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Never work with children and journalists.

No. Yes, it is! OK, it’s Sketchy Politics. We are delighted to be back. And we’re looking at Labour pains.

OK, it’s a Labour government approaching the defining moment that is Rachel Reeves’ first Budget. There have been a few teething troubles. We haven’t actually caught up since the election, their incredible landslide victory.

Yes, there’s been more bumps than road, actually.

Yeah, a bit of a shaky start despite that incredible dominance of the House of Commons.

Yeah.

Let’s shove the Tories over there.

Yes.

We’ll come to you.

That’s about the amount of space they occupy in the Commons now. The decision to delay the Budget as long as it has been has blocked a lot of things that Labour ministers would like to do, because they just don’t know what money they’ve got available to them. And it’s clearly slowing the message progress of how we’re getting on in reforming Britain. And so the only ministers who’ve been able to make real progress are those with non-spending commitments, so those who’d really put the thought into what they were doing, like Ed Miliband in Environment or Louise Haigh at Transport. And so there’s been that.

Louise Haigh, she of the incredible hair.

Yes. And then they just clearly weren’t quite as ready as they thought they were or hoped to be. And things were moving very, very slowly at the centre of Downing Street. A lot of the blame was placed on the great Sue Gray.

Oh, here we go. Here we go.

The great Sue Grey, who has now been replaced by Morgan McSweeney. But things were just moving much too slowly. And I think on top of all of those things, Keir Starmer is just not a natural storyteller as a politician. He has a disdain for a lot of the sort of flummery and nonsense of politics.

Yes.

And he really is not interested in any of it.

He’s a little, tiny bit snotty about politics actually.

I think he really is.

You know, that’s fair.

At one level, I sort of respect it because really important things need to be grasped and fussing over the ‘come today, gone tomorrow’ issues is not right. But on the other hand, you do actually have to pay attention. A lot of the mistakes, the issues that Labour has had, particularly obviously around free gifts and suits, are partly a function of not being serious enough about that minutia of politics. Don’t you think?

Yeah, I do think. I do. I think you have to do the politics. You have to actually get down and dirty, and think about your tactics and strategy, and how you’re going to dominate the agenda.

And how it’ll play in the media.

Absolutely. So this is my attempt at a headless chicken or is it a chicken with, in fact…

A three-headed.

…a three-headed chicken. A three-headed chicken.

They’re all on the Gates of Hades.

Yes. It’s a Cerberus chicken. And it felt a bit as if Number 10, therefore, didn’t know which direction the…

I mean, there was…

…government chicken was running, right?

…a quite disgraceful briefing against her. That was the thing that really did surprise me. Straight off the bat, there were people who were much more loyal to Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s campaign chief and political strategist, who just went for Sue Gray from day one.

Blaming her for Freebiegate and all the free suits, yeah.

And there are things where I think she had a case to answer. Appointments were much too slow. Things were taking too long. And for reasons I’ve never understood, she was in charge of the communications grid, which doesn’t seem to be something that should rest with her.

I’m just going to put some very expensive spectacles on the prime minister.

Oh, very good, yes.

Donated by Lord Alli.

But they went for her very early. And you just thought it was really self-indulgent for a brand new government to be doing this. But the donations, the free suits, the freebies, it really doesn’t help Keir Starmer, who’s not especially popular anyway.

So I’m going to eject…

She’s gone.

…Sue Gray in the dignified manner that Downing Street ejected her.

Yes.

You’re gone, lady.

Off to the regents.

Sorry. So that leaves Starmer and his now all-powerful political brain, Morgan McSweeney.

And Rachel Reeves.

And Rachel Reeves. Credited with the amazing majority and landslide, but also not someone who’s run anything in government. So that’s a challenge there. And you’ve got this incredibly powerful figure at the Treasury, Rachel Reeves. Those are the two poles.

Obviously, the other two people of importance at the top of the party are Angela Rayner, deputy leader, but I think is not a central figure as those, and Pat McFadden who runs the Cabinet Office, but is absolutely of a piece with these people. I mean, the one good thing is that actually Starmer and Reeves are running in lockstep. That carries promise.

So it’s a…

Yeah, a new third. Yes.

The chicken’s still got three heads, people. It’s all fine.

