Politics

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

Jeremy Hunt has admitted the government went “too far, too fast” and that he will have to take some “very difficult decisions” on spending and tax to get the economy back up and running. Earlier, the new chancellor admitted there “were mistakes” in Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget in an interview with Sky News.

The new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said there “were mistakes” in Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget. Speaking to Sky News on Saturday, Mr Hunt said: “It was a mistake when we were going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by

Liz Truss has said “I want to be honest, this is difficult” after sacking her chancellor and reversing key policies of her government’s growth plan. In a news conference shortly after dismissing Kwasi Kwarteng, Ms Truss said: “The way we deliver our mission has to change.” But she said the “mission remains” to deliver a

Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked as chancellor three weeks after his mini-budget unleashed chaos in the economy, Sky News understands. He was appointed to the role by Liz Truss only 38 days ago. Mr Kwarteng’s downfall was set in motion by the mini-budget on 23 September, in which he announced £45bn in unfunded tax cuts.

The chancellor has insisted he is “not going anywhere” amid the economic turmoil – and when asked if he was about to do a U-turn on corporation tax he said: “Let’s see”. Speaking earlier in the US where he is attending IMF meetings, Kwasi Kwarteng told reporters that he remains “totally focused” on delivering the

The foreign secretary has refused to commit to the government seeing through all the tax cuts proposed in the chancellor’s contentious mini-budget. James Cleverly told Sky News “the package the chancellor put forward is pro-growth and is the right answer”. He refused to rule out further changes, however, dodging multiple questions on whether the government

UK government borrowing costs have hit a 20-year high after the Bank of England confirmed its emergency bond-buying programme will end on Friday as planned. On Wednesday morning, it said all temporary and targeted purchases of UK government bonds, known as gilts, would stop. This has been the position throughout and has been “made absolutely

Jacob Rees-Mogg has declared his confidence in the governor of the Bank of England, but disputed that pension funds are at “systemic” risk. Speaking to Sky News, the business secretary said “of course” he has confidence in Andrew Bailey, describing him as “respected”. He questioned, however, whether there was a “systemic problem” with pensions after