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Is this the budget Britain needs? Our panel responds | Polly Toynbee, Frances Ryan, Sahil Dutta, Sharon Graham, John Redwood and others

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Polly Toynbee

Polly Toynbee: This was radicalism disguised as conservatism

Polly Toynbee

Here comes Labour defining itself at last with the biggest tax-raising budget in a lifetime: the £70bn in new spending – with £40bn coming from raised taxation – is big enough to see from space. This should lift the public mood, after the chancellor committed to economic change with her “invest, invest, invest” message. She demolished the Tory legacy after the OBR’s verdict: they had hidden debts – and now they have run for the hills. Her tone of authority rang out to the markets, responding at first by setting their prices in her favour. Then they wavered: will they settle?

The rich got their noses pinched, and were scorched for their private jets, private schools, capital gains and non-dom status, while losing inheritance tax perks on pension pots and farmland. These crowd-pleasers that polled very well would have made the “intensely relaxed about the filthy rich” Blair government faint with shock. How cleverly the stolid Reeves-Starmer show of sober solidity disguised their radicalism in a generally market-calming performance. Mind you, her speech didn’t talk of squeezing the rich till the pips squeak (these were only minor pinches to their wallets). We know now who Labour thinks working people are, protecting them with no rise in fuel tax, 1p off a pint in a pub, and no change to income tax or national insurance thresholds: pretending they might continue freezing those thresholds for working people was a clever pre-budget feint.

The great taxation, the springboard out of austerity, takes most from larger businesses so that small hairdressers or corner shops with four or few employees are saved from higher national insurance contributions. The eye-watering sum raised for the NHS must yield falling waiting lists fast: almost everything for Labour depends on this. Schools get a welcome lift. There’s little for the poor box: wait for that taskforce report in the spring spending review, they say. Then they must remove the two-child cap. For now, change needs to show itself soon to raise the spirits of a glum and cynical public. But everyone now knows the true nature of this government.

Frances Ryan: Forget the election campaign – tax is no longer a dirty word for Labour

Frances Ryan

It is an age-old truth that the purpose of a Labour government is to clear up the Conservatives’ mess. For the party’s first budget in nearly 15 years, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had two dilemmas: how is Labour going to rebuild Britain – and who is going to pay for it?

Forget the tight-lipped election campaign, taxes are no longer a dirty word. They will boost the minimum wage, help the broken special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system and pay for breakfast clubs for kids. The flatlining NHS will get £22bn worth of CPR.

Reeves targeted those with the broadest shoulders through capital gains and inheritance tax changes, while lifting the freeze for middle earners. But she missed the chance to raise cash from a wealth tax. Polling by YouGov before the budget found eight in 10 Britons support raising income tax for the super-rich.

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Large-scale investment in infrastructure will be a lifeline for a country that’s crumbling. But meagre 1.5% raises for government departments expose a spending double standard: it’s prudent to fix a road but wasteful to ease child poverty.

Reducing debt repayments from universal credit will be welcomed but knowing that changes to the work capability assessment are to come means an anxious wait for many disabled people.

Much punditry today will focus on whether Reeves has broken Labour’s manifesto tax pledge. But that’s a distraction. The real issue is not the semantics of who is or isn’t a “working person”. It’s what is a fair way to rebuild a broken public realm.

Now the maths is done, Labour will need to sell the narrative it should have started with in the election: tax is not a burden – it’s the price of Tory failure.

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Sahil Dutta: A crucial question – who will own this new infrastructure?

Sahil Dutta

Despite progress on public investment, Labour’s budget still reflects a failed status quo. The £40bn increase in tax is needed but falls more on businesses employing people than it does the wealthy hoarding economic resources.

Rejecting broader questions of how money is made in the economy and by who, Labour instead treats infrastructure investment – especially housing, transport and energy – as the ultimate problem to solve. After three decades when Britain has invested less than its G7 partners, it is right to address this. But how investment happens is as important as how much.

Here Labour has shown little sign of changing the current model where critical infrastructure is provided by private firms. Many of these companies have shunned investment for the past three decades, while ramping up dividends, buybacks and executive pay. Rather than confront why, Labour’s priority seems to be sweetening investors and developers with more money available on better terms.

