Latest news with #Truss
The Herald Scotland
14-06-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Do the Scottish Conservatives have any reason to exist?
Before dismissing this prospect out of hand, consider the point that political parties are manufactured, not innate. They are coalitions of the more or less willing, designed to provide a vaguely coherent offer to the electorate in order to secure power and effect change. Consequently, they have no guaranteed right to exist. Anyone remember the squadrone volante? In the old, pre-Union Scots Parliament, they steered a cautious middle way between the Court and Country parties, before eventually sinking into oblivion. OK, so that is an obscure recollection. Consider this instead. In the 19th century, the Liberals were utterly dominant in Scottish politics. Their role was largely usurped by the Labour Party. The Tories battled on. They secured, in 1955, the only popular majority ever achieved by any party in Scotland since universal suffrage. But that was a Unionist vote. As times changed, and the SNP rose, the Tories struggled again, eventually losing every Scottish Westminster seat in 1997. They were only rescued as a party by the advent of devolution and by proportional representation. Two developments they had steadfastly opposed. And more recently? They flourished to a degree under Ruth Davidson's leadership. She contrived to corral pro-Union votes to her side by depicting her party as the most reliable bulwark for that Union. And now? Two points. Indyref2 seems relatively distant, meaning that the political focus is elsewhere. The Davidson bulwark has less clout. Read more from Brian Taylor: Secondly, there is an alternative on the Right, in the shape of Reform, explicitly promising to supplant the Tories before going for the other parties. The Tories have endured defections. To Reform. And MSP Jamie Greene who switched to the Liberal Democrats. His verdict on his erstwhile party? He reckons folk are 'completely scunnered' with the Scots Tories. Nodding towards the Tories' Westminster leader, he summons up a vision of 'Kemi-geddon.' Not, I would suggest, the most felicitous phrase. But you take his point. Ms Badenoch has scarcely inspired confidence since taking over. Her own view, delivered this week during exchanges with the Prime Minister, was that she gets better every week, while Keir Starmer gets worse. Again, less than uplifting. Trying hard. Getting better. It is all a bit like a school report delivered to a struggling pupil by a kind and supportive teacher. However, is it entirely her fault? I would suggest not. She might well get better. Except she is burdened by voter memories of her predecessors. Rishi Sunak might be exculpated somewhat. But not Boris Johnson and certainly not Liz Truss. Lest there is any danger of the voters forgetting, Labour constantly summons up the spectre of the unfunded Truss budget which so spooked the markets that she had to quit. Only this week, the Chancellor referred repeatedly to Ms Truss, as she set out her own spending plans. The Prime Minister taunted Kemi Badenoch, saying reflections of Liz Truss would continue to haunt the Tories. Yes, Kemi Badenoch has had a troubled start to her leadership. But, as one close observer noted to me, Winston Churchill would struggle to lead the Conservatives right now, given the degree of entrenched voter anger at governance past. While noting that, I would add that Tory problems are exacerbated by the presence of an alternative offer on the Right. The Tories previously dismissed UKIP. Reform appears more challenging. Is Russell Findlay happy in his role as Scottish Conservative leader? (Image: PA) And what of Holyrood? I noted recently that Russell Findlay does not seem entirely content in his role. Perhaps, one suggested to me, he was happier in his previous job as an inquisitive, investigative journalist. However, a senior insider dismisses that prospect. I was told that Mr Findlay is determined to set out a clear direction for the Scottish Tories – by differentiating them sharply from their main rivals. He will not, I was told, be 'knocked off course' by Reform. He believes that the SNP, in particular, talked up the challenge of Reform in the recent Hamilton by-election, only to witness a set-back for their own party as Labour won. The big Scottish Tory offer? Lower taxes in Scotland, including the removal of lower bands. Amounting, they say, to a substantial saving for every worker. In the past, the Scots Tories have been somewhat reluctant to pursue this route. They feared it would not be seen as credible, that they would be challenged on spending cuts. Ideologically, they fretted over departing from a UK fiscal pattern. No longer. They say they will fund tax cuts by civil service efficiency savings, an approach also backed by the Chancellor. And by cuts to Scotland's benefits bill. Read more: In response to which, John Swinney sharpens the knife he has already honed for UK Labour – and turns it upon the Scottish Conservatives, accusing both of seeking to gain electorally from enhancing poverty. Both his rivals demur. But there is more from Mr Findlay. In conference this weekend, he is projecting what he calls 'common sense' policies. Reflecting, as one insider noted to me, the 'real priorities of the Scottish people, stopping the nonsense of the political bubble.' So potholes, rather than gender reform. An end to the North Sea windfall tax. An understandable move, in keeping with Tory instincts. Except that John Swinney has already shifted ground to focus on fundamentals. And Labour's Anas Sarwar talks without ceasing about popular concerns such as the NHS. And Reform? Both UK and Scottish Tory leaders will hope to sideline them. That might prove difficult, especially given the options offered by list voting. Other factors. Reform themselves may be subject to closer scrutiny. As the Holyrood election approaches, people may turn their attention to big choices. Who forms the new devolved government which will set their taxes and control their public services? The Tories hope they can bring a distinctive perspective to that choice. They know they are down. They can only hope – and believe – they are not yet out. Brian Taylor is a former political editor for BBC Scotland and a columnist for The Herald. He cherishes his family, the theatre - and Dundee United FC
