Politics

The majority of Conservative Party members want Liz Truss to resign now – just six weeks after voting her in – and their preferred replacement is Boris Johnson, a new poll has found. A YouGov poll of Tory members found 55% would now vote for Rishi Sunak, who lost out to Ms Truss, if they

It looks to be over. Jeremy Hunt’s decision to not just junk most of Liz Truss’s tax-cutting plan but go further and ditch much of her flagship energy policy signalled the end of not only “Trussonomics”, but potentially the prime minister herself. When the end comes is unclear: Ms Truss may have been bought some

After allowing her chancellor to rewrite the government’s energy price plan, Liz Truss has just removed one of her biggest remaining arguments for staying in power. Yes, reversing the Kwarteng income tax cut, abolishing the dividend tax changes and the VAT-free shopping scheme are very politically painful. But abandoning the existing energy price cap scheme

Just last month Liz Truss told Britons they could “ride out the storm” in her first speech as prime minister – now she has been warned “the game is up” as rumours swirl of plots to oust her. Tory MPs have started to publicly call for Ms Truss to step down, while former chancellor George

A senior Tory has accused the government of looking “like libertarian jihadists” and treating the country as “laboratory mice” over the past few weeks. Robert Halfon, former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and an education minister under Theresa May, said he believes Liz Truss needs to apologise to the public for the economic turmoil

Jeremy Hunt has confirmed that Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic vision is not only dead, but that the immediate actions of this administration will be to do almost exactly the opposite of what the prime minister promised during the summer leadership campaign. This was a cold, hard reality check from a chancellor who is being

The new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said there “were mistakes” in Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget. Speaking to Sky News on Saturday, Mr Hunt said: “It was a mistake when we were going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by

Tory MPs appear to be divided over the future of Liz Truss as prime minister following her major U-turn announcement. Ms Truss reversed a key policy to scrap the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% after she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor. Heated messages were shared in Conservative Party WhatsApp groups after

Kwasi Kwarteng has landed back in the UK after leaving the US early as his future lies in the balance ahead of another potential mini-budget U-turn. The chancellor arrived at Heathrow just before 11am on Friday after leaving International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings in Washington DC a day early. He was then rushed to Downing

The chancellor has insisted he is “not going anywhere” amid the economic turmoil – and when asked if he was about to do a U-turn on corporation tax he said: “Let’s see”. Speaking earlier in the US where he is attending IMF meetings, Kwasi Kwarteng told reporters that he remains “totally focused” on delivering the

The mood in the Conservative Party is moving really fast. Asked where Tory MPs’ heads are now in relation to Liz Truss, one replied: “In their hands”. Her meeting with Tory MPs on Wednesday evening was described as delusional, trying to pin everything on Vladimir Putin and saying people should be giving her government more

UK government borrowing costs have hit a 20-year high after the Bank of England confirmed its emergency bond-buying programme will end on Friday as planned. On Wednesday morning, it said all temporary and targeted purchases of UK government bonds, known as gilts, would stop. This has been the position throughout and has been “made absolutely

Jacob Rees-Mogg has declared his confidence in the governor of the Bank of England, but disputed that pension funds are at “systemic” risk. Speaking to Sky News, the business secretary said “of course” he has confidence in Andrew Bailey, describing him as “respected”. He questioned, however, whether there was a “systemic problem” with pensions after

Kwasi Kwarteng has promised his upcoming economic plan will be “relentlessly upbeat” as some of his own MPs seemed doubtful of his direction. Speaking in the Commons for the first time since unveiling his mini-budget, the chancellor would not reveal more detail of his next financial announcement, set for Halloween. But he promised it would

Sir Keir Starmer has sacked his chief of staff as part of a major restructuring of the Labour leader’s office as he moves the party to an “election footing”. In a statement released on Tuesday, the party said the Labour leader held a call with staff this morning alongside the general secretary and announced plans

How do you keep a party fresh and maintain political momentum after 15 years in power when public services are struggling and your core aim looks very difficult to achieve? That was Nicola Sturgeon‘s central challenge going into today’s speech, and she responded with attacks on both the Tories and Labour, by announcing new support

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s debt-cutting plan will be published on 31 October – three weeks earlier than planned – alongside an independent economic forecast, the Treasury has confirmed. Both the publication of the medium-term financial plan and the forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had been due on 23 November, but the chancellor has

Cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi has warned restive Tory MPs that “dither or delay will end in defeat” as he appealed for unity just over a month after Liz Truss took office. Speaking to Sky News, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster stressed the need for party colleagues to “focus” on delivery or face being

Four cabinet ministers have urged their colleagues to rally behind Liz Truss or risk election defeat amid infighting in the Tory party. Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Nadhim Zahawi, Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt and Environment Secretary Ranil Jayawardena have all written articles calling on the party to unite around the

On Thursday, the day after the end of the conference season, YouGov hosted a focus group with seven Blue Wall voters from around the South East exclusively for Sky News. Some natural Conservatives, some former Tony Blair supporters, all with one thing in common: each voted Tory in the 2019 general election. Now their votes