This is what drives Rachel Reeves’s new “investment rule”. That an accounting tweak can suddenly release £50bn for public investment shows how political “economic realities” really are, but the updated framework still restricts extra fiscal capacity to subsidising capital projects.

By excluding “day-to-day” spending, Labour has undervalued our social infrastructure. Work in sectors such as healthcare, childcare, education and adult social care is as vital for a functioning economy as new train lines and energy plants. What use are new machines in the NHS when hospitals are filled with elderly patients needing community care? Though these essential services have gained today, their forecasted budgets are very tight.

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It is telling that many of these essential services – staffed by Britain’s 21st-century working class – will scrap for support while the big business suppliers of capital infrastructure projects can look forward to more subsidies. If the budget is a window into where power lies in the country, this shows how far Labour has to go.

John Redwood: The intentions are good, but can Starmer and Reeves deliver?

John Redwood

Many of us welcome and support the main budget aims of securing more growth, making good investments and helping more people into work. The question is: will the many tax rises and spending increases achieve the desired results?

In order to achieve the government’s growth ambitions through increased investment there needs to be a big uplift in private sector investment, alongside new government projects. That, in turn, requires a competitive tax regime as the UK seeks to attract crucial investment from around the world. It also needs a way of taxing the wealthy and successful to ensure, as now, they pay substantial tax without setting rates and rules that lead to many of them leaving the country. Ahead of the budget, we read that many very rich non-doms left, taking their businesses and spending power with them. We cannot afford to lose too many from our talent pool.

The strategy based on a big expansion of public sector investment needs to be carefully planned and executed. Doubtless more AI and computers could raise standards and reduce costs, but we do not need another very expensive computerisation scheme like the Post Office one, which landed the taxpayer with huge bills for compensation. The idea that the state should put £19bn into carbon capture and storage worries true green campaigners, and leaves the rest of us concerned that this will not be an investment that will pay a return. Trying to rescue HS2 as a new link to the north could prove to be costly and difficult, as it has defeated the well-paid management so far to deliver it on time and anywhere near the original large budget.

Many of the projects the government brings forward will be familiar: the announced improvements to schools and new hospitals (which the last government said it wanted but did not get done) are presumably there with some advanced plans. I wish them well in trying to get us more energy, better schools and hospitals, and a rail system that pleases the passengers; but Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are going to need new thinking on how to manage these matters, and some better public sector managers to carry them through.

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Sharon Graham: It’s disappointing Labour didn’t adopt our proposal for a wealth tax

Sharon Graham

There are some positive announcements, no doubt. For instance, the increases in government spending, a decent increase to the minimum wage, and a loosening of the fiscal rules – a move I have been calling for these past months – so we can borrow to invest. But for everyday people to feel change, a much clearer timeline of concrete action will be needed.

Here is the real challenge this government faces. How does it deliver a serious industrial strategy that creates jobs and supports communities? On investment, the chancellor still left the fundamental question unanswered. Where are the 650,000 green jobs? Too much is left unknown.

Investment can’t end up being a handout for multinational banks and corporations, with no job guarantees attached. That doesn’t work. It isn’t working with the PetroChina and Ineos oil refinery at Grangemouth.

That’s the cold, hard truth about the world we now live in. A world in which billionaires and global markets have the whip hand. They couldn’t care less about UK infrastructure, about our jobs and communities.

But governments should and could do more. They can use the resources they have to take stakes and drive investment – to lead, not just follow, the market.

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On public services, this budget marked the beginning of a long path towards renewal. Substantial investment in education and our NHS is to be welcomed. But we need to make sure that the investment is in people, not just technology. Scanners without staff are of no use.

The government chose not to bite the bullet and adopt our proposal for a wealth tax. Instead of raising corporation tax to 28%, as we had proposed (and as Kamala Harris is proposing for the US), the government has gone for the backdoor option of a company NI rise, knowing that many employers will pass it on to their workers.

What workers expect from a Labour government is to use all the power it has to fight their corner and truly be their voice. That’s the test Labour faced in this budget, and that’s the test it will face through the next five years. They may only have one shot. They need to make it count.

