Politics

Is there a way for the government to get out of the mess that it is in? This is the question obsessing ministers and Tory MPs. If the government doesn’t set out how it intends to square the circle, it’ll be risking more market mayhem. But as I say in the Times today, it is very hard to see a way out of this that is both politically palatable and economically possible. Nervous Tory MPs are being told by one of Truss’s cabinet allies ‘the solution is to be very tough on public spending’ A rapidly growing number of Tory MPs think the government should abandon or delay the abolition of the 45p tax rate. They believe that this would show the market that they were now behaving more responsibly.

Today Kwasi Kwarteng attempted to calm concerns in his party over the fallout from the not-so-mini Budget – telling MPs: 'We are one team and need to remain focused'.  That message is likely to face some resistance after the latest polling. Tonight the Times has published a new YouGov poll which gives Labour a 33-point lead. Yes, you read that right. It is thought to be the largest poll lead enjoyed by a political party since the late 1990s. It comes after a poll earlier this week gave Labour a 17-point lead. According to the survey, just 37 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters would stick with the party were an election held now. Labour's poll lead is so large that you can expect more talk of letters going in and questions about her longevity in No.

When Liz Truss scheduled her mini-Budget for the Friday before Labour conference, there was concern in Keir Starmer’s office. After months of meticulous planning, Starmer’s team feared the new Tory government would use their event to upstage his and distract from the party’s annual gathering in Liverpool. They were right to think that Kwasi Kwarteng’s statement would dominate the headlines; what they didn’t realise was that this would work entirely to their advantage. The market chaos provided the perfect backdrop to Labour conference: it reinforced a belief that, after 12 years in the cold, Labour is finally on the cusp of power. They can now present the Tories as the dangerous, slightly mad radicals and pitch themselves as the sensible option.

Thank you, conference. It’s great to be here in Liverpool. After all the changes we’ve made, all the hard work we’ve put in, finally we are seeing the results we want. Yes, conference, we can say it at last: Arsenal are top of the league. But before I begin, I want to address something important. This is our first conference in Liverpool since 2018. And that means it’s our first conference since this city’s call for Justice for the 96 became Justice for the 97. For too long this city has been let down. So, when Labour wins the next election, one of my first acts as Prime Minister will be to put the Hillsborough Law on the statute book. I know how much this matters. I’ve spent a lifetime helping those who have been failed by the system.

Tonight’s YouGov poll in the Times is brilliant news for Keir Starmer ahead of his conference speech tomorrow. It has Labour 17 points ahead, its biggest lead since the company started polling in 2001. These numbers, following the market reaction to the statement, are an awful start To be sure, the numbers reflect more voter disappointment with the government than a sudden bout of Starmer mania. Some 68 per cent of voters said the government was managing the economy badly. Only 12 per cent thought the ‘mini-Budget’ is affordable. Just 19 per cent said it was fair, against 57 per cent who thought it was not fair. And 69 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 opposed the scrapping of the 45p tax rate.

Liz Truss is ready to be unpopular. Or at least that is what the new Prime Minister is keen to suggest. On a media round from New York – where she is attending her first international summit since entering No. 10 – she told the BBC's Chris Mason: If that means taking difficult decisions which are going to help Britain become more competitive, help Britain become more attractive, help more investment flow into our country, yes, I'm absolutely prepared to make those decisions. 'Yes, yes I am', was how she answered Beth Rigby's question about whether she was prepared to be unpopular. Is this significant? Well, it points to two things.

That so many people have wanted to say something about how the Queen touched their lives, whether or not they met her, shows quite how powerful her service was. The tributes this afternoon in the House of Commons were moving because they showed the breadth of that service, from the way she carried out her constitutional duties with the government to her personal impact on many members of the House. When parliament pays tribute to someone who has just died, the cloying phrase 'it was the House at its best' quickly emerges. This is self-regarding, because what today's tributes showed was not the best bits of MPs but the best bits of the Queen.

