Intervention by former PM reopens bitter divide
Good evening,
Liz Truss walked onto the stage at last year's Tory party conference to M People's 1993 hit Moving On Up. She certainly did move on up. And then she moved on out. But it appears she hasn't moved on.
The former PM is back in the media spotlight, defending her "pro-growth" agenda. Many in the Tory right back her call for early tax cuts. Others fear Truss's interventions will cost the party at the next election. One thing's for sure, nothing can stop her.
| Hollie Clemence
Executive Editor |
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| TODAY'S BIG QUESTION | | Liz Truss's remarkable reintroduction into political life has caused yet more internecine strife for the Tory party as MPs continue to grapple with the debate over tax cuts.
"I was brought down by the left-wing economic establishment" was The Sunday Telegraph's headline over a 4,000-word essay marking Truss's political comeback. In the piece, Truss "took aim at Treasury officials, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK media, US President Joe Biden, Tory MPs and the International Monetary Fund for the disaster that unfolded after her mini-budget four months ago", said Politico's London Playbook.
"I am not claiming to be blameless in what happened, but fundamentally I was not given a realistic chance to enact my policies by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support," Truss wrote.
According to The Times, Truss "implicitly criticised" her successor Rishi Sunak as he marked 100 days in office. She said that as chancellor Sunak increased corporation tax from 19% to 25%, a move that was "counterproductive" and had damaged investment in the UK and "people's wages". |
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GETTING TO GRIPS WITH . . . | | Almost 2,000 people have been killed and many thousands more injured by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in the early hours of Monday morning.
The confirmed death toll in Turkey stands at 1,121, the head of the country's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said, with over 5,000 more thought to be injured. The death toll in Syria is 783, according to the AFP news agency, "which has been combining figures from authorities in government-held areas with those from rescue group The White Helmets in rebel-held areas", said the BBC.
The earthquake struck close to the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep at 4.17am local time, but "buildings collapsed in cities across the region, some of them hundreds of miles from the epicentre of the first quake", The Times reported. Tremors were felt as far as Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus and Greece. |
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IN DEPTH | | The spread of bird flu to mammals, including foxes and otters in Britain, has stoked fears that the virus could one day pass between humans in a pandemic like Covid-19.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) maintains that the avian influenza H5N1 virus is still primarily a disease of birds, but experts around the world are "looking at the risks of it spilling over into other species", said the BBC. While some think the chance of human-to-human transmission is low, an outbreak among mink in Spain has caused particular concern. |
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TALKING POINT | | Thousands of nurses and ambulance staff are striking today in the biggest round of industrial action by NHS workers in the health service's 75-year history.
With disruption planned across public services throughout February, trade unions and the government are locked in disputes over pay and working conditions. Ministers argue that raising public sector pay in line with inflation could lead to a wage-price spiral – a "perpetual loop" of price hikes leading to wage hikes that further increase prices, said Sky News. |
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speed reads | | Epsom College head told students there had been 'a lot of change for us as a family' |
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GLOBAL LENS | | On Saturday afternoon, six miles off the coast of South Carolina, a US F-22 fighter jet fired a Sidewinder air-to-air missile that blew a massive Chinese balloon out of the sky.
China's Foreign Ministry immediately registered "strong discontent and protest" over the downing of what it insisted was a weather research aircraft that had flown over the US "totally accidentally". The missile strike brought an "explosive end to a drama that put a diplomatic crisis between the world's two great powers onto television screens in real time", said The New York Times. |
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EXPERT'S VIEW | | Monkeys, apes and lemurs are cute, familiar and lovable. But an estimated 60% of all primate species are listed as vulnerable, threatened or endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a network of environmental organisations.
You've probably heard about the main problems, like deforestation and the loss of habitat. But primates are a diverse group of animals with a wide geographical range, so there are many more subtle ways our actions as humans put these wonderful animals at risk. |
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T H E W E E K M A G A Z I N E |
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BEHIND THE SCENES | | After years of sharing passwords to cut down on the cost of watching our favourite TV shows and movies at home, streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon are bringing the curtain down.
"It's finally coming," wrote Eric Vilas-Boas on Vulture. "After months and months of buildup, international market testing, and no small amount of subscriber hand wringing, Netflix is at last set to put the squeeze on the crime of hanging onto your ex's, older sibling's, or parents' account credentials for years on end." |
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PUZZLES AND QUIZZES | | Test your general knowledge with The Week's daily crossword, part of our puzzles section |
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INSTANT OPINION | | Your digest of analysis from the British and international press from the past seven days
In Keir Starmer's office, "to talk of victory as even likely gets aides and shadow cabinet ministers a straight red", says Patrick Maguire in The Times. "Yes, the polls do look good but that might change, and of course nothing is being taken for granted, and not for a moment should anyone's eye be taken off the ball." The Labour leader's "paranoid disposition is part inheritance and part conscious imitation of Tony Blair". But Labour "know they can win, and like Starmer they know they probably will". Maguire predicts that the shadow cabinet will have been "comprehensively reshuffled" by May, and "I'm told Starmer has finally identified his preferred candidate for his chief of staff". In the coming weeks and months, Maguire continues, "we will finally learn what Starmerism means: big reform, not big spending". Labour's "fiscal inheritance" and fear of "an old-fashioned Tory attack" on the party's "economic credibility leaves them with little choice". |
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| Recipe of the week | | These crunchy fritters from Tom Kerridge can be made with any root veg |
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DOWN TO BUSINESS | Monday afternoon markets | After closing at a five-year high before the weekend, the FTSE 100 took a tumble today. Wall Street and European markets were also lower as investors assessed the global economic outlook.
FTSE 100: 7,813.90, down 1.11%
Dax: 15,312.18, down 1.06%
Dow: 33,733.18, down 0.57%
Dollar: £1 = $1.2039, down 0.10%
Euro: £1 = €1.1213, up 0.47%
Brent crude: $79.35, down 0.74%
Gold: $1,866.50, up 0.19% | |
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quote of the day | "Taking it down over the Atlantic is sort of like tackling the quarterback after the game is over." | Mike Turner, Republican congressman and head of the House Intelligence Committee, responds to the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US east coast. | |
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