Sharon Graham is the general secretary of Unite

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Brian: There’s nowhere near enough help for people living in poverty

Today’s autumn budget was an opportunity for the new Labour government to show it is determined to help and support people living on low incomes. Far from that, the focus on “working people” excluded and alienated disabled people, and those unable to work due to health conditions, who already are living on benefits that are inadequate. As a single parent unable to work, and claiming universal credit, I know how difficult it is to try to make these payments stretch while living in poverty.

While the announcement of lowering the maximum debt deductions from universal credit – going from 25% to 15% – is welcome, this is still far too much for people living on the lowest incomes. Similarly, raising the earnings threshold for carer’s allowance and extending the household support fund are positive steps, but they do not tackle the core issues of inadequacy within our social security system. Clear opportunities were missed: the removal of the two-child limit policy, if carried out, would lift more than 500,000 children out of poverty.

If the government intends to invest in the future of this country, it should start by helping struggling families like mine. Announcements like the increase of 50% on the bus fare cap does the opposite: hitting people on low incomes hardest.

  • Brian is a parent taking part in Changing Realities, a collaboration between parents and carers living on a low income, researchers at the University of York and Child Poverty Action Group

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‘Cesspools,’ ‘Hellholes’ and ‘Beautiful Places’: How Trump Describes the U.S.

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‘Cesspools,’ ‘Hellholes’ and ‘Beautiful Places’: How Trump Describes the U.S.

When talking about the United States and places in it, most presidential candidates stick to positives and platitudes. Not so for Donald J. Trump in this election cycle.

Map of the United States showing a quote that reads “we’re like a garbage can for the rest of the world.”

He is quick to denigrate American cities, often those home to large immigrant populations. He does so both individually and collectively, sometimes in crude terms.

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The same map now shows a quote that reads “”the cities are rotting and they are indeed cesspools of blood.”

This includes liberal strongholds like Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta …

A quote geolocated on D.C. reads “rat-infested, graffiti-infested shithole.” A quote geolocated on Atlanta reads “killing field.” A quote geolocated on Chicago reads “worse than Afghanistan.”

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… as well as San Francisco and Portland.

A quote geolocated on San Francisco reads “destroyed.” A quote geolocated on Portland reads “a burned-down hulk of a city.”

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Since declaring his candidacy, he has spoken in harsh negative terms about many American cities. He included multiple Californian cities on a list of “war zones and ganglands.”

The map shows four cities in California that Mr. Trump has called “war zones.” The cities are San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and Los Angeles.

Northeastern, Midwestern and Southern cities have been subject to his insults, too.

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The map then zooms back to the eastern part of the country and highlights quotes for New Orleans (“war zones”); Atlanta (“killing field”); Washington, D.C. (“hellhole); New York (“filthy”); Detroit (“decimated”); Baltimore (“dangerous”); Chicago (“war zones”); and Minneapolis (“like a fire pit”).

These statements are sharply contrasted by the way Mr. Trump tends to talk about places that support him — especially the red states that make up his base. Sometimes he lumps them together. In one instance, he referred collectively to “places like Indiana and Iowa and Idaho.”

The same map labels Idaho, Iowa and Indiana with the quote: “states that you don’t even hear too much of because they’re so good and so well run.”

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He’s vividly praised Montana and Alaska, too.

A quote geolocated on Montana reads “land of cowboys and cattle hands … one of the most beautiful places in all of God’s creation.” A quote geolocated on Alaska reads “an incredible place and beautiful state.”

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Here’s a sampling of places he has called “beautiful,” “great” or “good,” or said he loves.

The map labels thirty places across the United States that Mr. Trump has called “beautiful,” “incredible” or “great,” or said he loves.

Perhaps most unusual is Mr. Trump’s tendency to combine these two points, pointing out places he feels were once beautiful, but are now in decline. If his campaign rests on his vow to make America great again, he seems to think he has plenty of work to do — in both small cities like Aurora, Colo. and Springfield, Ohio …

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A quote near Aurora and Springfield reads “These were two beautiful, successful towns, idyllic. And they’re in trouble, big trouble.” A quote geolocated on Montana reads “land of cowboys and cattle hands… one of the most beautiful places in all of God’s creation.”

… and bigger ones like Detroit and New York City.

A quote geolocated on Detroit reads “once great city.” A quote geolocated on New York City reads “city in decline.”

