Inside Politics: Trapped

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

The Anti-Growth Coalition is so diffuse that it has now infiltrated the 1922 Committee of Tory back benchers.

Commons action gets underway with transport questions at 9.30am. Penny Mordaunt, the Commons leader, takes business questions after that, followed by any other ministerial statements. Next MPs move on to the second reading of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill.

Most Westminster watchers tuning into PMQs yesterday could hardly believe their ears as Liz Truss said, “Absolutely” when asked by Keir Starmer if she planned to stick with a leadership campaign pledge not to cut public spending, while pressing ahead with tax cuts. There were audible gasps in the chamber after Truss spoke.

Why? A lot has changed since the prime minister won over her party’s members. And you might have noticed the volatility in the markets of late, or a “little turbulence,” as the chancellor might put it, following his “mini-Budget” last month. Some of this is because the markets don’t have confidence the UK can pay its bills after announcing a series of unfunded tax cuts, leading investors to ask where the money is coming from to fund said tax cuts, as the economy contracts. Meanwhile, the cost of government borrowing soared again yesterday to a 20-year high.

There is now a bit of a semantic debate taking place about what this claim actually meant, but the fact that Truss delivered the “absolutely” – twice – with such aplomb and apparent nonchalance suggests that perhaps she still does not fully appreciate the seriousness of the current economic situation she finds herself in. Or is it that plans are already being drawn up to scrap or delay the tax cuts so that public spending will not have to be reined in? That is certainly the view of my colleague John Rentoul (see below), who reckons another U-turn is now inevitable. We reported yesterday officials are looking again at the financial statement, but the official line from Downing Street remains that Truss will press ahead with her “plan for growth”.

A growing number of Tories are calling for the tax cuts to be scrapped or delayed and plenty of them voiced their views at a raucous meeting of the 1922 Committee Anti-Growth Coalition last night. The subdued mood on the government benches at PMQs continued into the meeting, where Conservative MPs made clear the prime minister should reverse or defer her decision to scrap a rise in corporation tax scheduled for 2023, at a cost of £18.7bn. The Tory chair of the Commons Treasury committee, Mel Stride, said that there was now doubt whether it was possible for Truss and Kwarteng to “satisfy the markets” without rowing back on further elements of the £43bn package.

One Conservative MP told The Independent that there was “a robust exchange of views” – code for a row – inside the behind-closed-doors meeting. Asked if Truss had won over any of her critics, the MP replied: “Probably not.” “It was horrific. She’s not going anywhere but she can’t survive,” another former minister said.

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Hardly a day has gone by in the past few weeks without a poll showing Labour’s gargantuan and growing poll leads. And a fresh survey out last night suggests that Starmer’s party is now eating into the ‘true blue’ heartlands in southern England, as well as making deep inroads into the ‘red wall’ seats in the north.

Labour, which was 29 points behind the Tories in the so-called “blue wall” seats at the 2019 election, is now 21 points ahead, according to a poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies. The Tories are now set to win just 28 per cent of the vote in their own heartlands, down 22 percentage points.

Labour is on course to win 41 per cent of the vote, up 20 per cent, while the Lib Dems are also close to drawing level with the Conservatives on 24 per cent.

In other Labour news, the party’s MPs are teaming up with their Conservative colleagues to thwart government plans allowing fracking to go ahead. Several Tories told the BBC they had talked with the opposition about which parliamentary mechanisms could be used to force ministers into yet another U-turn. A Labour source confirmed they had discussed ways to force a vote in the Commons with backbench Tories opposing fracking.

See all of The Independent’s daily cartoons here

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Truss when asked by Starmer if she plans to stick by a pledge not to cut public spending.

“Absolutely.”

Paul Brand, ITV News UK editor, comments on the continuing backlash to the chancellor’s financial statement.

“Was the mini budget the worst self-inflicted wound a government has ever suffered? Can anyone think of another one-off event that backfired quite so badly?”

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