Afternoon summary
- Rishi Sunak, Truss’s rival in the leadership contest, has been accused of a “screeching U-turn” after proposing to scrap VAT on household fuel bills next year, saving the average household £160. (See 9.25am.)
- Keir Starmer has sacked Sam Tarry as a shadow transport minister after Tarry joined an RMT picket line on the grounds that Tarry was in breach of collective responsibility. (See 5.23pm.)
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Here is Sam Tarry’s response to his being sacked as shadow transport minister. As Patrick Maguire from the Times points out, he does not criticise Keir Starmer, and says the rail strike would not be taking place under a Labour government.
Sam Tarry's parting shot. Notably declines to criticise the Labour leadership pic.twitter.com/cQ2xQCI3mq
— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) July 27, 2022
Starmer sacks Sam Tarry, shadow minister who joined RMT picket line, saying he was in 'breach of collective responsibility'
Sam Tarry has been sacked as a shadow transport minister. Earlier he joined an RMT picket line, in defiance of an order from Keir Starmer, but Labour says he was sacked not for being on a picket line but for ignoring collective responsibility. A party spokesperson said:
The Labour party will always stand up for working people fighting for better pay, terms and conditions at work.
This isn’t about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.
As a government in waiting, any breach of collective responsibility is taken extremely seriously and for these reasons Sam Tarry has been removed from the frontbench.
Earlier Tarry posted this on Twitter.
All across the country industrial disputes are breaking out because this Government doesn't care about working people in Britain.
— Sam Tarry MP (@SamTarry) July 27, 2022
They've forced a decade of austerity on workers and aren't able to present serious offers to even match the level of inflation.#SupportRailWorkers pic.twitter.com/LDwqgueI4Q
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Here are two good columns out today about the Conservative leadership contest. Both are quite damning, but neither of them is by a journalist who would be described as Guardian lefty.
- Henry Hill at ConservativeHome says yesterday’s TalkTV debate, which included a question from a man who felt let down by the NHS, and another from someone who felt she could no longer afford to eat meat, was a reminder that the UK is in decline. He says:
Having been in power for 12 years, the Tories need to shoulder their share of the blame for this state of affairs. But unless you’re one of that blinkered sort who thinks everything was fine until Brexit, there is plenty of blame to go around. The housing crisis has been visible on the horizon for decades, as have the problems with the NHS.
It has been much commented upon how much Margaret Thatcher has cropped up in this debate so far. But there is not much sign yet of anyone prepared to do what she did and challenge some of the fundamentals of the political order of the day. Tough words for the unions is all well and good, but striking bold poses against the vested interests of the Eighties is no substitute for confronting those of our own day.
Unless and until we get a leader prepared to do that, this country’s long-term trajectory will continue to trend towards being poorer, and politicians will have to make harder and harder choices about how to divvy up a shrinking pie.
- Robert Shrimsley at the Financial Times says Liz Truss is the right choice for the Conservative party because she represents Johnsonian cakeism. He says:
The cakeist candidate is Liz Truss and the foreign secretary and frontrunner is prepared to go full gateau if it gets her to the top. While Sunak stresses the menace of inflation, his rival is offering unfunded tax cuts to drive growth and a halt to green levies to reduce fuel bills (both demands of the party’s right).
While this might raise questions over whether she is the best person for the country, it probably makes her the right choice for this Conservative party. She offers Johnsonism without his personal deficiencies and unleashed from Sunak’s tiresome demands that spending must be funded. For all her talk to the contrary, Truss is the continuity candidate.
But perhaps the bigger concern about a Truss premiership is that she secured her place in the final two by courting the worst people in her party. The foreign secretary has always been a more serious figure than her caricature and has, in fairness, long challenged Treasury and Bank of England orthodoxy. But ambition has seen the one-time Cameron acolyte allow herself to become the candidate of the ideological obsessives, the fantasists, the climate change diminishers, the culture warriors and those for whom Brexit can only be failing because it has not been properly tried.