But it’s the same head, really. That’s a good thing, in one respect, because there’s clarity at the top. The danger is you do sort of want the prime minister to be able to step back, and adjudicate, and say, particularly to their chancellor, look, the money argument you’re making is absolutely right, but we just have to do this or we have to do that, particularly on issues like, for example, defence.

So I think the issue that worries some people in the Labour party now is that actually it’s going to be run by the Treasury. It’s basically been annexed by the Treasury. And that’s the challenge, I think, as it moves along, particularly at a time when money is tight. And the Treasury decisions always veer towards finding more money or not spending money, as we saw.

What do you think this is?

I think it’s a Treasury brain.

Yes, it is!

Yes.

Well, the Treasury brain is known as the thing which actually holds back the proper functioning or proper forward-thinking strategic government in this country. Do you think that’s fair? i.e. looking at everything in terms of a spend-save spreadsheet and not realising that the process of government should sometimes be more generous where you need to build for the future.

I think there’s an element of fairness in it. The criticism is always that what the Treasury is bad at is accepting an argument that if you spend today, you’ll get savings down the line. So if you want to improve your health service and make it more efficient, spend now on primary care so that fewer people get ill. And the Treasury is very bad at making those costings and saying, that’s true. And I think that’s a fair criticism of the Treasury.

It was also, as we remember from the last government, criticised for always favouring investment schemes in London and the South East, because they delivered the most bang for your buck and, therefore, not helping the rest of the country. The inverse of that is it is the one department that says we can’t afford this. And someone has to.

It’s often whacked by everyone for blocking things that they would like to do but can’t be afforded. So it’s a balance. But I do think it’s a worry, particularly if people in the Labour party, that Treasury brain is too powerful at the moment.

And it does, we know from previous chancellors, let’s face it, that often when a budget gets OK headlines on the day and then the next two days it starts to unravel, that can be because Treasury brain has said, ooh, let’s save a bit here, let’s save a bit there, and you succeed in massively alienating powerful groups of voters, all those with whom the public has sympathy. And so I’m now going to attempt…

Liz Truss managed to have a budget that went disastrously without the Treasury brain.

Well, also united the nation by alienating absolutely everyone. So I’m going to try for a second time, I think. I believe it is on Sketchy Politics to draw a kind of, look out the elderly, because surely one of the most difficult things that’s happened so far for the government is that they have means tested the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.

So there is polling on this now, as to what people are really annoyed with the new government about. And that comes absolutely number 1. Why have you decided to make the poor elderly cold over the winter? And also, what’s the impact of that potentially on the NHS if there’s a winter crisis? So was this avoidable and was this actually part of this Treasury brain thing?

Was it avoidable? Clearly, they didn’t have to make that choice. They could have made a different choice. It was quite a shrewd piece of financial politics from Rachel Reeves, because fundamentally she wants to spend lots more money. She wants to borrow more money.

She wants to borrow to invest.

She really wants to push her fiscal rules as far as she can. And I think the one thing that that measure did, step aside from the politics of it a minute, is say to the markets, listen, don’t worry, we as a government will do the horrible things if we have to rather than jeopardise our financial security or allow a run on the pound or anything like that.

So I think in that respect, it was probably very important. It’s not going to save very much money. And we’re talking about something that saves at its top end £1.5bn, which is a small amount of money, isn’t it?

Well, also, once you’ve actually had it pointed out to you, as everybody did, you cannot possibly allow it to only go to the people who’d be eligible under your new scheme. Then you have to chase all the people who should be actually in line for the benefit. You’re going to save a whole lot less than you even thought you were going to. I mean, is it worth the political pain when people are really… the unions are cross with them about it? Pensioners do turn out to vote.

I have more sympathy for the case for means testing than some people do. I think that payments shouldn’t go to people who don’t need them. They’re taking it from other taxpayers’. But the question is whether this is just too low down the income scale and whether they should have done more for people who had a bit more money, but not that much.

I think that’s an absolute straw man argument, if you don’t mind me saying so, because I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think it should be means tested. It’s a question of how you do it and who you hurt. And that’s why people are angry.

That’s the whole point about means testing. Means testing, you’re always going to hurt someone. There’s always going to be people on the wrong side of the line.

Yeah, but you do it through the benefit system, you’re creating a terrible cliff edge.

Governments for quite a long time have been hurling out bungs to pensioners because they’re reliable.

Some pensioners.

ROBERT SHRIMSLEY: The Triple Lock is all pensioners.

Only one in four pensioners gets the one that’s going up dramatically, which they never mention.

