Tory leadership

Express
LIZ TRUSS has been warned of “explosive” consequences if she appoints Boris Johnson’s loyalists in her new Cabinet, a news report has claimed.
The results of Tory leadership contest will be announced on Monday and according to the reports, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, is likely to defeat former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the polls. According to reports, senior Tory members have warned Ms Truss that the party will be left divided unless she makes a concerted effort to include senior figures from across the party, including critics of Boris Johnson, in her cabinet.
The Foreign Secretary is likely to enter Downing Street as Prime Minister on Tuesday after visiting the Queen at Balmoral.
On Saturday night, a former Tory cabinet minister and critic of Johnson told Guardian that there would be huge and “explosive” consequences if Truss allies such as Duncan Smith and Nadine Dorries were appointed to top positions.
Concerns are that they may try to use their influence to scrap a parliamentary inquiry into whether Mr Johnson deliberately misled parliament.
The former cabinet minister told the publication: “If she wins, then on policy issues, including budget issues, most colleagues will take the view that she deserves the chance to put her plans into effect.

Mail
Most people back Liz Truss’s plans to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, according to a poll for The Mail on Sunday.
They support the frontrunner for Prime Minister’s strategy of cutting tax, VAT and green levies from energy bills and making the UK more energy independent.~
Yet two-thirds (65 per cent) told the Survation survey that the economic crisis was the worst in their adult memory. Asked to name the greatest threat to the country, 26 per cent said the cost of energy, followed by inflation (15 per cent), the economy (14 per cent) and the NHS (11 per cent).
Foreign Secretary Ms Truss is yet to set out her full strategy to tackle the energy crisis should she win the contest, but she has made several policy commitments.
Cutting the rise in National Insurance contributions has been her main proposal, followed by removing the green levy from energy bills. Allies indicate she is also considering cutting VAT across the board by five per cent. The tax is charged at 20 per cent for goods and services, and five per cent on energy bills.
She has also pledged to focus on reducing the UK’s reliance on imports by increasing domestic energy production.
She originally opposed cash handouts but has since softened her stance and her likely Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has told voters that ‘help is coming’.

Telegraph
Liz Truss will declare on Sunday that she will do away with “sticking plasters and kicking the can down the road” in order to fix Britain’s energy market and reinvigorate the economy.
A source close to the Foreign Secretary, who is considered highly likely to be announced as the next Conservative leader on Monday, said she would embark on a “two-track approach”: unveiling immediate financial support for households while also trying to solve the deep-rooted problems exposed by the impacts of Covid and the war in Ukraine.
Writing for The Telegraph, Ms Truss pledges to set out “immediate action on energy bills and energy supply” in her first week in office, as a prelude to a budget that would take place later this month.
Ms Truss writes: “We need to take the difficult decisions to ensure we are not in this position every autumn and winter. Sticking plasters and kicking the can down the road will not do.”
While aides insisted that plans for reform were yet to be finalised, Ms Truss’s pledge to avoid relying on temporary solutions to the problem of soaring energy prices suggests that the Foreign Secretary is preparing for an overhaul of the market.

Guardian
Senior Tories are warning Liz Truss that she will lead a deeply divided Tory party to inevitable defeat at the next election unless she makes a concerted effort to include senior figures from across the party – including critics of Boris Johnson – in her cabinet.
The foreign secretary is expected to be named on Monday as the new Tory leader and then enter Downing Street as prime minister on Tuesday after visiting the Queen at Balmoral.
But after a bruising and at times hugely divisive seven-week campaign against former chancellor Rishi Sunak, senior figures in the party fear she may be about to pack her administration with a mix of Johnson loyalists and rightwingers such as John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith, inflaming tension with moderates.
On Saturday night a former Tory cabinet minister and critic of Johnson said there would be huge and “explosive” consequences if Truss allies such as Duncan Smith and Nadine Dorries were appointed to top positions and then tried to use their influence to scrap a parliamentary inquiry into whether Johnson deliberately misled parliament.
Duncan Smith has put his name to a parliamentary motion calling for the investigation by the privileges committee – which could lead to Johnson being suspended as an MP – to be “discontinued”, while Dorries has made clear she backs such a move.
The privileges committee has been given the task of establishing whether Johnson deliberately misled parliament by denying knowledge of lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street.

