Liz Truss faces Rishi Sunak in leadership hustings after comments about British workers leaked – UK politics live | Politics

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said Tory leadership front runner Liz Truss is “peddling offensive nonsense” following the leaked audio of her saying British workers need more “graft”.

He said:

With wages shrinking thanks to Tory failure to bring inflation under control and years of lacklustre growth, it’s grossly offensive for Liz Truss to effectively brand British workers lazy.

I would have hoped she had moved on from the days of her Britannia Unchained fiasco, but it seems that is the blueprint for her prospective government.

Workers across the country are working all hours to keep a roof over their heads, put food on the table and provide for their families.

Liz Truss should be helping working people to cope with this cost of living crises, as Labour this week outlined we would do, not peddling this offensive nonsense.

Leaked audio reveals Truss said British workers needed ‘more graft’

Pippa Crerar

Liz Truss, now the Tory leadership frontrunner, launched an astonishing broadside against British workers, saying they needed “more graft” and suggesting they lacked the “skill and application” of foreign rivals, the Guardian can reveal.

In a leaked recording, the then No 2 at the Treasury also risked pitting Londoners against the rest of the country by attempting to explain the difference between the capital and other regions in the UK.

Truss, who has put patriotism at the heart of her leadership campaign, suggested the disparity was “partly a mindset or attitude thing”.

The comments were made when Truss was the chief secretary to the Treasury, a post she held until 2019. In the recording she intimated that there seemed little desire to change the working culture so that the UK could become more prosperous.

The highly disparaging remarks echo a controversial passage about British workers being among the “worst idlers in the world”, from the book Britannia Unchained which she co-authored in 2012 when she was a new backbench MP seeking to make her mark as a neo-Thatcherite.

Diane Taylor

A Foreign Office official raised concerns about plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, citing state surveillance, arbitrary detention, torture and killings by the country’s government, the high court has heard.

The court has been asked to consider an application by the foreign secretary to keep parts of certain government documents secret for fear the contents could damage international relations and threaten national security.

The government’s application for a public interest immunity (PII) certificate asks to keep 10 short passages confidential.

The Guardian, the BBC and the Times made submissions to the court urging disclosure of these 10 passages, arguing that this was in the public interest. A draft ruling from Lord Justice Lewis into the PII application is expected tomorrow.

Summary

Nicola Slawson

Here’s a roundup of the key developments from today:

• More than two-thirds of Conservative voters say the government should temporarily renationalise energy companies if they cannot offer lower bills. The surge in public support for freezing prices will put pressure on the Conservative candidates ahead of a hustings on Tuesday night. Liz Truss has suggested she favours help for only the most vulnerable households – as well as tax cuts in the autumn.

• Senior Scottish Conservatives fear Liz Truss’s “red meat” attacks on Nicola Sturgeon as an attention-seeker will alienate moderate voters, as the leadership hopeful prepares to face Rishi Sunak in Perth. Both candidates will be challenged on the escalating cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills, and the absence of urgent action from the UK government. But a third question is likely to dominate this event: whether Truss was right earlier in the campaign to dismiss Scotland’s first minister by saying she should be “ignored”.

• Keir Starmer defended the costs of his plan to freeze energy bills this winter after some economists said it could cost as much as furlough. The Labour leader said during a visit to the Nationwide building society headquarters in Swindon: “Our scheme is fully funded. Our scheme actually depends on a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies to maintain that price freeze.”

• Liz Truss has said her priority remains reducing taxes, responding to Labour’s call for an extension of the windfall levy. Speaking in Scotland, the Tory leadership frontrunner said it was wrong to focus on “sticking plasters”.

• The real value of UK workers’ pay continued to fall at the fastest rate for 20 years in June as wage increases were outstripped by soaring inflation amid the cost of living crisis. The Office for National Statistics said annual growth in average pay, excluding bonuses, strengthened to 4.7% in the three months to June against a backdrop of low unemployment and high job vacancies.

• Two-thirds of the public thinks the government is not doing enough to help with the cost of living, a new poll has found. The survey by Ipsos found that 66% of people think the government is not providing enough help as rising energy bills surge back into the headlines, while only 28% think current measures are about right or too much, PA News reports.

• A leading group representing green-minded Conservatives has called for the new prime minister to take urgent action to insulate more homes and scale up the installation of heat pumps to help poorer households with energy bills. The Conservative Environment Network’s intervention marks the latest stage in a fightback by environmental Tories amid signs the race to replace Boris Johnson could lead to green measures being rolled back, and greater weight given to the voices of MPs opposed to such policies.