But the Triple Lock is a fundamental part of it. But the point is…

Could you live on £12,000 a year?

I don’t know. Probably not. But that’s not my point. My point is it’s been cynical. It’s not been about the good of the elderly. It’s been about these people vote. And they have let down other parts of the country at the same time.

So here’s what we think she might do in the Budget is make the fiscal rules. I don’t know how to do this visually, Robert. You might have to help me.

Look, so here’s Jeremy Hunt, who set a five-year horizon, as they call it in the jargon, for the fiscal rules. It said that she might change the five to a longer timescale, maybe even 10, or make the fiscal rules a bit bendy. I’m going try and draw a bendy rule.

A bendy rule. OK I mean, it should be reminded that even Jeremy Hunt’s numbers, I think, were described by the Office of Budget Responsibility as hard to caricature, even as a work of fiction.

Right.

I mean, they really didn’t work. They were absolutely the numbers of someone who knew they would not have to be held accountable for them in a few years time.

The cynicism.

What we both think she’s going to do, isn’t it, is change the definitions of debt so that she has more room to play with and that, therefore, can borrow more. And I think that’s probably a good idea.

And there are obviously departments who would like that to happen, right? Particularly the infrastructure departments.

As long as the borrowing is for real investment and capital spending rather than just to keep the ordinary things ticking over.

I should probably do it in red, shouldn’t I? Do you think there’s a danger of looking too Labour for those who are worried about it?

Too Labour.

Because she’s got to manage the expectations of the financial markets, particularly with the Truss mini-budget in recent memory.

There are two risks, aren’t there, in that approach. The first is that she overdoes it and gets an adverse market reaction. I think she’ll be very, very careful not to do that. I think that’s at the centre of her thinking.

The danger, I think, is that in trying to make the current account numbers add up, she’s going to come up with a number of tax measures, all of which are sort of a bit invisible to most ordinary people. They don’t affect their pay packets immediately. Taxes on business, taxes on pensions savings, that kind of thing.

All of those kinds of things which have an effect further down the line, and are damaging to the economy, and put off businesses, and stop businesses doing things. So I think that’s the real risk of being too Labour. But she is alive to that.

It’s a horrible balancing act she’s got to do. She has far more calls on money than she has money. And the only ways are to borrow or invest until you get better growth. And the borrowing is only going to be for capital investment.

So here’s a question. Do you think because of this really genuinely very difficult inheritance that they’ve got in terms of the economy and the public finances, do you think it’s fair when people say that they really overdid the gloom? You and I were both there at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, which was indeed very, very, very wet and rainy.

It was quite a glum affair. And there was this idea that they’re encouraging everyone to come and invest in the UK, a newly stable government. We want your money to build the economy of the future. But actually, all of the kind of mood music was really, really dire.

I totally get the politics, which was we’re going to spend the first few months reminding voters that it’s all the fault of the Conservatives. And that some things which are going to be a bit rough for a couple of years, at least, are the fault of the Conservatives. All their fault, all their fault, so things are really bad. And I totally get the politics of that.

On the other hand, the voters knew that because that’s why we got the election result we did. So I think it was overdone. I also think generally voters have a fairly limited patience for being told things are bad and that it’s the previous government’s fault. Their general view is, yeah, things are bad.

What are you going to do about it?

We put you in power, now deal with it. Don’t keep telling us how awful it is.

So can we expect more of the kind of terrible kind of stuck-on cheer that we had? Because when Rachel Reeves came to give her speech at the conference…

It was a really forced grin, yeah.

It was sort of like, yeah, a forced grin. And Keir Starmer at PMQs seems to be trying to lighten the mood ever so slightly, but that doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s not Mr Optimism.

I think the right tone for them is a sort of pack up your troubles. You’ve got to keep on down to the end of the road. We’re making the start.

It’s not going to be easy straightaway, but we’re on our way now. We’ve made a journey. And you’ll start to see the results. It won’t be immediate, but you’ll look back at today and say, we got back on track.

That’s got to be the approach. You don’t want to overdo the good cheer, because it’s not going to be a cheery budget. And people aren’t going to feel better the day after. But you’ve got to somehow convey this message that we are grasping the nettle.

