How long has Liz Truss got left?
14 min listen
Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson discuss the appropriate units of time in which to measure the remainder of the Prime Minister’s tenure...
James Forsyth
James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Saturday
Friday
Can Truss calm the markets?
12 min listen
Liz Truss has delivered an 8-minute long press conference confirming the latest corporation tax U-turn and insisting she will stay on as Prime Minister. Did it do enough to reassure voters and calm the markets?Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.Produced by Cindy Yu and Natasha Feroze.
Truss sacks Kwarteng. What next?
13 min listen
Prime Minister Liz Truss has sacked her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt. By removing her closest ideological ally. Can she save herself? Kate Andrews speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Kwarteng’s sacking is a warning to his successor
Kwasi Kwarteng’s sacking is brutal – and he was sacked as his letter makes clear. He was a chancellor who wanted to say yes to the Prime Minister, he deliberately did not try and build a power base for himself. But he has now been removed without ceremony, sacked even before he had returned to Downing Street. He will feel bruised, and understandably so. https://twitter.com/KwasiKwarteng/status/1580892129630777346?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Whoever succeeds Kwarteng is going to take a very different approach. They are going to demand control over economic policy and they are going to install their own people in the Treasury and try and build up their own position.
Liz Truss sacks Kwasi Kwarteng
Liz Truss has sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor. It is a truly remarkable development. Truss and Kwarteng were even more part of a joint political project than David Cameron and George Osborne. The mini-Budget was an expression of their joint beliefs: his dismissal is a sign of how bad things really are. Less than six weeks into her premiership and she has sacrificed her closest ideological ally to try and shore up her position. Truss will hold a press conference at 2 p.m. In it, we can expect a U-turn on freezing corporation tax to be announced – the markets assume it is happening and with the Bank of England’s intervention coming to an end this afternoon, not announcing one would risk sending the markets into a tailspin.
What will Kwasi do?
9 min listen
It's one of those flight tracker days here in Westminster as Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is about to land from a trip to the IMF in Washington, cut short last night. Is the government about to U-turn on its three-week-old mini budget? If so, will the Chancellor resign? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.
Thursday
Kwarteng fails to squash corporation tax U-turn speculation
Kwasi Kwarteng has done an interview from Washington which will do nothing to calm speculation about an imminent U-turn on corporation tax. The Telegraph’s Szu Ping Chan reports that: In response to a question about how markets “have improved today because they think you're about to do a U-turn on corporation tax”, Mr Kwarteng said: “Let’s see”. ‘Let’s see’ is, obviously, a million miles from a denial or a reaffirmation of the current policy. If the government is going to change course on this – going back on one of the centre pieces of Liz Truss’s leadership campaign – they would be well advised not to drag this out any longer.
Will Truss be gone by Christmas?
14 min listen
After a day of speculation, the rumours that Liz Truss was about to U-turn on more areas of the mini-budget proved untrue. Conservative MPs had a tense evening in the 1922 Committee meeting last night – are there any good options left for the Prime Minister?Isabel Hardman speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Is Truss about to U-turn on the mini-Budget?
Is Liz Truss about to U-turn? The Westminster grape vine is buzzing with informed speculation that the government is set to abandon more of the measures in the mini-Budget in an attempt to regain the confidence of the market and Tory MPs. I am told that members of Liz Truss’s political team who had previously resisted the idea that anything further needed to change are now beginning to accept that more of the mini-Budget will have to be scrapped. The problem for the government is that the markets are now pricing on the basis of a U-turn – UK gilts have rallied on the reports. So if the government doesn’t end up changing course it will be in a worse position than it was 24 hours ago and facing a fresh market backlash.
Wednesday
Kwasi vs the markets
Warren Buffett famously said that ‘when the tide goes out, you see who is swimming naked’. Now that the tide of easy money has receded, and interest rates have risen, we can see that the UK is exposed. Higher rates are causing acute financial pain to an extent not anticipated for the government, homeowners and even pension funds. The cost to the taxpayer is going to be significant. The Bank of England is in an almost impossible position: it needs high interest rates to tackle inflation, but high rates threaten financial stability. Which is the lesser evil? The Bank has had to intervene in the gilt markets three times since Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘fiscal statement’, in an attempt to lower rates and calm things down. Once bailouts start, how to stop?
