The media is reporting that the axe will finally fall on the Manchester leg of HS2 while Tories are in Manchester, at the same time top government officials are briefing that “no decision has been made”. When will Number 10 get a handle on these botched communications?
Labour are privately delighted at the news that they’ll have a few extra billion to play with. Tory officials rolled out for interview are keeping to the old lines. Off the rails…
The Red Wall continues to crumble as Rishi Sunak could face yet another by-election. According to the Mirror, Tory MP Scott Benton for Blackpool South is set to be suspended for more than 10 days over a sleaze row. Trouble in paradise…
As Guido first revealed, hereditary Iceland boss and former Tory donor Richard Walker has now quit the party ahead of his defection to Labour at their party conference next week – having repeatedly failed to get selected as a Tory candidate. Last night in The Times he accused the Conservatives of “flip-flopping” on big policies, and this morning he laments in The Observer how “badly out of touch” they’ve become since the 2019 election. These were not concerns he appeared to have just over four months ago: Guido can reveal he sent Rishi Sunak a personal letter begging to be put on the Conservative candidates’ list…
Guido has obtained the full letter, in which Walker spends three pages complaining about his failure to get selected and boasting about his charity efforts. He closes by asking Rishi to personally lift his deferment and install him as the Tory candidate Chester South & Eddisbury…
“As you will already be aware, it is my most fervent wish that I succeed in becoming an approved Conservative Party Candidate, and I have—over the last two years—given my all to earning that privilege… Unfortunately, I am subject to a deferment notice, imposed by the Committee on Candidates… I have striven to ensure that I anything I say in the public arena fully supports HM Government and Conservative Party policy… I am left with no other choice but to appeal to you directly to both lift this deferment and allow me to put myself forward to represent both the Conservative Party and my community in Chester South & Eddisbury.”
That letter was sent at the end of May. Once it was clear the plea had failed, Walker quit, and is now moaning in The Observer about how terrible the Tories have become. Out in the cold…
Read the full letter below:
Hunt’s team is attempting to argue in response to the news that it is responsible for the highest ever increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio that the government has “taken 3 million people out of paying tax altogether since 2010 through raising personal thresholds”. To highlight the LibDem’s finest coalition achievement shows how dire the Tory record is on taxation.
Unfortunately, the former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s decision to freeze both the personal allowance and the higher rate threshold in 2021 along with Hunt’s two-year extension will do more than enough to make up for the 3 million kept of tax in the 2010s. The OBR calculates that in 2024 an extra 3.3 million people will have been brought into paying tax than if the threshold and allowance were indexed. The now 6-year personal allowance freeze has lowered its real value to its 2013 level. And in return for paying the most tax ever we get such brilliant public services…
Last night was the first Westminster Correspondents’ dinner since 2018, with hacks, SpAds, spinners and MPs piling into the National Liberal Club for a boozy bash just before heading up to Manchester to do it all again with the same people for four days. Rishi had a crack at some stand-up, inevitably turning fire on Liz Truss (not present):
“I’m glad to see, actually, that Liz Truss has been quietly reflecting. Not least on who’s to blame… HMT of course. OBR, B of E, IMF… HMV, DFS, AC/DC. I can’t think of an acronym in British public life that hasn’t yet been blamed… except perhaps the IEA.”
Matt Hancock was in the firing line:
“… Looking back over this tumultuous year, no one has had a busier year than Matt Hancock. It’s hard to keep up: I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. And that’s just one reason that I am so proud to have introduced the Online Safety Bill. It’s designed to prevent the spread of harmful, malicious and undignified content. Just like a 44-year-old former Health Secretary lip-syncing to a Barbie song on TikTok.”
He also couldn’t resist a swipe at Boris and Nadine ahead of conference:
“I’m excited about Conference karaoke next week. I’ve heard on the grapevine that Nadine and Boris are doing Nothing Compares 2 U. Liz Truss is apparently covering Shaggy’s ‘It Wasn’t Me’. And I will be performing Elton John’s classic Tiny Dancer.”
Some decent gags all in all. A warm-up act to Conference…