Good afternoon. I have just accepted Her Majesty the Queen's kind invitation to form a new government.  Let me pay tribute to my predecessor. Boris Johnson delivered Brexit, the Covid vaccine and stood up to Russian aggression. History will see him as a hugely consequential prime minister. I'm honoured to take on this responsibility at a vital time for our country. What makes the United Kingdom great is our fundamental belief in freedom, in enterprise and in fair play. Our people have shown grit, courage and determination time and time again. We now face severe global headwinds caused by Russia's appalling war in Ukraine and the aftermath of Covid. Now is the time to tackle the issues that are holding Britain back. We need to build roads, homes and broadband faster.

Any Prime Minister who takes over mid-term has to contend with a certain set of problems. Liz Truss will wish she had been propelled through the front door of No. 10 by the momentum of a general election victory. The first difficulty is that you have no personal mandate. This doesn’t just affect your relationship with the electorate, but your own MPs too. Boris Johnson benefitted from a sense that he was a winner, which made MPs more prepared to trust his judgment. Liz Truss will have to go that much further to persuade MPs of her political calculations. It also means MPs will be more jumpy if the polls are bad. Truss will have just two years before she has to go to the country Next, you don’t have much time.

Boris Johnson now leads an interim administration. Within a fortnight, we will have a new occupant of No. 10. What will Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss find waiting for them in Downing Street? And what might the machinery of government mean for their ability to deliver on their campaign promises? The first thing that will strike the new Prime Minister is Johnson’s internal reforms. The creation of an ‘Office of the Prime Minister’ is potentially the most significant, although it was announced late in Johnson’s premiership and it remains to be seen how seriously it has been taken. On arrival, the new Prime Minister may therefore be equally entitled to feel that No. 10 has been either slimmed-down or beefed-up.

Judging by the show of hands in the auditorium of the Perth Concert Hall tonight, both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had a fair bit of work to do to win over Scottish Tories. Many put their hands up to say they hadn't yet decided who to back when asked by the host Colin Mackay. Mind you, many of them then went on to boo Mackay for asking questions of both candidates that they found annoying. Normally when an audience boos a journalist in Scotland, it's blamed on the SNP and that party's dislike of scrutiny. Tonight, though, it was the Conservative party.  Neither candidate has said that much about their plan for Scotland prior to today's hustings.

You’ve just become prime minister. The public finances are in a mess, the Bank of England has stoked inflation, cutting taxes may make it worse, energy prices are through the roof, people are hurting so you can’t cut social spending, the Health Service is lengthening its waiting lists despite record budgets. What can you do? Given that you will be hearing a lot from people who do governing all day, here are ten things to remember on behalf of the rest of us – the governed: Assume all public bodies have the same goal – and it isn’t what it says on the tin. You might think the Committee for the Promotion of Postage Stamp Collections is obsessed with postage stamps, or the Sewage Treatment Works Agency is fascinated by sewage.

That the NHS is in intensive care appears to be beyond doubt. The health service in England needs 12,000 doctors and 50,000 nurses and midwives, and waiting lists are expected to rise to 9.2 million by March 2024. The question now is what to do. It’s a question that has been asked before, and the answers have been poor. One more heave at reform, a task force here, a task force there, another few billion all over the place and all will be well, so the defenders of the NHS claim. What they overlook, however, is that there have been more than a dozen major reform programmes over the past 30 years, yet our health outcomes remain dismal.

Britain's next Prime Minister will be either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss. Refresh this page for the latest developments. 4.45 p.m. – Truss vs Sunak will be a philosophical war Kate Andrews writes... The Tory grassroots have got themselves a real economic debate this summer: Rishi Sunak’s ‘Thatcherite’ economic philosophy vs Liz Truss’s ‘Reaganite’ plans to boost growth. Both will have questions to answer. While Sunak’s line that ‘nothing comes for free’ is bound to resonate with Tory members, the tax burden has risen to a 72-year-high under his watch, as well as the introduction of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies that is very hard to explain within Conservative ideology.