The Government’s key goal today is to restore stability and credibility when it comes to the economy.
You can expect the chancellor to talk about the need to balance the books and fill a fiscal black hole. The Treasury believes it is around £54bn pounds.
Slightly more of it will be filled by cutting spending that raising taxes, the ratio is around 55% to 45%.
But not all of this is popular or accepted by everyone. Some believe the spending cuts will go too far and return the UK to a form of austerity.
Others – among them some Tory MPs – believe the tax rises are a problem and could make a recession longer and deeper.
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has said he warned Liz Truss she was going too fast with her ill-fated economic plans.
In his first interview since he was sacked by the then PM, Mr Kwarteng told TalkTV he had warned her to “slow down” after September’s mini-budget.
He said he told her it was “mad” to fire him and she would only last “three or four weeks” if she did.
“Little did I know it was only going to be six days,” he added.
Mr Kwarteng was dramatically fired by Ms Truss in October, two weeks after their tax-cutting mini-budget sparked turmoil on financial markets.
After abandoning almost all of the plan in a bid to stay in power, she announced her resignation a few days later after support from Tory MPs ebbed away.
Speaking to TalkTV Mr Kwarteng said that he had warned Ms Truss about going at a breakneck speed with economic measures after the mini-budget.
“She said, ‘Well, I’ve only got two years’ and I said, ‘You will have two months if you carry on like this’. And that is, I’m afraid, what happened.”
He also said: “I think the prime minister was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast. But I think it was too quick.”
In the interview he acknowledged he had to “bear some responsibility” for the pace of the changes, which were “too quick”.
He also revealed he found out he was going to be sacked when he saw a journalist tweeting about it while he was in the car going to Downing Street, after being summoned back from a trip to the US.
He said he had told her: “Prime ministers don’t get rid of chancellors.”
The former chancellor said he did not think the prime minister could fire him “just for implementing what she campaigned on.”
One issue has stoodout like a sore thumb amid the relative political calm that has washed over Westminster in the last five days.
Suella Braverman’s reappointment as home secretary a week after she resigned over security breaches has perplexed and befuddled Conservative MPs and officials.
Given Rishi Sunak’s commitment to integrity, the perception that a great office of state was traded away for support in the race for Number 10 has riled some.
A former cabinet minister said: “Rishi has screwed up and done a grubby deal to get support… he comes out and says ‘I am the savior, I’m whiter than white’ but he’s grey when push comes to shove.”
Another former minister said Mr Sunak was “desperate for her not to back Boris as they were terrified of an election. He needed a coronation as he’s frightened of any electorate.”
Downing Street denied any deal was done.
But there are also live questions about Mrs Braverman’s suitability for the role.
Her resignation just 11 days ago came after she sent a sensitive government document from her personal email account.
One of the recipients was a veteran Conservative MP who is said to be a regular confidante of the home secretary.
But she also accidentally copied in a parliamentary staffer who works for another Tory MP.
Labouris saying the Conservatives are still a “divided and chaotic party” despite the accession of Rishi Sunak as prime minister.
Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden told Sky News that today’s reshuffle will be “another round of ministerial chairs being moved around”.
Mr McFadden said this was now not just affecting politics, “but it’s now affecting people in their pockets”.
While Labour wants to a general election, Mr McFadden said that will only happen if Mr Suank agrees to it, “so as much as I’d like to see one, he probably won’t have one”.
Asked about how Mr Sunak – as a multimillionaire – would be able to implement restrictive economic policy, Mr McFadden says he did not think personal wealth was something to harp on – and he prefers to talk about policies.
A source within Penny Mordaunt’s campaign team has texted Beth Rigby to say: “We have now passed 90. For the sake of the party, it’s important our members have their say.”
Only 25 Tory MPs have publicly backed the Commons leader – compared with 180 for Rishi Sunak.
We heard from Boris Johnson’s campaign last night, as he stood back from the race, that he’d had 102 backers – something commentators have questioned.
It willbecome clear over the coming hours whether Ms Mordaunt’s campaign is inflating the number to try to gain momentum, or whether the bookies and onlookers like George Osborne have got this completely wrong.
If Rishi Sunak is elected, one of the first big concerns he will face is appointing a new defence secretary.
Of course, we don’t yet know who will be in his cabinet, but as think tank chief Torsten Bell points out, the present (and popular) Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s stance on defence expenditure may complicate matters.
Unless Ben Wallace finds himself a climb down strategy the first crisis of this new government could be losing the defence secretary. We ain’t going to be spending 3% of GDP on defence
Mr Wallace, one of the most experienced and well-regarded members of the cabinet, has campaigned hard for increases in defence spending.
One of Liz Truss’s key pledges had been to boost defence spending to 3% of national income by 2030.
But Jeremy Hunt – who is widely expected to stay on as chancellor when the new prime minister comes in – has refused to commit to this promise.
He said the Ministry of Defence would need to make additional savings, along with other departments.
Mr Sunak himself has also signalled he is unlikely to stand by the 3% spending promise.
He said this target was “arbitrary” and “not a plan”.
The former chancellor had also become embroiled in a row with Mr Wallace, with the latter claiming Mr Sunak had tried to block a multi-year settlement for the Armed Forces in 2019.