Independent
Twelve Conservative MPs disgruntled with the candidates for the party leadership are planning to submit letters of no confidence in the new prime minister as early as this week, it has been reported.
In defiance of the widely-considered frontrunner Liz Truss, MPs are planning to submit letters to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee, to signal their intentions of challenging the new prime minister, according to the Sunday Mirror.
The newspaper reports the plotting MPs want a leadership vote by Christmas to bring Boris Johnson back as leader.
Speaking with the Sunday Mirror, one MP said: “In the worst of times [Liz Truss] is the worst possible choice for PM.”
Tory MPs hatching the plan will need to obtain 54 letters of no confidence in the new prime minister in order for a leadership challenge to take place, with Sir Graham announcing it once the target had been met.
Other party MPs have responded to the plot, with one quoted by the newspaper as saying: “This is madness. The country won’t wear 160,000 Conservative members choosing another PM, especially a retread. We’ll end up with a general election.”
The plotters have suggested they hope to reach the target of 54 letters by the new year.

Brexit

Guardian
The Brexit campaign group Leave.EU has gone into liquidation with its controversial co-founder Arron Banks appearing to write off a loan worth more than £7m.
Documents submitted to Companies House also reveal that the anti-EU lobbying group, which was fronted by Nigel Farage during the 2016 EU referendum campaign, has failed to pay tens of thousands in fines owed to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for breaches of data law.
Yet the decision by Banks to apparently write off £7,051,987 in loans to Leave.EU will attract most controversy after years of speculation over the source of his funding to the EU referendum campaign.
In 2018 a referral was made by the Electoral Commission to the National Crime Agency claiming Banks was not the “true source” of the loan and that the money had come “from impermissible sources”.
The NCA found no evidence of criminality, concluding that Banks took a loan from an Isle of Man company he owned, which he was legally entitled to do.
Banks had denied any wrongdoing and dismissed claims surrounding his funding as “ludicrous”.
Critics yesterday said the apparent writing off of £7m might be seen by Banks as a reasonable price for the disruption caused by Brexit.

Crime

Express
POLICE FORCES are gearing up to deal with a surge in crime across the UK, as the country faces one of the worst cost of living crisis this winter.
The concern comes after Ofgem raised the price cap on household bills by 80 percent to £3,549 beginning next month, and left nearly 88 percent of adults across Britain worried about gas and electricity costs. Meanwhile, Putin has indefinitely suspended gas supplies through Europe’s key pipeline route.
Officials have revealed Britain may be forced to buy back gas exported to Europe to keep the lights on this winter after giving away roughly 15 percent of its supplies.
Due to the UK’s lack of storage, supplies previously shipped to terminals in the UK and then piped abroad will have to be pumped back into the country as temperatures fall.
Large volumes of fuel have been sent to the European Union via the UK in recent months as countries struggle to fill up their storage sites after Russia limited supplies, according to The Telegraph.
According to the report, the police are preparing a contingency plan to deal with the fallout that could result from millions of households falling into financial difficulties.

Times
Police forces are braced for a rise in crime, a breakdown in public order and even corruption in their ranks this winter as they draw up emergency proposals to deal with the cost of living crisis.
Contingency planning among police chiefs is under way to deal with the fallout that could result from millions of households falling into financial difficulties.
A leaked national strategy paper, drawn up by them this summer, has revealed they are increasingly concerned that “economic turmoil and financial instability” has “potential to drive increases in particular crime types”.
These include “acquisitive” offences, such as shoplifting, burglary and vehicle theft, as well as online fraud and blackmail, and crimes that “rely on exploiting financial vulnerability”.

Covid

Telegraph
Pharmacists say they do not have enough covid vaccines, as the national rollout of boosters gets underway.
This week the NHS will invite more than four million people to come forward for jabs.
The programme will start in care homes on Monday with all over 75s then being offered slots at pharmacies, GP surgeries and standalone vaccination centres from Monday 12th.
While the rollout has been planned for months, a dual vaccine which tackles both the original Covid virus and the newer Omicron variant was only authorised last month.
The Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies (AIMP), which represents more than 3,000 pharmacies, says chemists have not received sufficient stocks to meet demand.
But on Saturday, NHS chiefs said they were rolling out the jabs as quickly as possible, and trying to do so fairly, so stocks were distributed to match the size of local eligible populations.
Dr Leyla Hannbeck, chief executive of AIMP said pharmacies had placed their orders, only to find that NHS commissioners would only provide a fraction of what was requested.