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That rhetorical move animates Mr. Trump’s approach to the entirety of the country he hopes to lead again. He presents himself as the sole savior of the nation …

A quote over the map of the United States reads “our once great country, soon to be greater-than-ever-before country.”

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… and makes the alternative seem dire.

A quote over the map of the United States reads “Your country is being turned into a third world hellhole ruled by censors, perverts, criminals and thugs.”

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Hard to overstate challenges Kemi Badenoch faces as leader of the opposition | Kemi Badenoch

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Kemi Badenoch announced as new leader of the Conservative party – video

Kemi Badenoch might have avoided the cursed 52%-48% ratio that has riven the Conservative party before, but the nevertheless close-run nature of her 56.5% winning margin in the Tory members’ vote shows the scale of the task before her.

It is hard to overstate the challenges Rishi Sunak’s replacement faces, even setting aside the much-cited fact that the last new UK leader to take a party directly from an election defeat to government was Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

To begin with, as Badenoch acknowledged in her victory speech which came with a warning that Tories must “tell the truth” to win back the trust of the voting public, opposition is just as difficult, especially after so long in government.

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Kemi Badenoch announced as new leader of the Conservative party – video

There is a sense that quite a number of the 121 remaining Conservative MPs are still only just getting used to the sparse opposition benches and limited number of select committee places, plus the more general sense of chill after the beam of publicity and scrutiny has moved away.

In very practical terms, building her team will be a challenge. There is a limited choice for shadow cabinet posts, let alone the more junior roles. The full Labour government frontbench is 124 strong – more than the total number at Badenoch’s beckoning. Added to that, James Cleverly and Jeremy Hunt have already said they do not want jobs, with some other heavy hitters likely to follow.

Cleverly’s decision leads us to the second and equally tricky problem for Badenoch. When he was surprisingly eliminated from the leadership race in the final round of voting by Tory MPs, it left party members with the choice of two candidates from its populist-leaning hard right.

This was a bitter blow to centrist Tories, with the Tory Reform Group, which speaks for many more moderate Conservative MPs, declining to endorse either Badenoch or Robert Jenrick. Some MPs privately said they would not vote for either.

What was perhaps helpful for Badenoch was the way that Jenrick decided to go all-out in supporting the Tory right, pledging to immediately pull out of the European convention on human rights and reduce net migration to more or less zero, while suggesting former colonies should feel grateful to the UK, and leaning heavily into Nigel Farage-style conspiracies over the Southport killings.

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As the campaign progressed, Badenoch won the backing of ever more moderate and centrist MPs and other party grandees, some of whom conceded that they were in effect doing so with their noses held, because they believed Jenrick would be so damaging and divisive.

Can Badenoch hold the party together? Based on her political career thus far it may seem that tact, reaching out to disgruntled former opponents and instilling a sense of collegiate unity are not obvious strengths for someone better known for crossing the road to actively seek a fight. But there is more to Badenoch than this.

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Ideologically, she is a mixed bag. Her decision during the leadership election to avoid trying to match Jenrick’s list of highly prescriptive policies, saying the party needed to first reflect and adapt, has paid off. During the one TV debate of the campaign, Badenoch gained the respect of an audience of party members by not always giving them the obvious, crowd-pleasing answer.

But at the same time, Badenoch is a sufficiently keen culture warrior to have won the praise of Ron DeSantis, Florida’s book-banning, LGBTQ+ community-targeting governor. Her belief that everyone from civil servants to HR departments are the scourge of the UK might seem too much for some Tory MPs, let alone voters.

Similarly, Badenoch’s temperament could be a work in progress. She is reported to be willing to listen to colleagues who say she must temper a personal style that can veer between highly direct and openly abrasive.

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The big question hanging over Badenoch’s leadership is exactly what kind of Tory she’s going to be. Is she, as insisted by her supporters, Keir Starmer’s worst nightmare? Or is she more likely, as some privately believe, to be the political gift that keeps on giving, a never-ending torrent of acrimony and controversy? One thing is for certain: it won’t be boring.

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Portsmouth City Council among UK authorities hit by cyber attack

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Portsmouth City Council among UK authorities hit by cyber attack

Portsmouth City Council has become the latest local authority to be hit by a cyber attack.