These people dismiss Sunak as a socialist and blame Johnson’s downfall on anyone but himself. Truss is smart enough to know better, but canny enough to play along. And so she promises tax cuts, higher borrowing and a more confrontational approach to Brexit. She is enough of a small-stater to favour spending cuts but seemingly not this side of an election.
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The Cabinet Office has announced that Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister in David Cameron’s government, will head a review of the efficiency of the civil service. The terms of reference suggest it will look at whether ministers have enough control over what civil servants do. One of the things it will look at is “the extent to which the civil service board, senior leadership committee and other committees exercising management functions in relation to the civil service are effectively accountable to the minister for the civil service and/or their chosen designate(s).”
Prospect, a union representing civil servants, says Lord Maude is looking at the wrong problem. Its deputy general secretary, Garry Graham, said:
The best way to ensure ministers’ decisions are properly implemented is to provide the civil service with the resources to do so – not cutting the number of civil servants by 91,000.
Effective delivery also requires political stability and ministerial steers that are consistent. Observers of politics and this administration might note this has been lacking in the extreme of late.
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MoJ changes rules to allow crown court sentencing remarks to be shown on TV
The Ministry of Justice has announced that tomorrow a judge at the Old Bailey will be filmed while delivering her sentencing remarks. This is the start of a new system under which sentencing remarks will routinely be filmed.
Explaining the new system, the MoJ said:
Previously, proceedings were only broadcast from certain court of appeal cases. The contract has now been extended to the crown court, and Sky, BBC, ITN and Press Association are able to apply to film and broadcast sentencing remarks, with the judge deciding whether to grant the request.
The reform has been welcomed by national broadcasters who were involved in a successful pilot that allowed not-for-broadcast sentencing remarks to be filmed in eight crown court sites.
Tomorrow Judge Munro QC will be filmed as she delivers her sentence in the case of Ben Oliver, who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his grandfather.
Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, said:
Opening up the courtroom to cameras to film the sentencing of some the country’s most serious offenders will improve transparency and reinforce confidence in the justice system.
The public will now be able to see justice handed down, helping them understand better the complex decisions judges make.
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The leader of North Lanarkshire council has resigned after being accused of inappropriate touching and sexual harassment, amid continuing concerns about the SNP’s capacity to handle incidents like this with transparency.
Allegations about 27-year-old Jordan Linden, who became an SNP council leader after May’s elections, were originally published in the Sunday Mail newspaper.
The allegations date back to 2019 when he allegedly harassed a teenager while drunk at a party in Dundee after the city’s Pride parade.
In a statement, Linden said:
Although I have never approached any personal interaction with ill intent, I accept that my behaviour at that party in 2019 caused a sense of discomfort which I entirely regret. I offered my apologies to the person concerned at the time and the matter was closed. I reiterate that apology today.
The original Sunday Mail report referred to concerns that, as with the case of the former Westminster chief whip and MP Patrick Grady, Linden was promoted while complaints were ignored by the party. Younger SNP activists have been increasingly vocal in recent months about the length of time it has taken for the party to reform its complaints process.
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TalkTV’s Kate McCann has posted her first message on Twitter since fainting last night while she was hosting the Tory leadership debate. She is fine now, she says, and back on air tonight.
Well that wasn't how last night was supposed to end! Thanks everyone for the lovely messages❤️- I'm fine now - and apologies to @trussliz and @RishiSunak for cutting the debate short. Tonight I'll be unpicking the debate with some new polling from 7pm ( ...yes, sat down!)
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) July 27, 2022
The Resolution Foundation has published an interesting briefing on tax policy and the Tory leadership contest. It says that even thought tax cuts have dominated the debate between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, even Truss’s £30bn cuts would not address the cost of living crisis. It says:
Whatever the merits of these proposals – and debate about the right level of taxation is a perfectly normal part of politics – they are not a serious answer for the current crisis. While their price tags are high, they do little to target those hardest hit by the rise in the cost of living, due to the focus on rates of personal income taxes. Rising energy bills will bite hardest for low- and middle-income households this winter, but only 15% of the cost of scrapping the NI rise [Truss’s policy] would go to the poorer half of the population, while 28% would go to the top twentieth (figure 1). And despite both candidates recommitting to levelling up in [Monday’s] debate and despite energy bill rises being fairly evenly spread across our nations and regions, the change would widen rather than narrow regional divides. The average income boost in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber and Wales would be £290 a year (0.8% of disposable income), while in London it would be over twice as large at £640 (1.2%).
