Inside Politics: Austerity 2.0

Hello there, I’m Matt Mathers and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

Nadine Dorries is to write a book on Boris Johnson’s downfall, in what the former culture secretary says will be a “political whodunnit”. The Big Dog did it to himself, the end?

Today is all about the autumn statement but there is other Commons business taking place. It starts at 9.30am with Defra questions. After that Commons leader Penny Mordaunt has the weekly business statement before the PM’s statement on the G20, then the chancellor’s mini-Budget at 11.30am. There will be a general debate after all that for International Men’s Day.

Wielding the axe

It has not stopped chucking it down in London town for about the past 12 hours and the gloomy weather serves as a very appropriate backdrop to today’s autumn statement, where Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor and Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, will unleash a series of swingeing cuts to public services and tax rises on millions as they start the firing gun on Austerity 2.0.

Hunt will say he has no choice but to administer these bitter pills as he seeks to repair the public finances in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, Liz Truss’s failed experiment on the economy and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. So what can we expect from the chancellor when he appears at the dispatch box at around 11.30am to fix what he says is a black hole of more than £50bn in the public finances?

Hunt is expected to announce a ratio of 55:45 in spending cuts and tax rises. Personal tax thresholds will be frozen and help for energy bills is to be significantly scaled back from April, meaning many will experience a very real hit to their incomes. Almost every government department – apart from health – will see their funding cut in real terms. The government hopes that by implementing these cuts it can bring down inflation (higher prices) – public enemy number one – and get the economy going again. Is there any good news? Pensions and benefits are expected to rise in line with inflation after weeks of back and forth. The chancellor is also set to announce a hike in the national living wage, in a boost to workers across the country.

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Today is a huge and defining day for Sunak’s still fledgling government as it seeks to restore the UK’s fiscal credibility in the markets following September’s disastrous mini-Budget. It will go a long way in determining his prospects at the next general election too. Today’s statement, as you might expect, is not free of politics, with some of the biggest public spending cuts expected to be deferred until after the next national poll, leaving Labour with some thinking to do.

And so the inevitable eventually came to pass at around 10am yesterday morning when allegedly bully boy Dominic Raab revealed that two formal complaints had been made against him amid a swirl of claims that he behaved aggressively towards staff, which he denies.

The deputy PM and justice secretary wrote to his boss Sunak, calling for an independent investigation into the complaints, one of which came from his previous stint at the justice department and the other from his time as foreign secrtetary. Sunak accepted.

Downing Street later confirmed that the PM would hire an “independent investigator” to probe the claims, but was unable to say when it would start. A spokesperson also said that the ethics adviser will be picked by Sunak and report directly to him, with the PM having the final say on any potential disciplinary action, leading the Lib Dems to accuse the Conservatives of another “stitch-up”.

See all of The Independent’s daily cartoons here

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Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, in his letter to Sunak after requesting an investigation into himself following two formal bullying complaints.

“I look forward to addressing these complaints, and continuing to serve you as deputy prime minister, justice secretary and lord chancellor.”

Mikey Smith, Daily Mirror Whitehall correspondent, comments on a poll showing 56 per cent of Britons think Brexit was a bad idea.

“It’s almost as if Brexit has never been an issue the British people broadly cared about, and was manufactured as a wedge issue by clever campaigners to invent the most damaging 18 months in British political history out of whole cloth.”

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