The unitary council said it was among those affected by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack by a group calling itself NoName057(16).

Pro-Russian hackers have claimed responsibility for the attacks, which have also affected Salford and Middlesbrough, among others.

Portsmouth said no council services were affected and that residents’ data was not at risk.

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A statement on the authority’s Facebook page said: “We can confirm that the Portsmouth City Council website is undergoing a cyber attack, which means you will experience issues when trying to use the site.

“Portsmouth is one of a number of local authorities across the UK to be affected by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack by a group named NoName057(16).

“No council services are affected by the attack, and user and residents’ data are not at risk, however, the website may be for an unknown period.

“We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

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The council said its teams were still available to answer queries during working hours and residents could access online services and make payments on the MyPortsmouth website.

Other councils have also been hit by cyber attacks this week.

Salford, Bury and Trafford councils confirmed their websites were temporarily affected but said they were now back online.

Middlesbrough Council’s site was taken offline on Wednesday after its IT department identified an issue.

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A National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) spokesperson said the organisation provided guidance to affected councils.

They told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Whilst DDoS attacks are relatively low in sophistication and impact, they can cause disruption by preventing legitimate users from accessing online services.”

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Labour’s big Budget and Kemi Badenoch’s win reset politics

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Is Reform UK's plan to get Farage into No 10 mission impossible?
BBC A treated image of Kemi Badenoch and Rachel Reeves in front of a backdrop of £20 notesBBC

“It’s like week zero,” a government insider suggests. A new Conservative leader today. A whopper of a Budget on Wednesday.

Add those two events together and it feels like this is the week that everything changed – the clock restarts.

The tramlines are now set for the battles ahead, a member of the cabinet tells me. A Labour government that’s now unabashed in the big choices it’s made, the winners and losers they’ve picked.

Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative boss, is unashamed in saying what the softer fringes of the Tory party has felt squeamish about until now.

And maybe we’ve entered a new era when the fabled centre ground of politics feels a bit emptier – and the differences between the two main parties are sharper.

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The consequences of the Budget are still emerging, and the real effect won’t be clear for many months. There has been no huge unravelling, but ministers are still incredibly aware they’ll still need to explain it, which is why you’ll see Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the studio with us tomorrow morning and Labour activists out campaigning today.

If your doorbell rings this afternoon and it’s a grinning person with a red rosette and a leaflet, you’ll know what they’re up to.

Getty Images Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel ReevesGetty Images

Rachel Reeves made history as the first female chancellor to deliver a UK Budget

The party knows the decisions, particularly to whack billions on employers’ national insurance, have caused some anxiety among some voters. This will also hit GP practices and charities, which have flagged fears about the cost of the change – and no government wants to go to war with them.

No minister wants to have to defend a decision that looks to many voters and their rivals, like they were misled, after promises not to raise National Insurance in the election.

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The government rejects the charge – insisting they only promised to not raise the National Insurance paid by employers, rather than employees.

But Labour is having to learn what it’s like to take the flak. To wobble on the big decisions would be politically disastrous. And in Downing Street there’s confidence the public is broadly onside.

Insiders say No 10’s focus groups – which have been asked about the Budget in the last few days – have understood the decisions, reporting some grumbles but not much sign of outrage.

One government source says, “people looked at the Budget and said, ‘that makes sense’. That is a platform we can build on.”

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The decisions, and the government’s true motivations – are out there now in black and white. The source says “it’s the first time – certainly in government, probably in the whole project – we have been able to show, rather than just tell.”

However, after all of Labour’s schmoozing of the business world, and all their emphasis in the election of growing the economy, there’s been some surprise that those arguments were a lot less prominent on Wednesday.

Sources say phase one was concentrating on the public finances and public services, then the next part will be more emphasis on growth with a big speech from Rachel Reeves at the Mansion House in the City soon.

A senior business leader told me, “they’ve done part one well, in a more traditional Labour way, but to get a real shape, they need a very strong part two… creating the vision, energy and specific incentives and plan for growth and wealth creation – that still needs work.”

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On the other side, Labour’s union backers are pleased with extra cash for some public services, and the tweaking of the borrowing rules so more money is available to spend on long term projects.