This chart from the briefing showing that cancelling the national insurance increase would be regressive; it would benefit the wealthiest most, both in cash terms and as a proportion of disposable income.
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Campaigners have welcomed Liz Truss’s promise to create a new offence of street harassment. (See 12.15pm.)
Maya Tutton, a co-founder of Our Streets Now, which has campaigned to make public sexual harassment a criminal offence, said:
This commitment is a big step in the right direction. Any legislation must make all forms of public sexual harassment illegal, be available for all those who need it, and recognise the unwanted and harmful sexualised nature of this behaviour.
Legislation is just one part of the puzzle, and we hope that both candidates commit to the whole-society, prevention-based approach needed to tackle the roots of this problem.
And Kathleen Spencer Chapman, the head of policy advocacy and research at the children’s charity Plan International UK, said:
Youth activists through our CrimeNotCompliment have been calling for public sexual harassment to be made illegal for a long time, echoing millions of women and girls across the country.
So it’s encouraging to see this being heard in this commitment from Liz Truss, alongside the government’s current consultation.
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Some in the Labour party suspect that Sam Tarry, the shadow transport minister who defied Keir Starmer by joining an RMT picket line this morning, is trying to get sacked, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Sam Tarry situation is very tricky for Keir Starmer. Firstly, Tarry's interviews make very valid points about support for low paid workers. But Tarry is also facing a tight reselection battle in his constituency. after members voted to trigger an open vote... 1/2
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) July 27, 2022
Plenty in Labour pointing out Tarry was not one of the MPs to defy Starmer at the last picket line. Multiple Labour sources say "he's trying to get sacked." But Starmer does have option not to do that because shadow ministers were not sacked last time. Tricky decision for Loto.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) July 27, 2022
Lots of rumours if Tarry is deselected that he could be hoping for another seat close by and trade union support for that would be welcome. Obviously there's principle at stake too that many Labour MPs agree with and it's tough line to keep taking with a year of strikes ahead.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) July 27, 2022
Tarry has posted a message on Twitter saying he is proud to have been on the picket line. It also says he is on the side of members “not the establishment”.
Proud to have been on the picket line today, standing in solidarity alongside workers and members of @RMTunion and @TSSAunion.
— Sam Tarry MP (@SamTarry) July 27, 2022
The Government needs to pay transport staff what they deserve, not force a real terms pay cut on them during a #CostOfLivingCrisis. pic.twitter.com/DGmCVVGIby
Starmer’s argument seems to be that instead of fighting the establishment, Labour should be replacing it. (See 11.26am.)
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Starmer more popular with public than Truss or Sunak, poll suggests
The polling company Ipsos Mori has released its July Political Pulse polling, and it is full of interesting data. Here is a summary.
- Keir Starmer is significantly more popular with the public at large than either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, the poll suggests. Rather, it would be more accurate to say he is less unpopular. Starmer’s net approval rating is -19, but Truss’s is -28 and Sunak’s is -30.
- Liz Truss is significantly more popular with people who voted Conservative in 2019 than Rishi Sunak, the poll suggests. Her net ratings are +8 and his are -6. But that is not because Tory voters feel a lot more positive towards Truss; it is because they are much more likely to have negative feelings about Sunak, which his why his net ratings are much lower.
- The Labour party is significantly more popular with the public at large – or less unpopular – than the Conservative party, the poll suggests.
- Even people who voted Conservative in 2019 are marginally more in favour of nationalising utilities than not nationalising them, the poll suggests. Among the public at large there is clear support for nationalisation, and Labour supporters are strongly in favour. But only this week Keir Starmer implied that renationalising utilities was not something he would prioritise.