• The government is concerned about how the cost of living crisis will affect people’s health and has taken it into consideration when planning the rollout of flu and Covid booster jabs, a minister said. The public health and vaccines minister, Maggie Throup, said: “I think if people are reassured about their own health, then it helps to take the pressure off some of the other concerns that they may have.”

• Labour is planning a campaigning blitz in order to take ownership of its new energy price cap policy in case the next Tory leader bows to pressure and cancels the 80% rise expected in October. Keir Starmer has vowed that his party “wouldn’t let people pay a penny more” on their gas and electricity bills this winter.

• Momentum and trade unions are set to force a vote on strikes and pay increases at the Labour conference, with motions designed to contradict Keir Starmer’s stance. The campaign to win support for the motion will be launched this week by the former shadow minister Sam Tarry, who was sacked for joining a picket line and contradicting Labour policy on pay in broadcast interviews.

I’m handing over to my colleague now. Thanks so much for joining me. I’ll back again in the morning.

Jessica Elgot

Momentum and trade unions are set to force a vote on strikes and pay increases at the Labour conference, with motions designed to contradict Keir Starmer’s stance.

The campaign to win support for the motion will be launched this week by the former shadow minister Sam Tarry, who was sacked for joining a picket line and contradicting Labour policy on pay in broadcast interviews.

Momentum will launch its campaign on Thursday with Tarry and fellow Labour MPs Dawn Butler and Jon Trickett, as well as Andrea Egan, the president of the trade union Unison. The motion will echo Tarry’s backing for workers demanding pay increases in line with inflation – the line Labour sources said had contradicted Labour policy.

Tarry said Labour should take the opportunity at conference to show solidarity with striking workers. “Labour has a huge chance to show it’s on the side of working people,” he said.

“But by firing shadow ministers like myself for standing on picket lines, Keir Starmer is in danger of driving a wedge between Labour and the millions of working people desperate for real relief in this escalating cost of living crisis. I am proud of our party’s historic links to the trade unions – it’s time all of our party were.”

Starmer has told his frontbenchers that the party should not join picket lines and instead should focus on calling out the government to end the disputes.

This week, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, reiterated the party’s position, which has come under fire from its own MPs. Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, caused a rift in the shadow cabinet when she joined striking members of the Communication Workers Union in her constituency.

The stance is likely to come under further pressure this week with another series of transport strikes by the RMT on rail and underground networks.

Read more here:

Truss’s attacks on Sturgeon likely to dominate Scottish hustings

Severin Carrell

Senior Scottish Conservatives fear Liz Truss’s “red meat” attacks on Nicola Sturgeon as an attention-seeker will alienate moderate voters, as the leadership hopeful prepares to face Rishi Sunak in Perth.

The lengthy contest to succeed Boris Johnson as the UK Conservative leader and next prime minister enters its final phase on Tuesday evening with the only party hustings in Scotland; the Tories chose Perth, a city once seen as a Tory stronghold.

Both candidates will be challenged on the escalating cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills, and the absence of urgent action from the UK government. But a third question is likely to dominate this event: whether Truss was right earlier in the campaign to dismiss Scotland’s first minister by saying she should be “ignored”.

Senior figures in both camps agree it was a misstep. It suggested Truss, the clear favourite to win, had adopted a “muscular unionism” approach to Sturgeon’s nationalist government. It undermined a subtler strategy devised by Michael Gove to promote the union quietly, by putting UK government money into roads, community projects and infrastructure, sidestepping the devolved Scottish government by working directly with councils.

A Sunak ally said Truss’s remarks, and her disastrous suggestion that public sector pay rates could be cut in northern regions, alienated Tory councillors in his constituency, who had switched support from Truss to the former chancellor.

More seriously, he said, her remarks in Exeter showed a “deep misunderstanding” of the need to persuade moderate unionists and uncommitted yes voters to support the union in a future referendum.

He said:

She’s probably going to win this [so] why did she pander to that extreme position when it’s going to create further difficulties for her down the line? Just say: ‘I need to be a stateswoman’ instead of throwing red meat to the ultras.

Truss supporters in Scotland acknowledge they have advised her to adopt a less belligerent tone against Sturgeon: they insist Truss will follow Gove’s softly-softly strategy.

One ally said:

To me it was just a throwaway line at a hustings for a party audience. I don’t believe we will see a major shift in approach to Scotland. The emphasis will be on raising the profile of the UK government and on direct investment, which I think is very clever politics.