But there’s concern, as one leader puts it, that the NI rise for employers will be “raised in every negotiating room”, as an excuse for lowering wages. And unhappiness on the left about the two-child benefit cap, and the winter fuel allowance, remains – with a judicial review of the decision on those pensioner payments in the offing.

But forget the inevitable skirmishes and stresses. The Budget has filled in many of the blanks about this government, answering part of that common question: what does Keir Starmer really stand for?

And the response could almost be a line from a Gordon Brown Budget of days gone by – economic stability, more public spending, with schools and hospitals at the top of the list.

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Starmer’s backers says the discipline on day-to-day spending – even cuts to some departments – makes it different to Labour Budgets of the past, claiming they have taken the Conservatives’ mantle for being the party you can trust with public money.

But no doubt the Budget illuminates the priorities of classic Labour instincts, not the mushy middle.

A government source suggests none of it should really be a surprise.

“Traditional centre-left arguments were were all there in the election – ending non-doms, VAT on private schools – overall it passes the fairness test and that is the most important thing.”

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“Labour in its veins,” says a cabinet minister. And in the next few weeks Labour will publish what’s been described as a “programme for government” that will make it even more clear.

New Conservative chapter

The sharper shape makes life both easier and harder for the brand new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch.

It’s more straightforward perhaps if Labour’s stripes are more red, the Tories can portray themselves a deeper blue.

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Kemi Badenoch has been deliberately light on policy, but her principles are clear. She believes in free markets and a smaller state. It’s not going to be hard for her to draw a contrast to the government. “It’s back to the future,” one Tory source tells me.

“We can go back to first principles, as we did in the seventies and the early 2000s,” opposing bigger government and bigger taxes.

Another senior party figure suggests the Budget has already sketched out an obvious path telling me, “the government has positioned itself as distinctly post-new Labour.

“It is workerist, it’s not very nice to farmers or rural areas – with pensioners and farmers you see that you have a coalition where the Tories can get back to 250 seats.”

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Badenoch’s backers are sure that she can satisfy the first task of opposition, getting noticed. Opposition parties don’t have an automatic right to get attention.

One supporter was convinced that “whatever happens, she will be an attention-gatherer.” But Labour reckons their Budget choices have sent plenty of traps for the brand new leader.

It might seem natural to the Tories to vote against the government’s tax rises in the Budget. But it’s a lot less comfortable to oppose extra cash for public services.

It’s one thing to stand against charging private schools VAT. But will the Conservatives oppose the new teachers for state schools the tax rise is meant to support? That is a far harder argument to make.

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Getty Images Kemi BadenochGetty Images

Kemi Badenoch has been named the new Conservative Party leader, ending over three months of deliberations following Rishi Sunak’s July resignation

Labour’s decisions mean, despite Badenoch’s broad-brush approach, the Tories are going to be expected to have something to say about schools and hospitals – services the public relies on.

A senior Conservative figure warns that this week has “set up a public services Parliament … you can’t go through a sustained period of time when you just rely on the vibes.”

As Chris has written, the task for Badenoch is massive. Not just because of the July’s battering that depleted their numbers so much, but because the Conservatives have been in the groove of attacking each other for many years now.

The party is described by sources as “fractious”, and “deeply sceptical”. Getting rid of leaders became almost the norm.

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One of the contenders for the job joked when courting votes they’d even been told by one former minister: “I’m more interested in the leadership race in two years time.”

Badenoch has won a clear mandate, but by a smaller margin than in races that have gone before.

There is no doubt she is a politician that stands out, another Conservative says, referencing an old TV ad: “She has the potential to be Heineken – reaching the parts of the electorate other Tories cannot.”

But her style has risks – “like a can of Heineken, if shaken up too much, it can froth everywhere,” and make a terrible mess. Let’s see – Kemi Badenoch will join us exclusively, live on BBC One tomorrow.

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But today we start a new chapter. One Conservative source suggests we’re back in a “classic left-right era”.

A Labour government that has expressed its priorities with big borrowing, big spending and big tax that believes the public is on board, after years when Budgets at home and in Whitehall have been under so much pressure.

And an opposition with a new leader who believes in something completely different. Don’t forget of course the smaller parties, Reform, the Lib Dems, the SNP and Greens, have important roles too.

But the contours of the central contest feel sharper now.