- Boris Johnson will leave office with members of the public thinking, by more than three to one, that Britain is heading in the wrong direction, the poll suggests.
These figures are worse than they were at the low point of the pandemic. People in the 35 to 54 age group are particularly gloomy about the direction in which the country is heading.
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IFS says cutting VAT on fuel bills move 'in exactly wrong direction' if allowed to become permanent
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a short briefing on Rishi Sunak’s proposal for a temporary cut in VAT on fuel bills. Sunak says he would cut scrap VAT on all domestic fuel bills for just one year. The IFS says this would cost about £4.3bn.
It says this policy would be “well targeted at those who face the biggest rise in their energy bills, but not at those – the poorest – who are least able to cope with the rise in costs”. It also says it would have a slight inflationary impact, because householders would have more money to spend on other items.
But the IFS’s main concern with the policy is that it would be hard to reverse, and that, if the cut became permanent, that would be a mistake. It says:
If it were genuinely temporary, the fiscal and environmental costs of the policy would be bearable. The biggest risk with the policy is that it would prove politically difficult to restore VAT on energy bills at the end of the 12 months. As a permanent policy, removing VAT on energy bills would be a move in exactly the wrong direction: distorting households’ choices towards more energy use, making it harder to meet the UK’s ‘net zero’ targets and meaning that any reduction in emissions happened in a way that was more costly overall to households than it need be.
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Truss says new offence of street harassment, blocked by Johnson, would be created if she becomes PM
Liz Truss has said that if she becomes prime minister she will create a new offence of street harassment to protect women.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, favoured the creation of a new offence in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard, which triggered a national debate about violence against women, but the plan was reportedly blocked by Boris Johnson.
In a BBC podcast in May, Nimco Ali, who is a very close friend of Johnson’s wife, Carrie, and who was appointed as the UK government’s independent adviser on tackling violence against women and girls, all but confirmed that it was Johnson who vetoed the plan. Johnson has argued that harassment can be tackled through existing legislation.
As well as announcing her plan for a new offence to criminalise street harassment, Truss said she would introduce a national domestic abuse register, covering all forms of domestic abuse, including coercive and controlling behaviour, and financial abuse.
And she said there would be compulsory training for police officers in handling domestic abuse crimes. She said:
Over the last two years, our nation has been shocked by a number of high-profile murders of women, many here in London. It is the responsibility of all political leaders, including us in Westminster and the mayor of London, to do more.
Violence against women and girls doesn’t have to be inevitable. Women should be able to walk the streets without fear of harm and perpetrators must expect to be punished.
Through increased police training, new offences, faster processes for rape victims and our domestic abuse register, we will ensure victims are protected, and crimes are prevented in the first place.
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Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest, has said she would order the police to cut homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime by 20% from 2019 levels by the end of this parliament. Danny Shaw, the former BBC home affairs correspondent, says such a generalised target is unrealistic.
A word about police targets to cut crime.
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawNews) July 27, 2022
Targets can be effective if they’re specific & based on proper analysis, challenging but achievable. They can galvanise action & focus minds.
BUT they are not effective if a figure is plucked from the air & applied across the board…
A word about police targets to cut crime.
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawNews) July 27, 2022
Targets can be effective if they’re specific & based on proper analysis, challenging but achievable. They can galvanise action & focus minds.
BUT they are not effective if a figure is plucked from the air & applied across the board…
By pinning such crime targets on police, it is sending a message that police alone are responsible for crime levels - a naive view.
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawNews) July 27, 2022
There is a wide range of factors affecting homicide rates & other crimes, many of which police have no control over…
Police forces are already subject to scrutiny - by elected police & crime commissioners & @HMICFRS
— Danny Shaw (@DannyShawNews) July 27, 2022
HMIC grades forces according to performance, allowing, in effect, league tables to be created. So I’m not sure what value an extra set of tables, as Truss suggests, would deliver.