Water

Telegraph
Nearly all major water companies in England employ former government regulators, Telegraph analysis has found, prompting calls to clamp down on the revolving door between Ofwat and the firms it oversees.
At least seven of the nine water and sewerage companies currently have senior staff in regulatory or strategic roles who have previously worked for  Ofwat, the industry regulator.
This includes Cathryn Ross, Thames Water’s strategy and regulatory affairs director, formerly the chief executive of Ofwat, and the company’s director of regulatory policy.
There is no suggestion that individuals or water companies have breached civil service rules around the appointment of former regulators. But there have been calls for the rules to be tightened amid concerns that the close links between Ofwat and the industry are affecting the independence and authority of the regulator.
Dieter Helm, a former government adviser, said the exchange of staff between water companies and their regulator had led to “a huge emerging consensus” and questioned whether “this rather cosy world of close relationships is good and healthy for regulation”.

Ukraine

Mail
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace delivered a stinging rebuke to Vladimir Putin last night as experts warned that the Russian leader’s damaging ‘economic war’ on the West could last a decade.
Crippling prices for families and firms will spiral further this winter after Putin warned on Friday that Russia would cut off Europe’s main gas pipeline indefinitely.
He is suspected of holding Europe to ransom over its support for Ukraine – leading to predictions that average annual British energy bills could hit £8,000.
MPs, energy experts and the former head of the Army joined Mr Wallace last night in criticising the Russian President’s tactics – and calling for Britain to drill for more gas and build more wind farms to avoid being held over a barrel.
Mr Wallace told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is just another effort by Russia to bully the West into abandoning our values.
‘It won’t work. But what it will do is convince us all that the best thing for all our futures is to invest in alternative sources and leave Russia at the mercy of China.’
Energy markets were closed when Russia’s state energy firm Gazprom announced on Friday that its Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany will stay closed indefinitely.
Tony Jordan, of the energy consultancy Auxilione, said gas prices would ‘go completely north’ when markets reopen tomorrow.
Putin’s restriction on gas supplies to Europe is a key reason why annual energy bills for an average British family are rising to £3,500 this winter. Mr Jordan said: ‘Not seeing the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in use for a long time or ever is the worst fear of Europe. The impact will have an impact on the price cap next year. We could see £8,000 a year for typical bills. That will happen if we get no good news.’

Telegraph
The dice are rolling, the curtain has been whipped back. We finally know the secret in the middle, around which we have been dancing.
Ukraine’s counter-offensive has begun.
Weeks of shaping operations, those precursors so vital to a successful military campaign, have given way to the main event.
There had been speculation, including from this newspaper, that telegraphing its intent to attack in the south this side of winter was a risky strategy by Kyiv.
What the weeks of messaging did do, of course, as was noted here and elsewhere, was to unseat the Russian army.
Attacks in the Donbas, already reduced to a fraction of their early murderous work thanks to the supplies of long-range precision weapons by the West – including the fearsome American Himars missile system – fell to a trickle, as Moscow was forced to move a large portion of its forces south to meet the impending threat.
That was clever. So too was hitting the few bridges linking Russia’s main force in the area with the few thousand troops it had pushed north and west of the Dnipro River.

Sun
UKRAINE is just one step away from a nuclear disaster after Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant was reportedly knocked off the grid again.
Russian authorities claimed the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine went offline in the early hours of Saturday after heavy bombing destroyed a key power line.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukrainian forces tried once again to capture the Russia-held plant in an assault on Friday night.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Kremlin-appointed regional administration, said the site came under heavy fire for about two hours and a shell landed between two reactors.
“The Dneprovskaya power line has been hit. The nuclear power plant has switched to servicing its own needs,” he said on Telegram.
The defence ministry said a Ukrainian naval force of more than 250 troops attempted to land on the coast of a lake near the plant at 11pm local time.

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