Read more here:

Here’s a summary of the key developments of the day so far:

• More than two-thirds of Conservative voters say the government should temporarily renationalise energy companies if they cannot offer lower bills. The surge in public support for freezing prices will put pressure on the Conservative candidates ahead of a hustings on Tuesday night. Liz Truss has suggested she favours help for only the most vulnerable households – as well as tax cuts in the autumn.

• Keir Starmer defended the costs of his plan to freeze energy bills this winter after some economists said it could cost as much as furlough. The Labour leader said during a visit to the Nationwide building society headquarters in Swindon: “Our scheme is fully funded. Our scheme actually depends on a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies to maintain that price freeze.”

• Liz Truss has said her priority remains reducing taxes, responding to Labour’s call for an extension of the windfall levy. Speaking in Scotland, the Tory leadership frontrunner said it was wrong to focus on “sticking plasters”.

• The real value of UK workers’ pay continued to fall at the fastest rate for 20 years in June as wage increases were outstripped by soaring inflation amid the cost of living crisis. The Office for National Statistics said annual growth in average pay, excluding bonuses, strengthened to 4.7% in the three months to June against a backdrop of low unemployment and high job vacancies.

• Two-thirds of the public thinks the government is not doing enough to help with the cost of living, a new poll has found. The survey by Ipsos found that 66% of people think the government is not providing enough help as rising energy bills surge back into the headlines, while only 28% think current measures are about right or too much, PA News reports.

• A leading group representing green-minded Conservatives has called for the new prime minister to take urgent action to insulate more homes and scale up the installation of heat pumps to help poorer households with energy bills. The Conservative Environment Network’s intervention marks the latest stage in a fightback by environmental Tories amid signs the race to replace Boris Johnson could lead to green measures being rolled back, and greater weight given to the voices of MPs opposed to such policies.

• The government is concerned about how the cost of living crisis will affect people’s health and has taken it into consideration when planning the rollout of flu and Covid booster jabs, a minister said. The public health and vaccines minister, Maggie Throup, said: “I think if people are reassured about their own health, then it helps to take the pressure off some of the other concerns that they may have.”

• Labour is planning a campaigning blitz in order to take ownership of its new energy price cap policy in case the next Tory leader bows to pressure and cancels the 80% rise expected in October. Keir Starmer has vowed that his party “wouldn’t let people pay a penny more” on their gas and electricity bills this winter.

Peter Walker

A leading group representing green-minded Conservatives has called for the new prime minister to take urgent action to insulate more homes and scale up the installation of heat pumps to help poorer households with energy bills.

The Conservative Environment Network (CEN), which has the support of 133 Tory MPs, half the backbench parliamentary party, said its plan could be rolled out in parallel with measures to directly help with this winter’s fuel costs and would help move the UK towards its net zero goals, as well as saving people money.

The CEN’s intervention marks the latest stage in a fightback by environmental Tories amid signs the race to replace Boris Johnson could lead to green measures being rolled back, and greater weight given to the voices of MPs opposed to such policies.

Liz Truss, the clear favourite to become the next prime minister, has criticised the installation of solar farms on formerly agricultural land, and says she supports efforts to extract shale gas by fracking in areas where it has local support.

Her rival in the contest, Rishi Sunak, has pledged to tighten a de facto ban on planning permission for new onshore wind schemes.

The push against green measures has been led by Tory MPs and peers from the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, a relatively new body that argues against many environmental policies on the basis of the cost of living and energy security.

Read the full story here:

Liz Truss has said her priority remains reducing taxes, responding to Labour’s call for an extension of the windfall levy.

Keir Starmer has said his party would freeze the energy price cap at its current level of 1,971 for six months from October, paid for in part by an extension of the windfall levy on the profits of the oil and gas companies.

Speaking in Scotland, the Tory leadership frontrunner said it was wrong to focus on “sticking plasters”.

She said:

We’re still in the leadership contest at the moment. Now, my priority is reducing taxes so people can keep more of their own money at the same time as making sure we boost energy supply.

It is wrong to just keep sticking plasters on this problem. What we actually need to do is make sure we are unleashing more energy, for example, from the North Sea.

We’re investing in technologies like nuclear, and we’re finding more renewable energy as well.

Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of Conservative voters say that the government should temporarily renationalise energy companies if they cannot offer lower bills.

The poll, released by the campaigning organisation 38 Degrees, also shows overwhelming support for Labour’s policy to freeze the price cap this year, keeping it at its current rate of £1,971. The Opinium poll found 86% of the public and 85% of current Conservative voters back keeping the price cap.

The surge in public support for freezing prices will put pressure on the Conservative candidates ahead of a hustings on Tuesday night.