Inside Politics: Blowin’ in the wind

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

A Marcus Rashford masterclass has put England through to the next stage of the World Cup. Keir Starmer will be hoping to score today when he goes on the attack against Rishi Sunak at PMQs. The PM remains under pressure on onshore wind, housing and private schools.

Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

Given the growing list of Tory rebellions facing Rishi Sunak, it’s a safe bet that Keir Starmer will again accuse him of being “weak” during prime minister’s questions. So the PM will want to appear strong.

On the select committee corridor, Kemi Badenoch, the international trade secretary, will answer questions submitted by the public as well as MPs. They may include reports that Liz Truss’ trade deal with Japan has not lived up to expectations. Mel Stride, the new work and pensions secretary, will set out his priorities. Familiar expert voices during the pandemic, including Kate Bingham, Jenny Harries and John Bell, will be quizzed on preparedness for winter outbreaks of Covid and flu.

The performance of the police, much criticised of late, may come under the spotlight when Suella Braverman, the home secretary, chairs a meeting of the national policing board.

Today is Wednesday and that means only one thing: PMQs. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, faces off against Labour leader Keir Starmer with a number of headaches on the back benches showing no sign of abating. Downing Street is still having conversations aimed at appeasing both sets of rebels embroiled in rows over onshore wind and housebuilding.

Sir John Hayes, a former minister and the MP for South Holland and The Deepings, is part of the group mounting a counteroffensive against scrapping the ban on onshore wind. He tells today’s Times that he has collected 19 signatures since yesterday afternoon, with the issue threatening to shatter the fragile truce among Tory MPs on the back benches since Sunak took over. It is still not clear where No 10 stands on the issue.

Starmer will seek to add to Sunak’s problems by putting him under pressure over private schools, with the party setting out plans to slash tax breaks for fee-paying institutions. The opposition has also put out new figures this morning claiming that the government’s windfall tax on oil and gas giants should have raised far more money.

Labour accuses the government of “botching” the levy by leaving loopholes which the party calculates will cost the public finances £17bn. In a challenge to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Labour is today tabling an amendment to the bill enacting the chancellor’s autumn statement, demanding that he spell out the full cost of windfall tax allowances for fossil fuel firms. Last week a BP boss was unable to say how much the firm had paid in windfall tax. In October Shell revealed that it had paid zero.

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The former head of UK counter-terror policing has called Suella Braverman’s language on migrants “inexplicable” and compared it to Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, who is the country’s most senior non-white police officer, said the racist and anti-immigration address in 1968 had made his parents’ lives “hell” as a mixed-race couple.

In an interview with Channel 4 News before his departure from Scotland Yard, he was asked about Ms Braverman’s statement that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda was her “dream”.

“I find some of the commentary coming out of the Home Office inexplicable,” Mr Basu said.

“It is unbelievable to hear a succession of very powerful politicians who look like this talking in language that my father would have remembered from 1968. It’s horrific.”

The senior police officer added: “I was born in 1968. The ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech happened on the constituency next to where my parents lived and made their life hell.”

Ms Braverman called small boat crossings by asylum seekers in the English Channel an “invasion” in parliament on 31 October, the day after a far-right terrorist firebombed a reception centre in Dover.

See all of The Independent’s daily cartoons here

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Andrew Bailey, Bank of England governor, on September mini-Budget.

“I’m afraid there was parts of it we had no idea what was in it. There was no formal communication of the sort we normally have. It was a quite extraordinary process in that sense.”

Mikey Smith, Mirror Whitehall correspondent, replies to Nigel Farrage’s comments on census data.

“This is pretty racist for a guy who wants to return to politics.”

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