And no sunlit uplands any time soon. Now we had to put Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on here, because obviously one of the massive known-unknowns is what kind of a democratic world are they actually going to be governing in? Because after the Budget quickly comes the American election, our most important alliance, particularly now that we’re out of Europe. But, of course, there’s another incredibly important election going on, Robert, isn’t there, closer to home? One with possibly even more import to the…

One, I think that overshadows the American election for the rest of the western world.

We turn the page.

The one point beyond, obviously, the fact that this is a monumentally important election and we don’t know how it’s going yet, is that actually governments, particularly governments with not much money to splash around, are really at the mercy of events totally beyond their control.

Yes, quite.

This is a government that’s got a war in Ukraine. There’s a war in the Middle East. Who knows what’s going to happen in the US election. There are so many ways in which they can suddenly find everything they’re trying to do completely derailed by events over which they have almost no say.

So basically, we’re saying that this American rain cloud could totally dwarf the tiny little rain clouds that we have domestically if it goes the wrong way.

Although, I still think the two conflicts are probably more immediately dangerous to the government. Ukraine and what’s going on in Israel and Gaza.

Ukraine and the Middle East.

Yeah, I think those have the potential to be much more dangerous to the world economy.

OK, right, let’s move on to the subject that’s on everyone’s lips, right?

Yeah.

The Conservative party leadership election.

So these are the final two.

The final two, but lately departed in a sort of weird plot twist at the final hurdle, well, the penultimate hurdle, both the moderates removed from the scene. Goodbye, James Cleverly, former foreign secretary and home secretary. Goodbye Tom Tugendhat, former security and prisons minister. Very much a voice of moderate, sort of blue-wally.

That he was trying not to be in the election.

Yeah. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you not think that was some of the problem that the way that a moderate centre-right Tory now has to pitch themselves to the Conservative membership makes it almost impossible for you to believe what they’re saying?

I think it was a problem for Tom Tugendhat, although I never thought he was going to make it anyway. James Cleverly came agonisingly close from his point of view and quite possibly just messed up the ballot in the final round before it went to members. He clearly won over a section of the membership. And he might have been quite a potent candidate in the ballot of Tory activists who will choose between the final two. Anyway, didn’t make it.

All right, gone. Gone, gone.

So the Tory party’s veering right again, which I think we’d have predicted before that after a heavy defeat, parties tend to go back into their base.

It’s sort of a comfort zone mentality slightly. But also maybe it’s not that daft in the sense that if you’ve had a really catastrophic defeat. I mean, the last time we were having a chat about all of this, we were thinking that it was a near extinction level event, the July 4th election for the Tory party. So actually, if you’ve got to rebuild from a defeat.

It was only a catastrophe.

That’s right, just a catastrophe. The Torysaurus, as we dubbed it, was not made extinct.

These people, Nigel Farage’s Reform party, are weighing disproportionately on the minds of the Conservatives, particularly Robert Jenrick, who’s out and out pitch is to steal Reform’s clothes, fundamentally. We’re going to take their clothes. And it’s a difficult one for the Tories because…

Where’s Farage? Look, Farage. Everything is just delighting him. Here he is, laughing away.

On the one hand, they do have to get back some of those voters. But on the other hand, they lost as many voters to these three parties as they did to Reform and particularly to the Liberal Democrats, especially important. If they overdo the tilt to Reform, they will undermine desperately their chances of winning back the voters to their left. And so it’s very tricky.

This is incredibly important, isn’t it? The sheer maths of what happened in July. I mean, they even lost two seats to the Green party, right? Which is extraordinary due to the level of disgust amongst most of the electorate.

People voted for whoever they could vote for to get rid of them.

Absolutely they reached for whatever weapon was to hand. But there was something particular going on with the exodus to Reform. But this is broadly equal, what happened to these two wings. But Jenrick is pitching it as if they only have to solve this problem, right?

Yes. I went to a very interesting fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference where the pollster Luke Tryl was talking about these issues. And one of the points he made, I thought very convincingly, was that it’s as much about the phasing of how you win back voters as it is how you get them back. And his argument was, actually the Reform voters that you can win back, and half of them will never go to the Tories. But the ones that you can win back, you win them back last. That actually, it’s more important to win back Liberal Democrat voters first, and Labour voters first, and the Greens, as you said, a couple of constituencies only.

