additional public borrowing in the short term was not necessarily a problem – and might be appropriate to fund targeted support, but large permanent tax cuts on the scale being mooted during the Tory party’s hustings would exacerbate “already substantial pressures” on the public finances unless matching spending cuts were also implemented. In reality, “significant” spending increases were likely to be needed in face of high inflation, it added.
Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the IFS and an author of the report, said:
The reality is that the UK has got poorer over the last year. That makes tax and spending decisions all the more difficult. It is hard to square the promises that both Ms Truss and Mr Sunak are making to cut taxes over the medium-term with the absence of any specific measures to cut public spending and a presumed desire to manage the nation’s finances responsibly.
Read more from this story here:
Liz Truss set to win Tory leadership race by decisive margin, according to poll
Liz Truss is set to win the Tory leadership contest by a decisive margin next month, according to an exclusive Sky News poll.
The foreign secretary has a 32-point lead over her rival, Rishi Sunak, in the poll, which was published today. The gap between the two candidates to replace Boris Johnson has narrowed – Truss had a 38-point lead in the last poll – but the foreign secretary is still set to win by large margin.
The YouGov survey suggests 66% of members are voting for Truss and 34% are backing Sunak, once those who do not know or will not vote are excluded.
In news that will please Johnson, the survey shows that Tory members still prefer the outgoing prime minister and think ousting him was a mistake. In all, 55% say that Tory MPs were wrong to effectively force Johnson to resign, while 40% say they were right.
If Johnson was still in the contest alongside Sunak and Truss, 46% would vote for Johnson, 24% for Truss and 23% for Sunak.
Welcome to today’s politics liveblog. I’ll be covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or think I’ve missed anything. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com and I’m @Nicola_Slawson on Twitter.
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