Matthew Taylor

The dismissal of embattled Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi is dominating the news this morning. Zahawi was sacked after an investigation by the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus found that he had breached the Ministerial Code in relation to his tax affairs. Laura Kuenssberg asked the Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove about the affair – and how it reflected on Rishi Sunak and the government as a whole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lrAruLHTsY Gove – Developers ‘should pay up’ for building safety: Sophy Ridge interviewed Gove before the big news broke about Zahawi. She asked him about what the government was doing to promote safety in new housing development, more than five years after the Grenfell Tower disaster: https://www.youtube.

James Cleverly – ‘I don’t know’ any more detail about Zahawi’s taxes This morning was always going to be tough for whichever minister was landed with the morning media round. So followed an hour or so of pain for the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who was asked to address two highly inconvenient issues of integrity for the Sunak administration. Laura Kuenssberg raised the issue of the Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi, who has reached a settlement with HMRC over his tax affairs, amounting to a recovery of £4.

Keir Starmer – Ditched campaign promises ‘represented my values’ It was the Labour leader’s turn to face off against Laura Kuenssberg this morning. With Starmer currently in a commanding position, and the favourite to become the next prime minister, Kuenssberg looked back to the 2020 leadership contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn. She asked him to explain why a significant number of campaign pledges had since fallen by the wayside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AyVMe016L8 16 is too young to change gender Kuenssberg also inquired as to Starmer’s position on the thorny issue of gender self-identification.

Rishi Sunak – The NHS ‘is under pressure’ Laura Kuenssberg kicked off her first show of the new year with an interview with the Prime Minister, who now has a maximum of just two years to turn his party’s ailing poll numbers around. The National Health Service has always posed its fair share of political problems, but with the system now suffering from industrial action, alongside what some are calling a ‘twindemic’ of Covid and flu cases, Kuenssberg asked Rishi Sunak if the NHS was in crisis: My healthcare arrangements are ‘a distraction’ Kuenssberg inquired as to whether Sunak used the NHS himself.

Oliver Dowden: public sector pay rises would cost ‘£1,000 per household’ This morning, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden asked the unions representing nurses and ambulance workers to call off their planned strikes in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Dowden, whose role sees him in charge of co-ordinating the government’s response to the planned industrial action, told Kuenssberg that the collective amount being asked for by unions would take the government’s total bill to £28 billion. Kuenssberg challenged him on how the government had reached its conclusions: The government is giving out ‘highest pay settlements for 20 years’ Dowden stressed that the government would seek to follow the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body.

Stephen Powis – ‘There is trouble brewing this winter’ The National Health Service is bracing itself as the strike dates set by the Royal College of Nursing begin to loom, with the first to take place on Thursday 15 December. Laura Kuenssberg sat down with Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, to discuss the many strains on the system. Powis suggested that if people thought that previous NHS winter crises were bad, there wasn’t much cause for hope in 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0iKRu2pil0 James Cleverly – ‘We have to be sensible with our expenditure’ On Sky News, Jayne Secker spoke to the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly about the government’s role in alleviating, and hopefully averting, the strikes.

Nadhim Zahawi: We may deploy the military to ‘minimise disruption’ over Christmas Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi was in the hot seat this morning. He spoke to Sophy Ridge about strike action over the coming weeks, urging unions not to disrupt people's Christmases. With industrial action not just limited to the railway network, but spreading to the NHS, teachers, the fire service, immigration officials, postal workers and many more, Zahawi stressed that the government was looking at all the options to try and keep the country’s public services operating over a December of discontent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5KiUJigzes Zahawi: ‘I’m very proud’ of the Online Safety bill The Online Safety bill returns to Parliament this week.

Mark Harper – Inflation matching pay rises are ‘unaffordable’ The Transport Secretary Mark Harper joined Sophy Ridge this morning, at a time when public sector strikes are high on the agenda. Though rail unions claim to have found Harper far more satisfactory to work with than his predecessor Grant Shapps, Harper cautioned that nobody should be expecting too much when it came to their pay packets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMv4kzf3Pfg Government will try to strike ‘balance’ on Online Harms Bill Ridge bought up the government’s Online Harms Bill, which will soon be back before the House of Commons.