This is from ITV’s Anushka Asthana, who has dug out what Rishi Sunak said in the Commons in February when he explained why he was opposed to calls (from Labour, and some Tory MPs too) for a cut in VAT on fuel bills.
Rishi Sunak cd argue that cutting VAT on energy bills is not inflationary- so not against the main thrust of his economic argument but prob is what he said in the Commons in Feb- it would disproportionately help wealthiest, companies would NOT pass & would never be a one off 👇 pic.twitter.com/Nd3t3NrRHd
— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) July 27, 2022
My colleague Geneva Abdul is covering today’s rail strike on a separate liveblog. It’s here:
As Geneva reports on her blog, several Labour MPs have been joining RMT members on picket lines this moning. Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader, is not technically a Labour MP at the moment (the whip has been suspended over his response to the EHRC report into antisemitism), but he has been on a picket line too, at Euston station.
Corbyn told PA Media that Labour MPs supporting the RMT were “doing the right thing by being there with the workers in dispute”. He also said: “The degree of poverty pay within the rail industry is huge, and now the levels of job insecurity have grown as well.”
Yesterday Keir Starmer explained why he was opposed to his frontbenchers being on picket lines. He said:
The Labour party in opposition needs to be the Labour party in power. And a government doesn’t go on picket lines, a government tries to resolve disputes.
Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA
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Anneliese Dodds, the Labour party chair, told Sky News that party whips would be deciding what to do about Sam Tarry’s decision to join an RMT picket line this morning (see 9.52am). She also claimed senior Labour figures should be on the side of a negotiated solution to the dispute. She said:
I personally will not be on a picket line because I am a politician and I believe what politicians should be doing now is what the Conservative government has so appallingly failed to do but what the Welsh Labour government has done because there aren’t strikes taking place in Wales today.
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Truss ally Kwasi Kwarteng says Sunak's VAT on fuel U-turn shows he's 'under a lot of pressure'
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary and a leading supporter of Liz Truss for the Tory leadership, has said Rishi Sunak’s proposal to cut VAT on fuel bills suggests he is “under a lot of pressure”. He told Times Radio:
I think [Sunak is] under a lot of pressure. That’s why we see all these statements: he was the person who said the VAT cut would disproportionately benefit rich families and now he’s saying that a VAT cut on energy bills is the right thing.
He was saying that tax cuts were a fairytale; now he is proposing an unfunded tax cut.
There comes a time in campaigns when people are under a lot of pressure, he clearly felt under a lot of pressure in the [BBC] debate and he wanted to get out on the front foot and interrupt Liz.
I think that was the wrong look for him, I think that was the wrong action, but I can understand why he did that.
Asked whether Sunak could win a general election, Kwarteng told LBC radio:
He has flip-flopped and U-turned on this tax issue, which I find somewhat concerning, but he is a capable politician and a very likeable chap.
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These are from the Conservative MP John Redwood attacking Rishi Sunak over his proposed VAT cut for fuel bills.
Rishi told us tax cuts would be immoral. Now he wants one. Rishi stood for election in 2019 on no National Insurance rise, then imposed one. Rishi said tax cuts would be inflationary so he would not offer them . Why should we believe anything he says?
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) July 27, 2022
Why is the Rishi cut of VAT on domestic fuel for one year only? How would imposing VAT on energy just before a General election help Conservatives win it?
— John Redwood (@johnredwood) July 27, 2022
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary and a Rishi Sunak supporter, has also dismissed claims that Sunak’s plan to cut VAT on domestic fuel bills amounts to a U-turn. He told BBC Breakfast:
If [Sunak] hadn’t produced £37bn of support, about £1,200 to the hardest-up households already – if he hadn’t done any of that and then suddenly did it then you would have a point.
But he has, he has been providing all this support, now he is saying ‘here’s something that won’t add to inflation that would save every person watching your programme £160 off their energy bills’ – I think that’s worthwhile.