Win back the centre ground first. And then because you look credible and serious again, you can win back the Reform voters that you’re capable of winning. And I thought that was a very convincing argument. He says, you can’t ignore those people, but you don’t go for them first, because if you go for them first, these are the people that will shut their ears to you. And I think that’s the danger that the Conservative party is running into. The only thing that we have to allow for, particularly with Robert Jenrick, who has occupied a number of positions on the Conservative ideological spectrum, is…

That is a very polite way to put the weaving across the spectrum that he has done. He was a moderate Cameroonian during the coalition years, then became extreme.

He has returned to the prodigal tent. The question is whether they’re just playing to the gallery they have to play to to win. Kemi Badenoch, I don’t think, has ever been accused of playing to a gallery. I mean, she really believes the stuff she’s talking about.

She just happens to agree with the gallery, you’re saying?

Exactly.

My map is lacking because, to be honest with you, I have not got a yellow for the Lib Dems. But what I’m just trying to do here is the fact that it’s kind of geographically a mish-mash now as to where the Tory party lost seats. To The Lib Dems in the South. I’m just going to have to put the bird across the South and South West and South East. The Labour Party in the Midlands, these two Green seats.

They lost to everyone. They did retain a presence in both Scotland and Wales. So it wasn’t quite that weird 1997 wipeout in the other two nations. We got a special, special treat for you, Robert, because you wrote a wonderful column about how Kemi Badenoch, it’s been said of her, she could start a fight in an empty room because she’s that combative.

You said that she was on a search for dragons to slay. Dragons are too hard for me to draw under the pressure of Sketchy Politics. So here is one I prepared earlier. Here’s a little dragon.

You’re the Mother of Dragons, it’s official.

I’m the Mother of Dragons. And all of the dragons, I’ve tried to do my dragons sort of rolling its eyes a bit.

It’s very good. I like it.

Because she’s trying to sort of take on and find enemies, right?

Yes.

Is that the way to fight modern politics? Just as a final thought.

Well, there’s an element of it. In general, oppositions have to find a story to tell the country. There is a dragon that needs to be slayed and we are going to slay it.

You think back to Margaret Thatcher slaying the trade unions. That’s always the strategy. The problem for the Conservatives is that at the last election the dragon was the Conservatives as what people wanted to get rid of. So what they have to find is a new argument.

And hers is about the bureaucratic and overregulated state. I have my doubts about it. I think it’s interesting up to a point. But it’s also everybody who works in HR, and every lawyer, and them making more enemies.

She’s picking off all of us, group by group.

The one thing that Keir Starmer has going for him at the moment, he’s been quite a lucky general in his career so far, is that the opposition does not at the moment look like an opposition that should worry him too much while he’s making the mistakes he’s making.

And so few in numbers.

Things change.

But so few in numbers. So I think, are we saying that if the Tory Party was to go for Kemi Badenoch, very young, very untried, argumentative, gets a lot of attention, but has a tendency to make enemies as much as she does to attract people…

Use the attention wisely.

…might be playing the joker.

I think that’s exactly right. They’re playing the joker with Kemi. As someone put it to me, high risk, high reward, mainly high risk.

Oh, god.

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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Donald Trump is using the final stretch of the White House race to sell everything from crypto tokens to watches, books and jewellery to millions of fans, boosting his family’s finances on the back of his political appeal.

Between campaign stops in the swing states this week, Trump posted a video on Truth Social, his social media channel, to celebrate the launch of a new token on World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency platform linked to him and his sons.

“Crypto is the future! Let’s embrace this incredible technology and lead the world in the digital economy,” he told his 7.9mn followers on the social media site, speaking as a seasoned television salesman.

Last weekend, Trump sought to help his wife Melania boost sales of her newly released book — called Melania — by reposting her own callout on Truth Social for people to purchase various versions of the memoir, including the $250 signed collector’s edition with bonus photographs.

“This book is a piece of history, art, & elegance all in one,” Melania Trump wrote, linking to a website where the former and possibly future first lady is also selling jewellery including a $600 “vote freedom” charm and a $90 star-shaped Christmas ornament with USA printed across it.

The universe of the Republican presidential nominee’s side-hustles is far more vast than the items he has been touting over the past week. Earlier this year, as he emerged victorious from his party’s presidential primary contest, Trump began selling a copy of the Bible for $59.99. Last month on Truth Social he was busy promoting the “official Trump watch collection” including a $100,000 “Trump victory Tourbillon” — saying there were only 147 left.