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For years politicians, whether Labour or Conservative, have liked to suggest that we can drift towards lower taxes and still have the kind of public services of countries where the government spends much more cash.

Perhaps this week might mark the moment when our politicians stop telling us we can have it all.

A former cabinet minister suggests now we’ll be much less like ‘the stepping stone’ between America and the rest of Europe. Politics is an ever-shifting kaleidoscope but Labour’s enormous Budget has set new terms.

And with the new Tory leader, we move into a new era. Mark the date, as one government source notes: “It is the week when we know the politics of this parliament.”

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Challenges facing Kemi Badenoch as new Conservative leader

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Challenges facing Kemi Badenoch as new Conservative leader

“She would cross the road to bite your ankles, whether you were goading her or not!”

So would my dachshund but he couldn’t run a government and he thinks all people are stupid or ignorant, I am going to rename him Badenoch as nothing will change just more prevarication and outright lies from MPS of all parties, watch who she appoints to her cabinet the same useless bunch that screwed up conservatives over 14 years they had in government, Conservatives by their inability to complete Brexit and remove Britain from the ECHR  have supported and allowed a communist left-wing bunch of scum Labour MPs to run Britain with no effective opposition to even counter the left-wing scum destroying Britain once again.

This is a remark from a long term admirer of Kemi Badenoch, delighted to see her win the Conservative leadership contest.

It is a character reference you don’t have to look hard to find about the new leader of the opposition, seen as sharp, even abrasive, by her friends, let alone those who are less keen on her.

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The arrival of Kemi Badenoch as Conservative leader comes hard on the heels of Labour’s first budget, completing a few days that will set the terms of political debate in the UK for years to come.

A big Ego with no fresh impetus will now take her place in the arguments ahead.

What a contrast, the difference between victory and defeat.

For the winner, an official car to Conservative Party Campaign Headquarters, papers to sign, security briefings to digest and social media videos to film.

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For the loser, trundling home in defeat.

Badenoch now has the task of assembling a shadow cabinet to take on Sir Keir Starmer and the government.

Who might be shadow chancellor? Give you one guess and it’s not a good one.

Some are talking up Andrew Griffiths, the energetic shadow science secretary who has appeared to relish the daily challenge of scrutinizing government.

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Others point to former ministers Claire Coutinho or Laura Trott.

Then there is the crucial role of chief whip – maintaining discipline in a parliamentary party famed for the opposite.

Could Stuart Andrew, the man currently in the role, be kept on?

Will Robert Jenrick accept the role he is offered?

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Let’s see.

Expect too to see early talk of a need for a change in the leadership rules to increase the proportion of the parliamentary party needed to trigger a confidence vote, to try to ensure the new leader can’t be too easily toppled.

For the last four months we have pretty much had a shadow shadow cabinet, a team bodged together by Rishi Sunak in the aftermath of defeat with the job of being caretakers until this moment.

But providing real, long term opposition is the mission now – starting with prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.

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“She’s up for a political fight with Starmer and my goodness it’s about time we had a fight with Starmer!” one of her supporters tells me.

Plenty of their colleagues agree, but some caution that the Conservatives must not confuse early bumps for the new government with a sudden enthusiasm for the Tories.

“And are they actually prepared to be led?” asks one figure of Conservative MPs.

“We were enthusiastically rejected. Kemi gets that it’s existential,” says the same observer, hoping the party shares this assessment.

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As I wrote just before the result, the last time the Conservatives were crushed in a general election and turfed out of office, in 1997, it took the party 13 years and four leaders to find a future prime minister, and look how badly that turned out.

Winning the only contest that really matters, a general election, from this starting point will be mighty difficult.

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Kemi Badenoch announced as new leader of Conservative Party

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Kemi Badenoch announced as new leader of Conservative Party

Kemi Badenoch is the new leader of the Conservative Party, defeating Robert Jenrick in the final round of voting.

Badenoch, who was raised in Nigeria, is the first black woman to lead a major political party in the UK and takes over a Conservative Party reeling from its worst ever election defeat.

During her campaign, Badenoch vowed to return the Conservatives to “first principles” and launch a series of reviews in the coming months to shape a new policy platform.

She is also the sixth Tory leader in less than eight and a half years and faces the challenge of uniting a fractured party.

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