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Shapps challenges Starmer to sack shadow transport minister for joining RMT picket line
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has challenged Keir Starmer to sack Sam Tarry, a shadow transport minister, for joining an RMT picket line this morning. Before the last rail strike, Starmer told his frontbenchers they should not join picket lines, although two frontbenchers and three ministerial aides who defied the order were not reprimanded.
Tarry has been giving interviews this morning defending the rail workers, and his right to support them.
'I'm here as Shadow Transport Minister backing transport workers who are on strike'
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) July 27, 2022
Labour's @SamTarry is on the @RMTUnion picket line today.
He spoke to #BBCBreakfast on why he's ignoring a call from leader Keir Starmer not to do sohttps://t.co/6fPS8IAnBB pic.twitter.com/2nw9pjQAog
But Shapps implied that if Starmer did not sack Tarry, it would be a sign of weakness. He told Sky News:
It’s clearly in direct defiance of Sir Keir Starmer who told his frontbench that they shouldn’t be [on picket lines]. No doubt he’ll want to remove him from his job.
Tarry is already in dispute with Labour HQ over its decision to allow a trigger ballot to go ahead. That means all members in his local party will vote on whether he will remain their candidate at the next election.
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Sunak accused of ‘screeching U-turn’ by Truss campaign after proposing scrapping VAT on fuel bills for one year
Good morning. This is the third Tory leadership contest in six years taking place while the party is in government, but in 2016 and 2019 the elections were both dominated by the single issue of Brexit. This is not the case this time, and one consequence of that is that Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – the two candidates still in the race – are having, or choosing, to say a lot more about policy in a range of areas.
And they are at it again this morning, with both making announcements.
- Truss, who is now seen as the clear frontrunner in the contest, has promised a return to national crime targets, pledging a 20% reduction in murders, other violence and burglaries within two years. My colleagues Peter Walker and Vikram Dodd have the details here.
In response, the Sunak campaign described this as “a lightweight plan based on publishing data the government already does and a power grab away from police and crime commissioners, including many excellent Conservative PCCs driving down crime in their area”.
- Sunak has promised to scrap VAT on household fuel bills next year, saving the average household £160. As chancellor he resisted calls to cut VAT on fuel, arguing that this would disproprotionately help wealthy families paying to heat large homes, but he says he favours the move now because the energy price cap is expected to rise above £3,000 in October. The proposal is part of what Sunak calls his “winter plan”, and my colleague Heather Stewart has the details.
The Truss campaign has described this as a “screeching U-turn”. A Truss campaign source told the Telegraph:
It’s good that Rishi has finally woken up and decided to offer something to people struggling with the rising cost of living. However, this feels like a screeching U-turn from someone who has spent the last few weeks of the leadership campaign branding everyone else’s tax cuts immoral and fairytales.
Wednesday's Telegraph: Sunak's 'screeching U-turn' on tax cuts #TomorrowsPapersToday #DailyTelegraph #Telegraph pic.twitter.com/UhdQ78xcO7
— Tomorrows Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) July 26, 2022
Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury and a leading Truss supporter, has made much the same point on Twitter.
Wednesday's Telegraph: Sunak's 'screeching U-turn' on tax cuts #TomorrowsPapersToday #DailyTelegraph #Telegraph pic.twitter.com/UhdQ78xcO7
— Tomorrows Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) July 26, 2022
Perhaps what is most interesting about the Sunak announcement is what it says about how Sunak thinks his campaign is faring.
As chancellor he always said he was willing to do more to help people with heating bills in the winter. But his last pacakge of measures was largely focused on measures targeted at low-income households; a VAT cut would help everyone, including richer people who need the money much less, which was why Sunak used to argue it was a bad idea. But many of the people voting in the Conservative leadership contest are in this category.
So Sunak is retreating from the preference for targeted intervention that he championed as chancellor. He also risks undermining his main argument against Truss, which is that she has been promising unfunded tax cuts. That is the sort of move you might expect from a campaign in trouble (which is what the polling suggests) calculating that it needs to do something drastic to regain the initiative.
There is not much in the political diary for the day, but campaigning never stops, so we will find something to blog about.
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