New Statesman
12-06-2025
- Business
- New Statesman
Liz Truss is haunting Mel Stride
Photo byMel Stride wanted this job. Tory MPs believe he ran to be party leader to raise his profile and shore up his chances of getting this job. But he must have known what it was. If Rachel Reeves' task – managing the economy at a moment of ever-increasing spending demands and ever-stagnating funds – is a tightrope balancing act, the role of the shadow chancellor is a juggling one, where the balls have been replaced by a couple of chainsaws and a live hand grenade. The grenade is Liz Truss. Labour loves to talk about her. Reeves reminded the House yesterday of two awkward facts: what the mini-budget had done to mortgage rates, and that Nigel Farage heralded it as 'the best Conservative budget since the 1980s'. Half an hour earlier, Kemi Badenoch accused the Prime Minister of bringing up Truss to deflect from his own record. Fair, perhaps. But Kemi also has no idea how to deal with the toxicity of her predecessor-but-one. She has proved reluctant to criticise Truss publicly and last week purported not to even know whether the erstwhile MP for South-West Norfolk was still a party member. Stride has taken a very different approach. Last week he offered a comprehensive apology for the Truss era, promising the Conservatives would 'never again' put the economy at risk. It's a message he reiterated to journalists after the spending review, arguing that fiscal responsibility was 'in our DNA as a party'. But in his parliamentary response to Reeves, he tried to skirt clear of the Truss landmine – only for the Chancellor to seize on his omission with a mocking put-down ('Stride by name, baby steps by nature'). The shadow chancellor is no doubt aware that his intervention was not universally popular within his party. There are worries that, by apologising for Truss, he has shown weakness and handed Labour yet more ammunition to keep punching this bruise. In the words of one party insider: 'It's like if Ed Miliband apologised for Gordon Brown deregulating the banking sector too much – you bet the Tories would make hay.' At the same time, others feel the Truss's shadow cannot be escaped until she is expelled from the party. Stride tried to argue that Reeves had 'trashed the economy' – but until the Conservatives figure out their Truss position, lines like that will continue to ring hollow. And Truss isn't the only ghost of Tories past derailing the party's ability to respond to Labour. A pointed accusation against the government is that Reeves is taking the country back into austerity – or, indeed, that austerity never ended in the first place. This is a charge the chancellor robustly rejected head-on in her speech, but despite her championing a slate of areas that will enjoy more cash (namely defence and health and social care), other departments are about to see serious real-terms cuts. There is a major row coming up on disability benefit cuts, plus anxiety over funding for police. Yet unpopular as austerity is, the Tories can hardly accuse Reeves ushering it in without acknowledging who was responsible for the first. If Truss remains a liability for the Conservatives, so does George Osborne – and, indeed, Jeremy Hunt, who paid for a reduction in national insurance by theoretical swingeing cuts to unprotected departments which no economist ever believed were credible. (In his interview with the New Statesman last week, Hunt predicted Reeves would be 'doing exactly the same thing that she criticised me about in opposition' but declined to justify why he had left the public finances in such a precarious position.) Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The final obstacle blocking a coherent Tory response on the economy is the party's lack of any kind of policy programme. Badenoch's weekly tirades against the government's employer's national insurance rise can be batted away by the rejoinder that she hasn't said whether or not she'd reverse it or how she'd fund the NHS investment it was intended to pay for if she did. Stride was similarly unable to say what other taxes he would raise instead of the ones he thought Labour should never have increased. Nor could he say when the Tories would have got defence spending to three per cent of GDP (another of his gripes against Reeves), or if his party would reverse the cash injection to the NHS. 'We wouldn't be starting from here' was his general refrain. This is fine for a party in opposition that is still focusing on post-election soul-searching. Or it would be, if its position as the opposition party were secure. Badenoch's strategy of not rushing into policy was considered the right one for a party that has so recently suffered such a crushing defeat. But the government's struggles less than a year into office (including Reeves' personal unpopularity) alongside the rise of Reform have raised the stakes. People are already casting about for alternatives, long before voters who abandoned the Conservatives are ready to even consider returning with the party in this state. The Tory party can't afford to wallow in its thinking phase. The economy has a key battleground, and Labour's position is looking more wobbly than you'd expect from a government this early in a parliament. But the Tories are going backwards in terms of economic credibility. That should terrify them. In its own way, Stride's job this week was even harder than Reeves'. While he got in some good jibes about the 'tin-foil chancellor' and the 'Corbynite catalogue' of potential tax rises she had been handed by Angela Rayner, the smoke-and-mirrors of scripted one-liners don't cover up the lack of substance underneath. The Conservative message is that 'Labour have lost control of the economy'. Allowing for differences in political perspectives, many people will find it compelling. The problem is that few genuinely believe the Tories would do any better. [See more: Ireland's anti-immigrant rage will not go away] Related