Big events have provided more fodder for merchandise linked to the former president. Trump last year sold scraps cut from the suit he wore when he was indicted for a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, and is still selling relics from the outfit he wore during his June debate against Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Trump is selling cologne with a picture of him raising his fist and shouting “Fight fight fight” after being nearly killed in an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

Back in February, Trump made an appearance at a footwear trade show in Philadelphia to promote his $399 golden high-top sneakers, which got a mixed reaction from the audience. “There’s a lot of emotion in this room,” he said. “This is something that I’ve been talking about for 12 years, 13 years. And I think it’s going to be a big success,” he said.

The Trump campaign says the merchandise sales are separate from his political fundraising. “These are not campaign-related. They are outside business ventures,” said Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the Trump campaign. She did not say how much Trump had earned from his side-businesses since launching his bid for a second White House term.

However, any additional financial gains would come on top of the revenues earned from Trump’s properties, including his resorts, during this election cycle. According to ProPublica’s estimate, these have earned $4.9mn since early 2023 from political spending, of which the vast majority — $4.1mn — has come from the Trump campaign.

Trump’s efforts to generate additional cash for himself and his family come as he has faced high legal bills connected to civil and criminal cases over the past two years at both the federal and state level, including a conviction in New York on falsifying business records.

But there is scant information on the deals Trump has made in connection with his private business ventures, including the licensing agreements connected to them, and the influence he holds over their governance.

On the website of World Liberty Financial, Trump is listed and pictured as “chief crypto advocate”, while his sons Don Jr, Eric and Barron are each a “web3 ambassador”. Steven Witkoff, a real estate investor, is co-founder of the group. The contact for the watch business connected to Trump is listed on its website as TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC, based in the small western town of Sheridan, Wyoming, but there is no further information about it such as a telephone number.

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s side businesses. But while the former president’s commercial activities could fuel some admiration for his business acumen and entrepreneurialism, it could also draw accusations that he is taking advantage of Americans for his own gain.

In a whirlwind of allegations and revelations, Ryan Lizza, the former fiancé of journalist Olivia Nuzzi, has made startling claims about her purported year-long relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The 31-year-old reporter for New York Magazine stands at the center of a storm involving accusations of blackmail, harassment, and intense emotional manipulation.

The Allegations

According to recent court documents obtained by major news outlets, including CNN, The Daily Beast, and the Wall Street Journal, Nuzzi accuses Lizza of leaking details about her alleged relationship with the 70-year-old former presidential candidate following an interview she conducted with him last November. Nuzzi further claims that Lizza attempted to blackmail her in a bid to reconcile, intensifying the already fraught dynamic between the two.

Lizza, currently the Chief Washington Correspondent for Politico, refuted these claims in his legal filing, stating that he discovered Nuzzi had been involved with a married man for nearly a year. Kennedy has been married to actress Cheryl Hines since 2014. Lizza’s court filing alleges that Nuzzi expressed fears regarding Kennedy’s desire to “control,” “possess,” and even “impregnate” her, painting a picture of a toxic and manipulative relationship.

A Toxic Dynamic

In his court documents, Lizza detailed Nuzzi’s own characterization of her relationship with Kennedy, which she described as “toxic,” “unhealthy,” “stupid,” “psychotic,” “crazy,” and “indefensible.” He noted that Nuzzi acknowledged the significant power imbalance between herself and Kennedy, which led to what Lizza described as “catastrophically reckless behavior” on her part. He suggested that Kennedy had manipulated her throughout their relationship, further complicating her emotional state.

Despite Lizza’s promises to help Nuzzi navigate her troubled situation, he expressed doubts about the possibility of a future together. “Ms. Nuzzi resisted any efforts to formally end our relationship and continually asked for more time to consider our future,” Lizza stated. “This was her position right up until our final conversation on September 15th.”

Denying Harassment and Blackmail Claims

Lizza vehemently denied Nuzzi’s accusations of harassment and blackmail, stating, “Everything I know about her affair comes directly from Ms. Nuzzi herself.” He also rejected claims that he hacked into her devices or threatened her with physical violence, labeling those allegations as “defamatory lies.” Instead, he claimed he merely encouraged her to repay an advance related to a book deal, stating this was “the second presidential cycle in a row where Ms. Nuzzi’s personal indiscretions have sabotaged our book project.”

A representative for Kennedy responded to Lizza’s allegations, asserting that Lizza’s portrayal of the relationship is “not true.” They previously denied any meaningful relationship between Kennedy and Nuzzi, emphasizing that “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which resulted in a hit piece.”

