Politics

Liz Truss has for the first time acknowledged that “there has been disruption” to the UK economy following last week’s mini budget. Since the chancellor’s announcement of £45bn in tax cuts the value of the pound has plummeted, nearly half of mortgages have been pulled and the Bank of England launched a £65bn bail-out to

The mini-budget “seemed designed to provoke the markets” when they were already vulnerable, a backbench Tory MP has said, in the latest criticism of the new government from its own side. Writing in The House magazine, Waveney MP Peter Aldous joined the criticism of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng‘s mini-budget last week. He highlighted the

Labour has surged to record leads in multiple polls in the wake of the economic turmoil after the government’s mini-budget. A YouGov/Times poll placed Labour 33 points ahead of the Conservatives, believed to be the largest lead for Labour in any recorded poll since 1998, when the-then PM Tony Blair was enjoying his “honeymoon period”.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has insisted the government is focusing on “delivering the growth plan” and “protecting people right across the country” despite a week of market turmoil. The chancellor, who announced his mini-budget last Friday, said without the government’s plans it could not generate the income and tax revenue needed to pay for the public

Liz Truss’s cabinet is to be asked to find “efficiency savings” in Whitehall budgets, Sky News understands, putting huge pressure on frontline services.  During the leadership contest, Ms Truss said that she was “not planning public spending reductions”. Now the Treasury is expected to send out a letter within hours to secretaries of state insisting

Sir Keir Starmer has called for a recall of parliament to discuss the financial market turmoil following Friday’s mini-budget. Speaking to reporters, the Labour leader said the move by the Bank of England to launch a temporary bond-buying programme to prevent “material risk” to UK financial stability was “very serious”. Politics Hub: ‘Growing movement’ for

Labour will tomorrow unveil plans to ensure every primary school child in England has access to fully funded breakfast clubs under a government led by Sir Keir Starmer. Announcing the scheme on the final day of the party’s conference in Liverpool, Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, will say the policy will be paid for

A Labour MP has been suspended from the party after she was accused of making “racist” comments about the chancellor. Rupa Huq was administratively suspended pending an investigation after she claimed that Kwasi Kwarteng was “superficially” black. The MP for Ealing Central and Acton made the remarks about the UK’s first black chancellor at a

Sir Keir Starmer will claim a “changed” Labour can turn the UK into a “growth superpower” in his keynote conference speech – as a new poll gave the party its largest lead over the Conservatives in more than two decades. The Labour leader will tell party delegates in Liverpool on Tuesday that Labour’s Green Prosperity

Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the UK government is putting the economy in danger and attacked Prime Minister Liz Truss’s plan of “trickle-down economics” after the pound sank to a record low against the dollar. Sterling slipped to a low of $1.0327 on Monday, before stabilising at around $1.07, following lows seen after

Angela Rayner has said she is “worried” about the online abuse aimed at This Morning hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby after allegations they skipped the queue to see the Queen’s coffin. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, the party’s deputy leader said the attack they are facing on social media

Labour will pledge to “build British industry” through the use of a state-owned investment fund during the second day of the party’s conference in Liverpool. In her speech later today, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, will set out the party’s industrial strategy, which includes promises to invest in national projects from battery factories to clean

After last year’s showdown with the Labour left on party rules and the resignation of a shadow cabinet minister, Sir Keir Starmer is hoping for a calmer, happier conference in Liverpool. But the leader knows he is not in control of all his party’s levers – and his bête noires in Momentum and the Corbyn-backing

Labour will attempt to fight back against the chancellor’s Trussonomics tax giveaways by unveiling rival plans to boost economic growth at its conference in Liverpool. The four-day conference will begin with a tribute to the Queen by party leader Sir Keir Starmer and the national anthem, a move that will be criticised by left-wingers. Deputy

It may have been billed a mini-budget, but what Kwasi Kwarteng announced on Friday was massive. A package of tax cuts on a scale not seen for half a century, paid for through borrowing at increasingly expensive rates in the hope that it will deliver better growth. This is an administration that promised “shock and

In the end, Kwasi Kwarteng’s statement indeed cost more than £2 billion a minute and turned politics on its head. Threads that linked the three preceding Tory governments since 2010 were severed, while slogans, billboards and arguments about what it has meant in recent years to vote Conservative clattered into the waste bin. The new