New Statesman
10-06-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
The Tories must do more than apologise for Liz Truss
Photograph by Henry Nicholls - Pool/Getty Images. Better late than never, and better something than nothing. The Conservative Party should have distanced itself from Liz Truss at the first opportunity – emphatically, unequivocally and ruthlessly. On the steps of Downing Street on 25 October 2022, as his first act as Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak should have condemned the mini-Budget, apologised to the nation and made it clear that Truss would never be a Conservative parliamentary candidate again. It would have been a justified response to the chaos of the preceding few weeks and a signal that the party had changed. It did not happen. Sunak acknowledged that 'mistakes were made' but left it at that. He was too cautious about splitting his party. The membership had voted for Truss (he should have announced his intention to remove their rights to elect the leader, too) and a large minority of the parliamentary party had backed her. It would have been a bold gamble, and the case for such a move becomes more persuasive when one knows for certain of the electoral obliteration that lies ahead. Maybe we should not be too harsh on the last Conservative prime minister but we do now know how the infamous mini-Budget was brought up at every opportunity in last year's general election, and is continually referenced by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. This is not just out of habit but will be a consequence of extensive polling research. The public remain furious at the chaos and uncertainty that was unleashed. Mortgage-holders, in particular, will not be quick to forgive. The Tories can survive many accusations, and still win elections. But they cannot win while being perceived as economically reckless. Not only is it a political vulnerability, but the Truss experience prevents them from delivering effective criticism of their opponents. At a time when Nigel Farage is advocating turning on the spending taps while also implementing massive tax cuts, the Conservatives are right to say he is being fiscally irresponsible. But when they say he is 'Liz Truss on steroids', it sounds amiss coming from Truss's party (especially when the line is delivered by those who served her loyally). And if the fears that the bond market vigilantes will turn against the UK come to pass, the Tory attack on Labour will also lack real punch. These factors resulted in the most substantial criticism of the mini-Budget from the Conservative frontbench. Shadow chancellor Mel Stride acknowledged that it had damaged the Tories' economic credibility, and that the party should show contrition. Stride – a reassuring figure who was critical of the mini-Budget at the time – was right to do so, but even then there was too much equivocation. Despite the advance briefing, there was no explicit apology. The language was characteristically measured and thoughtful, but what was needed was something a little more eye-catching and memorable. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Better still, the sentiments should have been expressed by the party leader, not the shadow chancellor. But when Kemi Badenoch was asked subsequently about the mini-Budget, she equivocated. She started to make the argument that the problem was the higher spending on energy support announced on 8 September, not the unfunded tax cuts set out on 23 September (she should check the dates of the market turmoil) and stated that she 'did not want to be commenting on previous prime ministers'. The strategy of distancing the Tory Party from Truss had been watered down after just a day. It is not good enough. Having left any serious criticisms for too long (31 months too long), this is no time for half measures. If the Conservatives want the right to be heard again by those voters who prioritise economic stability, they need to do this properly. Emphatically, unequivocally and ruthlessly. That means not just taking on Truss, but the thinking behind the mini-Budget. Contrary to the arguments made by the Trussites, tax cuts generally do not pay for themselves. Fiscal responsibility should come before tax cuts. Independent institutions such as the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility are not to blame for our economic difficulties. The events of autumn 2022 were not the result of a conspiracy but incompetence. The leadership of the Conservative Party should be making and winning those arguments now. This means that it will be impossible to offer unfunded tax cuts at the next general election as part of a retail offer, but that is the price that must be paid to recover economic credibility. While they are at it, there are other aspects of the party's recent history that should be addressed. The Conservatives were deeply damaged