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Based on the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges, greater than 15% of Conservative MPs (or at the least 54 of them) have already written to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, calling for a vote of no confidence in Liz Truss.
Perceive Liz Truss has been knowledgeable by Graham Brady the standard threshold of letters for a management problem has been breached. However he’s insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary social gathering earlier than appearing.
— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) October 19, 2022
Underneath the present guidelines, a brand new chief like Truss can’t be topic to a no confidence vote till a 12 months after taking workplace. That might imply she was secure for one more 10 and a half months.
However the 1922 Committee can simply change these guidelines, and it’ll accomplish that if it concludes that that’s what a majority of Tory MPs need.
In his morning interview spherical James Cleverly, the overseas secretary, echoed the No 10 line from yesterday and refused to say that the federal government remained dedicated to the triple lock on pensions.
The 2019 Conservative social gathering manifesto mentioned that triple lock would keep and Cleverly instructed Sky Information: “We do take manifesto commitments extremely severely, as .”
However he refused to restate the dedication, saying:
We’ve seen these inflation figures, clearly the chancellor goes to be making a press release to the home in simply over per week’s time.
The choices that he and the Treasury group will probably be making will probably be very a lot knowledgeable by these figures.
However boring, although, that’s … that I’m not going to be pre-announcing any of the measures that may are available that assertion on 31 [October].
At present’s newspaper entrance pages give a way of fairly how a lot anger Liz Truss will provoke if she does abandon the triple lock. Pensioners are more likely to vote Tory (and purchase newspapers) than youthful folks.
These are from the Instances’ Steven Swinford, on what to anticipate from PMQs.
What’s Liz Truss technique right this moment at her third, and most pivotal, PMQs?
Anticipate her to repeat public apology & present contrition
She can even attempt to give Tory MPs pink meat by attacking Labour over strikes
Whether or not it buys her time – or hastens her departure – stays to be seen
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) October 19, 2022
Keir Starmer will deal with the economic system – the ‘Tory mortgage premium’, the return to austerity, the results of inflation
He’s in search of to border the narrative – that the Tories crashed the economic system and are responsible for ache felt by tens of millions – for years to return
— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) October 19, 2022
James Cleverly: ‘errors occur’ however the authorities has moved on
James Cleverly, the overseas secretary, was doing interviews on behalf of the federal government. Requested in regards to the Tory turmoil, he mentioned that “errors occur” however that the federal government has moved on after Liz Truss’s U-turns on tax cuts. My collegue Rowena Mason has the story right here.
Liz Truss to face essential PMQs amid warnings pensioners might lose £442 a 12 months if triple lock deserted
Good morning. PMQs is usually dismissed a pointless pantomime, however one perform it performs nicely is to function a barometer of political authority. A PM or opposition chief who crumbles on the dispatch field will not be going to outlive for lengthy (being hopeless at PMQs was a significant factor behind the Tories’ determination to dump Iain Duncan Smith as their chief in 2003) and that’s the reason right this moment’s session will probably be a make-or-break one for Liz Truss.
It is just her third PMQs since turning into prime minister, however will probably be the primary time she has confronted the Commons since sacking her chancellor (for implementing insurance policies together with one she reportedly forced him to announce despite his reservations), dumping virtually all of the measures in her mini-budget, and abandoning the two-year power worth assure that, till Monday, was the one coverage she was nonetheless claiming credit score for. The phrase “humiliating” is overused in political reporting, however it’s barely ample to explain fairly how damaging the occasions of the previous week have been to Truss’s fame.
At present she has acquired to steer her MPs that, by some means, she will be able to decide herself up and stick with it. An ample or good efficiency is unlikely to assist her a lot, by itself, in the long run. However a catastrophe might speed up strikes to do away with her.
As for what is going on on that entrance, nobody is totally certain. Tory MPs are largely agreed that sooner or later she’s going to go, and that the parliamentary social gathering must decide on a alternative with out giving social gathering members a vote, however in the intervening time there is no such thing as a consensus on who that particular person ought to be. Essentially the most highly effective determine on this course of is Sir Graham Brady who, as chair of the 1922 Committee, has the job of figuring out what MPs suppose, and conveying their collective view to the PM. He does it very nicely. However he’s additionally remarkably discreet, and journalists would not have a transparent thought as to what he’s as much as.
Right here is our in a single day story on the Tory plotting.
As if Truss’s issues weren’t unhealthy sufficient, she additionally faces a growing Tory revolt over her refusal to decide to sustaining the pensions triple lock. With figures out this morning displaying inflation running at 10.1% in September, that is the quantity by which pensions ought to rise from April subsequent 12 months if the federal government maintains the triple lock, as Truss was promising solely two weeks in the past. However this week No 10 has floated the likelihood that it might be suspended.
Sir Steve Webb, a former Lib Dem pensions minister, mentioned this morning if the state pension goes up in step with inflation, it would rise from £185.15 per week to £203.85.
But when the triple lock doesn’t apply, and pensions rise by 5.5%, in step with earnings, the weekly new state pension can be round £8.50 per week decrease than this, including as much as an annual lack of £442, he mentioned.
Right here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the transport secretary, offers proof to the Commons Treasury committee.
12pm: Liz Truss faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
After 12.45pm: MPs debate a Labour movement criticising the federal government’s dealing with of the mini-budget, and calling for the publication of the Workplace for Price range Accountability’s financial forecast instantly.
3pm: Sir Jon Cunliffe, the Financial institution of Englands’s deputy governor for monetary stability, offers proof to the Commons Treasury committee on what the committee calls “autumn 2022 fiscal occasions”.
Round 4pm: MPs debate a Labour movement saying time ought to be put aside in parliament on 29 November so that the Commons can pass a bill to ban fracking.
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