The Fallout

In his filing, Lizza also mentioned that he was not the source for the reporter who initially revealed Nuzzi’s alleged affair, referencing Oliver Darcy from New York Magazine. “Ms. Nuzzi is aware of this because the reporter informed her,” he stated. Furthermore, Lizza characterized Nuzzi’s claim that he attempted to blackmail her as “a shameful falsehood that contradicts the simplest facts.”

According to CNN, both Lizza and Nuzzi have been placed on leave from their respective positions as the drama unfolds. A court hearing involving the two is set for next month, with both individuals bracing for what promises to be a contentious legal battle. As the world watches, the intersection of personal relationships and professional lives remains under intense scrutiny.

BUDGET airline Ryanair has launched a new route from Belfast to Kaunas in Lithuania.

Last year, the budget carrier started operating from Belfast Airport following a 17-month hiatus.

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Following on from its success, the no-frills airline has added a new winter service to Kaunas.

The twice-weekly service will operate every Wednesday and Sunday throughout the winter.

Wednesday afternoon flights will depart at 4pm before touching down in Lithuania at 8.55pm.

Return flights will then leave Kaunas at 9.25pm, landing back in the UK at 10.30pm.

Sunday afternoon flights will leave the UK five minutes later at 4.05pm, landing at 9pm local time.

The Sunday return flight will operate at the same time as the Wednesday service.

Sun Online Travel have found return fares for £45.81 in November, with flights operating from October 27, 2024.

Located in southern Lithuania, Kaunas has an old town with charming streets and a 14th century castle.

Kaunas Castle was built to defend the city against crusaders, making it one of the oldest stone castles in the country.

The city is also home to Kaunas Christmas Market, which dates back to the 16th century.

Nowadays, the market is a maze of wooden stalls selling homemade souvenirs and gifts.

Local delicacies like kūčiukai (small sweet pastries) and Cepelinai (potato dumplings stuffed with meat or cheese) will also be sold at the Christmas Market.

The Christmas market runs from the end of November until Christmas Eve.

It’s been praised by visitors online with one person writing: “It’s a winter wonderland with a beautiful old town and even more magical town square just in time for Christmas!”

Kaunas is just over an hour away from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.

Lithuania’s capital city is a real winter wonderland and one of the most affordable Christmas market destinations in Europe, with flights from as little as £15 and mugs of mulled wine for less than £3.50.

The no-thrills airline also added additional winter flights to Alicante, Krakow and London.

Ryanair chief marketing officer Dara Brady said: “Since reopening Ryanair’s base in 2023, we have grown and invested heavily in the region with two based aircraft and support of over 850 local jobs, as well as driving important inbound tourism year-round. 

“Through our ongoing investment, we have grown our Belfast operation by 64 per cent verses pre-Covid levels, and we will continue to grow at Belfast, have recently switched over 50,000 winter seats from Dublin due to the 2007 traffic cap rendering Dublin airport closed for business.”

Other new Ryanair routes include Newcastle to Marrakech in October.

Earlier this year, Jet2 confirmed that a new route will operate between Manchester Airport and Porto.

3

For more than a year, Israel’s most wanted man proved elusive as the weight of the Israeli military hunted him through the ruins of Gaza. But Israel’s relentless search for Yahya Sinwar finally ended in a bombed-out building in the besieged strip’s south.

On Thursday, Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz said Sinwar had been killed by Israeli soldiers in what he called a “great military and moral achievement”. Hamas has not confirmed the death of its leader, the architect of the group’s October 7 2023 attack on Israel.

From the moment just over a year ago when Hamas militants broke out of Gaza and rampaged through southern Israel, Sinwar was catapulted to the top of Israel’s hit list.

The 61-year-old, the leader of Hamas in the coastal territory since 2017, was swiftly identified by Israel as the instigator of the cross-border assault, during which, according to Israeli authorities, militants killed about 1,200 people and seized 250 hostages.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched Israel’s ferocious retaliatory offensive on Gaza, he described Sinwar as a “dead man walking”. His assassination became a prime objective of the Israeli leader’s pledge to eradicate Hamas.

Yet as tens of thousands of Israeli troops poured into Gaza, Sinwar evaded capture. While he has not been seen in public since Hamas’s 2023 attack, he was believed to be hiding out in its vast tunnel network, using it to move from location to location even as Israel pummelled the besieged strip from the air, land and sea.