by the partygate scandal and the impression that the rules that applied to everyone else did not apply to them. According to a parliamentary committee on which there was a Tory majority, Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons about this matter and a 90-day suspension from the Commons would have been recommended had he not resigned as an MP. If the Tories want a reputation for economic competence and integrity (and that should not be too much to ask), they should make it clear that both Johnson's and Truss's days as Conservative parliamentary candidates are over. When distancing themselves from those aspects of their past that alienate the voters they need, what is required from the Tories are confident strides, not small, tentative steps. They have at least made a start, but it would be a grave mistake to think that the job is done. Related
Rhyl Journal
06-06-2025
- Business
- Rhyl Journal
Kemi Badenoch refuses to kick Liz Truss out of Conservative Party
The Tory leader suggested such a move would be 'neither here nor there' for voters' perception of the party. In a speech on Thursday, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride sought to distance the Conservatives from Ms Truss's mini-budget, saying the party needed to show 'contrition' to restore its economic credibility. In a furious response, Ms Truss accused Sir Mel of having 'kowtowed to the failed Treasury orthodoxy' and being 'set on undermining my plan for growth'. Asked by the BBC on Friday whether she would consider throwing former prime minister Ms Truss out of the Conservatives in a symbolic break with her short-lived, turbulent time in No 10, Mrs Badenoch replied: 'Is she still in the party?' Ms Truss, the former Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, is understood to be a Tory party member still. Speaking to the BBC, Mrs Badenoch said: 'What is really important is what Mel was saying yesterday. What he was saying was that the mini-budget did not balance. It wasn't tax cuts, it was the … £150 billion of spending increases on energy bills that did not make sense.' Pressed whether she believed the mini-budget had damaged the Conservative brand, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Well, look at what happened, people didn't understand why we had done that, and so our reputation for economic competence was damaged.' When asked again why she would not consider kicking Ms Truss out of the party, the Tory leader said: 'It is not about any particular individual. I don't want to be commenting on previous prime ministers. 'They've had their time. What am I going to do now? Removing people from a political party is neither here nor there in terms of what it is your viewers want to see.' After insisting Ms Truss was not in Parliament anymore, Mrs Badenoch said her party needed to 'focus on how we're going to get this country back on track'. 'What we have right now is a Labour Government, it's Keir Starmer. We need to stop talking about several prime ministers ago and talk about the Prime Minister we've got now and what he's doing to the country,' the Tory leader said. Ms Truss this week appeared in a video to promote the Irish whiskey brand of bare-knuckle fighter Dougie Joyce, who was once jailed for attacking a 78-year-old man in a pub in 2022.
North Wales Chronicle
06-06-2025
- Business
- North Wales Chronicle
Kemi Badenoch refuses to kick Liz Truss out of Conservative Party
The Tory leader suggested such a move would be 'neither here nor there' for voters' perception of the party. In a speech on Thursday, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride sought to distance the Conservatives from Ms Truss's mini-budget, saying the party needed to show 'contrition' to restore its economic credibility. In a furious response, Ms Truss accused Sir Mel of having 'kowtowed to the failed Treasury orthodoxy' and being 'set on undermining my plan for growth'. Asked by the BBC on Friday whether she would consider throwing former prime minister Ms Truss out of the Conservatives in a symbolic break with her short-lived, turbulent time in No 10, Mrs Badenoch replied: 'Is she still in the party?' Ms Truss, the former Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, is understood to be a Tory party member still. Speaking to the BBC, Mrs Badenoch said: 'What is really important is what Mel was saying yesterday. What he was saying was that the mini-budget did not balance. It wasn't tax cuts, it was the … £150 billion of spending increases on energy bills that did not make sense.' Pressed whether she believed the mini-budget had damaged the Conservative brand, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Well, look at what happened, people didn't understand why we had done that, and so our reputation for economic competence was damaged.' When asked again why she would not consider kicking Ms Truss out of the party, the Tory leader said: 'It is not about any particular individual. I don't want to be commenting on previous prime ministers. 'They've had their time. What am I going to do now? Removing people from a political party is neither here nor there in terms of what it is your viewers want to see.' After insisting Ms Truss was not in Parliament anymore, Mrs Badenoch said her party needed to 'focus on how we're going to get this country back on track'. 'What we have right now is a Labour Government, it's Keir Starmer. We need to stop talking about several prime ministers ago and talk about the Prime Minister we've got now and what he's doing to the country,' the Tory leader said. Ms Truss this week appeared in a video to promote the Irish whiskey brand of bare-knuckle fighter Dougie Joyce, who was once jailed for attacking a 78-year-old man in a pub in 2022.