Truss’s tricky time with Tory MPs
Liz Truss has just finished addressing the 1922 committee of Tory MPs. The mood among backbenchers afterwards was mixed. There was surprise among them that there hadn’t been more of an effort by the whips to get supportive questions placed – something which happened even at the nadir of Theresa May’s fortunes. Instead, there were a slew of direct questions about the missteps of recent weeks. Truss's allies might be concerned that Grant Shapps had a broad grin on his face as he left the meeting. The PM promised more consultation with Tory MPs, a staple offer from a leader facing backbench discontent. Truss said MPs would be invited to see the Chancellor in regional groups ahead of the 31 October fiscal statement.
Is Truss ruling out spending cuts?
9 min listen
Did Liz Truss misspeak or did she mean it when she said that she wouldn't go ahead with spending cuts, as promised in her leadership campaign? On the episode, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about what the Prime Minister could have meant, given the need to balance the books to pay for her tax cuts. James suggests that there may be a question over whether she meant nominal or real spending cuts. Whatever it is, the government needs to do more to reassure the markets – the team also discuss whether or not the Bank of England's bailout will really end in the coming days.
Tuesday
What is the way out for Kwasi?
14 min listen
Parliament is back today and Kwasi Kwarteng is facing questions from the opposition as well as from those within his party. How much pressure is he under?Also on the podcast, looking ahead to another fiscal event at the end of the month, are we heading for a series of departmental spending cuts? What would our political team announce if they were Chancellor on October 31st?Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Monday
Can Truss heal the divisions within her party?
11 min listen
This morning the Chancellor has announced that the government will bring forward both its medium term fiscal event and the accompanying Office for Budget Responsibility forecast. Will Kwarteng exercise some spending restraint to calm the Bank of England?Also on the podcast, after Truss appointed Sunak ally Greg Hands as Minister of State for Trade Policy, is she extending an olive branch to unite her party?Natasha Feroze speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.Produced by Natasha Feroze and Oscar Edmondson.
Saturday
How will this end?
17 min listen
Max Jeffery, Katy Balls and James Forsyth discuss Liz Truss's premiership and walk through the various options being cooked up to replace her.
Friday
Will the OBR torpedo Truss and Kwarteng’s growth plan?
It is easy to forget that tax cuts were meant to be the easy part of the Truss agenda. Far more difficult will be the supply side reforms and the spending restraint necessary to put the public finances on a better path. At the government’s medium term fiscal event, currently scheduled for November 23rd but which may be brought forward, Kwasi Kwarteng will have to say how he will sort the public finances. In the Times today, I look at his options. Those close to Truss are not optimistic that the OBR will significantly uprate its growth forecast Truss and Kwarteng hope that their approach will boost the trend growth rate of the economy to 2.5 per cent. If they can achieve that, then the public finances will begin to look an awful lot healthier.
Are Truss and Macron now ‘bons amis’?
13 min listen
Liz Truss attended the European Political Community summit in Prague, where her frosty relations with Macron came to a head. Rather than 'frenemies', there were signs of thawing relations between the two. After years of diplomatic tensions over Brexit, immigration and energy, can the two leaders kiss and make up?Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.Produced by Max Jeffery and Natasha Feroze.
Thursday
Crash course: how the Truss revolution came off the road
37 min listen
On this week's podcast: As Liz Truss returns from Conservative Party Conference with her wings clipped, has she failed in her revolutionary aims for the party?James Forsyth discusses this in the cover piece for The Spectator, and is joined by former cabinet minister and New Labour architect Peter Mandelson to discuss (01:08).Also this week: Is it time that the West got tough with Putin?Mark Galeotti writes in this week's magazine about the likely scenarios should Putin make good on his thermonuclear threats. He is joined by Elisabeth Braw, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to consider how the West should respond (13:14).
Has Team Boris turned on Truss?
17 min listen
Nadine Dorries, a loyalist to Boris Johnson, has a front-page piece in the Times today, accusing the new Liz Truss government of lurching too far towards the right. As someone who previously backed Liz for leader, is there a growing sense that people wish Boris never left? Also on the podcast, the National Grid has suggested we may face blackouts this winter – how likely is this? And will we end up relying on energy supplies from the French?Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Opec’s oil cut spells more bad news for Brits
Liz Truss joins other European leaders in Prague today at the first meeting of the European Political Community. Truss’s presence is sensible, a reminder of Britain’s point that it left the EU, not Europe as a whole. It should also help relations with Emmanuel Macron given how much he has invested in this project. One of the subjects discussed will be energy. The conversation will focus on Putin’s weaponisation of energy and how to keep the lights on this winter. But the anti-Russian alliance has suffered a blow after the news that the Opec+ countries, which include Saudi Arabia and Russia, are going to cut oil production by two million barrels a day. Already, oil prices have risen on the production cut. The White House has angrily condemned the move.