Swaths of the enclave were turned into rubble-strewn wastelands during an offensive that killed more than 42,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials. But still, there were no signs of Sinwar.

In February, the IDF released a grainy video that purported to show him and his family in the darkness of a tunnel under Khan Younis, the southern Gazan city where he was born in a refugee camp. But he remained at large, even as his key commanders Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa were killed in Israeli air strikes.

He emerged last month to issue a series of rare “letters” and statements, including one to Algeria’s president congratulating him on his re-election; another to Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese militant movement Hizbollah shortly before his assassination; and a third to their Houthi rebel allies in Yemen.

He also praised the Palestinian “resistance” and said it was preparing itself for a battle of attrition against Israel.

In recent weeks, Israel has shifted its focus to Hizbollah in Lebanon, but it has continued to pound Gaza, and search for Sinwar.

Sinwar rose to prominence in Hamas shortly after the Islamist movement was formed during the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the 1980s, initially as an adviser to Hamas’s wheelchair-bound founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

He helped build the group’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, the force that has been decimated by Israel’s year-long offensive. He also led Hamas’s notorious internal security division, which was tasked with hunting down Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

Sinwar’s ruthlessness earned him the nickname the “butcher of Khan Younis”, and in the late 1980s — when Israel occupied Gaza — he was arrested by Israel for murdering collaborators and was handed multiple life sentences.

During more than 22 years in an Israeli prison, he became leader of the members of Hamas in detention and studied Hebrew, as well as his enemy.

An Israeli intelligence assessment of Sinwar during this time attempted to capture his character. It described him as “cruel . . . authoritative, influential, accepted by his friends and with unusual abilities of endurance, cunning and manipulative, content with little . . . keeps secrets even inside prison among other prisoners . . . has the ability to carry crowds.”

He was eventually released as part of a 2011 prisoner swap in which more than 1,000 Palestinians were freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held by Hamas in Gaza.

Israel officials who spent time with Sinwar described him as a charismatic man of few words, a quick temper and a commanding presence. He gained near mythical status among Palestinians as the feared — but also respected — leader of the “resistance” against Israel.

By the time of his release, Hamas was in full control of Gaza. Israel had pulled out in 2005, and the following year Hamas, which has a political as well as a military wing, won Palestinian elections.

It seized control of the strip in 2007 after an internal civil war with the rival Fatah faction.

A decade later, Hamas selected him as its leader in Gaza, with Sinwar replacing Ismail Haniyeh, a move seen as a sign of hardliners from the military wing taking over from more pragmatic factions within the group.

He led Hamas in Gaza during an 11-day conflict with Israel in 2021, but Israel assessed that the group had been deterred from triggering a full-blown conflict and was more interested in reaching a broader agreement with Israel. In the weeks before October 7 2023, Israel was in talks that would allow more work permits for Gazans to enter Israel.

But October 7 revealed that Sinwar had been long plotting what would become the deadliest assault inside Israel in the state’s 75-year history.

As the Gaza war ground on, Sinwar and Haniyeh, the group’s political leader living in exile in Doha, became integral to the diplomatic efforts to secure the release of hostages and end the war in Gaza.

Haniyeh acted as Hamas’s chief negotiator with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, passing messages through a secret channel of communications to Sinwar, who had the final say, in Gaza.

But in July, Haniyeh was killed in a suspected Israeli attack in Tehran, and Sinwar took over the role as political leader. That cemented his hold over the group even as he hid out in the devastated strip, his forces under constant barrage and ever more depleted.

The US and Israel repeatedly blamed Sinwar for the failure of the talks. Others blamed Netanyahu, who vowed to continue the military offensive until Israel achieved “total victory”.

“This was the inevitable end. One way or another [Sinwar] was done, and he knew it,” said a western diplomat. “He sacrificed his own nation for his own obsessive, sociopathic nature.”

Gazans will hope that, if confirmed by Hamas, the death of Sinwar would be sufficient grounds for Israel to end its devastating offensive that has triggered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

“I thought I would feel happy if Sinwar was killed. [But] it feels mixed and weird,” said Mohammed Nafiz, a 28-year-old in Khan Younis.

“He started the whole thing. If his death doesn’t lead to the end of the war then there’s nothing to be happy for.”

Additional reporting by Mai Khaled in London