Politics

Rishi Sunak has announced his bid to become the next Conservative leader and prime minister, six weeks after Liz Truss beat him to the top job. The former chancellor has put himself forward for the second time in a matter of months after the extraordinary resignation of Ms Truss on Thursday, 44 days into her

Rishi Sunak has become the first to receive 100 public endorsements from Tory MPs – enough to meet the threshold for nominations in the leadership race. The news came before a source close to Boris Johnson claimed he had also reached the threshold to reach the ballot, although this has yet to be verified. The

Boris Johnson has arrived back in the UK as speculation mounts that the former prime minister will enter the Tory leadership race. Mr Johnson has been on holiday in the Dominican Republic but flew home after Liz Truss’s dramatic resignation on Thursday. The Conservative Party has a week to pick a new leader and prime

Boris Johnson has been pictured by Sky News making his way back to the UK. The former prime minister has been on holiday in the Dominican Republic but is set to return to London after telling an ally that he will run to lead the country again. He is flying back in economy alongside his

A cabinet minister has told Sky News they believe Boris Johnson could secure the 100 nominations he needs from Conservative MPs to progress in the Tory leadership race if he were to stand. Jacob Rees-Mogg became the first cabinet minister to publicly declare his backing for the former prime minister this morning, posting on social

The second Tory leadership race in just three months is underway following the extraordinary resignation of Liz Truss. The now-outgoing PM was forced from office after just 44 days following a seismic few weeks in Westminster that saw her tax-slashing mini-budget crash and burn. Ms Truss’s resignation, signalling the end of the shortest term by

Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister just 44 days after taking over from Boris Johnson. She will be the shortest-serving prime minister in history. In a statement read outside Downing Street, Ms Truss said: “I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability. “Families and businesses were worried about how

A Labour motion that would have forced a vote on a bill to ban fracking has been defeated amid farcical scenes in the House of Commons. Politicians have claimed Conservative MPs were being “manhandled” and bullied into voting with the government to oppose a ban, counter to what their party manifesto said in 2019. Tory

Liz Truss has said she is “completely committed” to the pensions triple lock at a make-or-break PMQs in the Commons on Wednesday. That means state pensions should rise in line with inflation – currently running at a rate of 10.1%. Ms Truss made the commitment in the Commons despite new chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Monday

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is on a hastily-arranged visit to Washington to talk with his counterpart and White House officials about “shared security concerns” including Ukraine and Russia, a source and an official said. The secretive, last-minute nature of the trip and a comment by a second defence minister, James Heappey – who said the

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

Liz Truss has apologised for the “mistakes” she has made in her first few volatile weeks as prime minister – but insisted she will lead the Tories into the next general election. Speaking for the first time after almost all the tax cuts announced in last month’s mini-budget were scrapped, Ms Truss said: “I recognise

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

Conservative MPs have started to publicly call for Liz Truss to resign after just six weeks as prime minister following the economic turmoil in the wake of the mini-budget. Crispin Blunt, former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, was the first Tory MP to put his head above the parapet since Kwasi Kwarteng was

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