George Osborne,who was chancellor during the David Cameron years, doesn’t have much expectation of Penny Mordaunt persuading 100 backers and taking this to a vote of Tory members…
Rishi Sunak will be Prime Minister by the end of the day. Some think,like me, he’s a solution to our problems;others think he’s part of the problem.But whatever your politics,let’s all celebrate the first British Asian becoming PM and be proud of our country where this can happen
Let’s hear now from Henry Hill, the deputy editor of the ConservativeHome website, which supports – but is independent of – the Tory Party.
Hill says he’s “slightly baffled” as to why Sunak hasn’t yet declared he’s running, despite racking up the necessary 100 supporters.
Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is “sucking up nearly all of the oxygen” in the race so far (he also hasn’t confirmed he’s running).
Quote Message: “Boris is still being a bit cautious. He is fundamentally a storyteller. He is acutely aware that this could go horribly wrong for him. If he comes back and it blows up or – even worse – he loses the bid to Rishi Sunak – that’s just a terrible final chapter of his book.” from Henry Hill Deputy editor of ConservativeHome
“Boris is still being a bit cautious. He is fundamentally a storyteller. He is acutely aware that this could go horribly wrong for him. If he comes back and it blows up or – even worse – he loses the bid to Rishi Sunak – that’s just a terrible final chapter of his book.”
Henry HillDeputy editor of ConservativeHome
What about their policies? Hill thinks trying to pin down what Johnson will do is “almost impossible”.
Sunak is almost certainly on the same page as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt when it comes to calming the markets, he says, while Johnson’s pitch will be the manifesto he was elected on in 2019.
The problem, Hill says, is the economic circumstances now are completely different – and the markets might not react well.
The two go back a long way. In 2016, Wallace ran Johnson’s failed leadership bid after the Brexit referendum.
When Johnson resigned this summer, Wallace is said to have worried that losing him as a leader without a plan for a successor would land the party in trouble.
His support today was not totally unqualified. He did nod towards “questions” around Johnson.
The trouble is they are more than just “questions” for a significant number of Tory MPs who remember Johnson for the chaos he brought to Downing Street, the fact he broke the law while in office, was fined, saw dozens of resignations, and is still being investigated by parliament for lying.
Wallace said today a new Tory leader had to have a focus on unity, but that’s something Johnson may struggle to bring to his party.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s, and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
More than 80% of Conservative Party members think Liz Truss is doing a bad job – with 55% saying she should stand down as leader.
Boris Johnson is the members’ favourite to take over – beating out Rishi Sunak and Ben Wallace.
New polling from YouGov surveyed 530 Tory members today and yesterday for their opinion, a comparatively smaller sample size than opinion polls of the public at large.
Some 83% of paid-up Conservative backers think Ms Truss is doing badly – with just 15% saying she is doing well. Only 2% don’t know.
When asked if Ms Truss should resign, 55% of all those asked said yes, 38% said no, and 7% did not know.
Almost 40% of members who voted for Ms Truss in the leadership race now want her to go, the poll found.
It follows similar bad numbers from JL Partners overnight (see 6.29 am post), which found that most Truss supporters in the Tory party regret their choice.
When asked by YouGov who they want to take over as PM should Ms Truss stand aside, 32% said Boris Johnson, 23% said Rishi Sunak, 10% Ben Wallace and 9% say Penny Mordaunt.
Going forward, most Tory members – around 31% – think they alone should choose Conservative Party leaders, with no input from MPs.
Only 25% think the current system should remain,with another 25% thinking MPs alone should choose the leader.
However, if Ms Truss does stand down, six in 10 members want MPs to agree on a unity candidate and there not to be another election at the current time.
Prime Minister Liz Truss went into “waxworks mode” in the Commons Wednesday and her performance lacked “emotional intelligence”, according to body language expert Judi James.
Speaking to Sky News today, Ms James said the body language of the prime minister was “hard to fathom” and “bizarre”.
Analysing the scenes, she said: “I would imagine the best way to describe it would be a lack of intelligence.”
Ms James went on to say Commons leader Penny Mordauntlooked like “somebody on a sinking ship for over an hour armed with a teacup” before Ms Truss “bounced in” and “started laughing and chatting behind her”, which was “strange”.
“There was no bonding going on between the two women,” she said.
The body language expert said the Tory leader then fell into “waxworks mode” and did not join in, before adding that her facial expression became “frozen” and her eyes “looked like somebody who was fighting sleep”.
“You know if you go to see a bad play or go to the cinema and you can feel your eyes beginning to droop. It was that kind of blinking going on,” Ms James continued.
“And then the only other sign we got from her body language is what I call her ‘poker tell’.
“When she doesn’t like something her chin moves from side to side.
“But apart from that, very little endorsement signals going on. Normally we’d expect to see her looking at Hunt and nodding, but she just sat there looking glazed and looking at the opposition but without any real focus .”
Asked if Ms Truss’s body language gave a hint as to whether she was determined or defeated, Ms James added: “She is determined in the brain cells, but I think generally her body is telling her she is defeated.”
Following this morning’s announcement from new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt that “almost all” tax cuts announced in the mini-budget have been scrapped, he and the PM have sent a message to all Conservative MPs.
“The prime minister and the new chancellor are in lockstep and committed to long-term reforms,” the message says.
It adds that the government is “still going for growth” – despite the mass of mini-budget U-turns – and suggests that global factors are to blame for the economic turmoil.
“When we get it wrong, we will say no,” it continues.
It comes as Prime Minister Liz Truss seeks to hold onto her premiership following a tumultuous first few weeks in office.
A total of four Conservative MPs are now publicly calling for Ms Truss to go.