As expected, the government’s Autumn Statement has not exactly been putting smiles on peoples’ faces. However, the NHS has been one of the few public services to see more cash being diverted its way. Social care spending is also being increased, but the plans to place a cap on the amount of money that individuals would pay towards their care costs have been delayed for another two years. Laura Kuenssberg spoke to the Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay, and asked him whether the Dilnot proposals were ever likely to see the light of day: https://youtu.be/hrf6to3AzGI Collapsing A&E targets Kuenssberg also challenged Barclay over the state of waiting times in Accident and Emergency departments, which have risen sharply since 2020: https://www.youtube.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt joined Laura Kuenssberg this morning ahead of the Autumn Statement, which will be held on Thursday.  Fans of a good fiscal event will no doubt reflect on 2022 as a stellar year, but for most people the outlook will not be rosy. Embracing the possibility of a recession ahead, Hunt laid the groundwork for some unpopular choices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVwvXJN6tQ ‘We need to understand’ why people left the labour force Kuenssberg challenged Hunt over why the UK had not yet managed to grow the economy back to where it had been before the pandemic turned everything on its head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Oliver Dowden: Williamson’s messages ‘were not acceptable’ Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden joined Laura Kuenssberg this morning, and was asked to account for a series of irate and expletive-laden messages sent by the Conservative MP Gavin Williamson to the previous Chief Whip Wendy Morton. Williamson, who has since been reappointed to Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, had accused Morton of punishing MPs by not inviting them to Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, and declared his unwillingness to follow the government’s lead. Kuenssberg asked if Sunak had shown good judgement of character in welcoming Williamson back to Whitehall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Michael Gove – Suella Braverman ‘is the right person’ to be Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s return to the government benches has become a lightning rod for criticism of Rishi Sunak’s new administration. She had been sacked only a few days prior to her reappointment, thanks to her sending an email containing sensitive information to the wrong person. Michael Gove, who has himself made a comeback as the Levelling Up Secretary, defended Braverman when challenged by Laura Kuenssberg, who was keen to share an inconvenient follow-up email: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgTltFKpxFE Braverman ‘did not ignore legal advice’ Sophy Ridge was also keen to raise the issue of immigration, especially relating to the Manston Processing Centre in Kent.

Jeremy Hunt – ‘The Prime Minister is in charge’ To say things do not look rosy for Liz Truss would be quite the understatement. With the government now on its second Chancellor in as many months, and its once flagship policies being hastily swept under the carpet, the Conservative party appears to be in damage limitation mode. Laura Kuenssberg spoke to the new Chancellor this morning, in a pre-recorded interview, asking him if Truss was now such a damaged figure that he was the one really calling the shots: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1581565785247465472?

Nadhim Zahawi – Blackouts ‘extremely unlikely’ but government is preparing Last week, the National Grid warned that an excess shortage of gas over the winter period could see households plunged into darkness for up to three hours at a time, as part of its contingency plans to manage electricity supply. This morning, Laura Kuenssberg was joined by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Nadhim Zahawi, to discuss the government preparations for such a scenario: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1579041334983331841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Nicola Sturgeon – SNP won on ‘a very clear manifesto commitment’ Kuenssberg went on to speak to Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Liz Truss: ‘We should have laid the ground better’ Liz Truss joined Laura Kuenssberg in Birmingham as the Conservative party conference kicks off. In more ordinary times, a new leader might expect to bask in the warm glow of their recent election. However, there is no doubt that Liz Truss can expect considerable scrutiny this week, not least with the Conservatives now a distant second to Labour in the opinion polls. Unsurprisingly, the government’s mini Budget was at the top of the agenda, and Truss expressed some remorse at how the ambitious financial package had spooked the markets: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1576479806975254528?

Keir Starmer – Labour would reintroduce 45p tax rate The battle lines for the next election are being drawn. Friday’s ‘mini-Budget’ turned out to be a major event in its own right, with a raft of measures aimed unashamedly at whirring the UK’s economy back to life. The statement has also put a new spring in the step of Labour’s leader Sir Keir Starmer, who was interviewed this morning by Laura Kuenssberg as his party conference gets underway in Liverpool. Kuenssberg asked where Labour stood on the changes to income tax, which most notably saw the scrapping of the 45p top rate: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1573959846751338497?

Tony Radakin – Putin’s war is a ‘strategic failure’ With the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II taking place tomorrow, it is no surprise that warm words and condolences have taken up so much of the airwaves since her death was announced ten days ago. However, amid the tributes, the world has continued to march on, and few have marched more relentlessly than the Ukrainian army. With their recent counter-offensive against Russian occupation proving so successful, Laura Kuenssberg sat down with Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the Defence Staff, to discuss their progress: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1571418223781810182?

Anthony Albanese – No republic during my first term Tributes to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II have continued to pour in from across the world. On the morning that her coffin begins the journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh, so that she may lie in state at St. Giles’ Cathedral, Sky News’ Cordelia Lynch sat down with the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Albanese is known to be strongly in favour of turning Australia into a republic, but he confirmed that now was not the time for such questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsKSRfOizY Gordon Brown – The Queen knew more about the country than I did On her new flagship BBC show, Laura Kuenssberg asked three former Prime Ministers for their recollections of the Queen from their time in office.

Liz Truss: ‘I will act immediately’ on energy bills The Sunday interview shows have returned just in time for the conclusion of the Conservative leadership contest. This morning, both candidates for the top job appeared on a revamped BBC programme opposite Laura Kuenssberg. With the last votes cast on Friday, the expectation is that Liz Truss will be taking over the reins from Boris Johnson. Kuenssberg asked Truss for her response to one of the country's most pressing concerns: the enormous rise in energy bills: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1566342150475882496?