Inside Politics: Rishi Sunak set to announce job-saving scheme

The second coming of Christ wouldn’t necessarily be the strangest news of 2020. The Russian authorities have arrested a guy who says he is Jesus – jailing the cult leader who claims “everything that God wants to say, he says through me.” The cult of Rishi Sunak – the man on whom Tories pin messianic hopes – will be enraptured today. The chancellor is all set to announce a wage subsidy scheme to rescue millions of furloughed workers. Meanwhile Michael Gove, a man with cult-like delusions of grandeur, has announced a miraculous new border in Kent. Heavens above.

Inside the bubble

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock on what to look out for today:

Rishi Sunak will unveil a new package of financial support he speaks in the Commons around 12.30pm on Thursday. Matt Hancock will be doing the morning media round to talk about the belated launch of the NHS Test and Trace app. Elsewhere, the former head of the civil service Gus O’Donnell will deliver a withering assessment of the government’s handling of the Covid crisis in a speech to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Daily briefing

MAN WITH THE PLAN: Rishi Sunak is all set to reveal his “winter jobs plan” to protect those at risk of redundancy after the furlough scheme ends next month. The chancellor has some form of wage subsidy scheme up his sleeve – with Boris Johnson promising Sunak has some “creative” solutions. He seems to have found those creative solutions by looking at a scheme already up and running in Germany, where firms are allowed to reduce employees’ hours and the government makes up part of the salary lost. The Times reports this morning that Sunak’s scheme could see the government pay one third of lost wages, employers would pay another third, and workers would have to give up a third. Sunak fans will have to make the most Thursday’s big event: there will be no Autumn Budget this year. Labour said he must come up with something significant to prevent a “tsunami of job losses”.  

KENT YOU BELIEVE IT? It’s 2020, so of course we have a new crisis with its very own hashtag: #Kexit. Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove announced that there would be a de-facto border around Kent for lorry drivers entering the county to travel on to the EU. Gove said drivers would need a special “Kent access permit” (KAP) to get in. Labour accused him of planning “to arrest British truckers”, while furious hauliers said they were being lined up to take the blame for the looming disruption. After Gove confirmed a government forecast of 7,000-strong lorry queues, Kent MP Damian Green said the disruption would “send a chill” through constituents. Tory MP Mel Stride, the Treasury committee chair, said the government was leaving it “incredibly tight” to get infrastructure ready – and asked why there was still talk “spades in the ground” with only a few months to go.

CHAMPAGNE APPI: A big day for health secretary Matt Hancock, as he finally, finally, finally gets to celebrate the launch of the NHS Test and Trace app. I just hope Matt knows how to work QR codes and has a relatively new phone. It emerged last night that the service will only work on Androids from 2017 and after, and iPhones from 2015 onward. In other big coronavirus news, it has emerged that No 10’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has a £600,000 shareholding in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – the pharma giant contracted to develop a vaccine for the government. One Tory MP told The Telegraph it amounted to a clear “conflict of interest”. It comes as the government continues to face flak over the new restrictions. The Sage adviser Prof John Edmunds said No 10’s measures did not go “anywhere near far enough” – suggesting Boris Johnson was making the same “mistake” as March by acting too slowly.

MIBBIES AYE, MIBBIES NO: Keir Starmer has refused to rule out the possibility Labour would back a second referendum on Scottish independence in the future. He told the BBC another vote was “not needed” anytime soon, but got himself into a vague muddle when asked about what happens beyond Scotland’s May 2021 election. In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Starmer also said Labour would be betraying voters “if we don’t take more seriously winning elections”. The government, meanwhile, has complained about the BBC giving Starmer a “right of reply” to Johnson’s TV address on the new Covid restrictions. One source said it was a “strange move” for the Beeb allow a “political statement”. An unmemorable PMQs saw Starmer accuse Boris Johnson of “losing control of the virus” and being “really out of touch” with parents trying to get their children tested for Covid.

WASTED CAPITAL: The government has “under-delivered” during the coronavirus crisis, Lord O’Donnell will argue in a speech later today. The former civil service boss thinks leadership has been lacking and will accuse Johnson of using up precious “political capital” by keeping on Dominic Cummings after his eyesight test trip to Barnard Castle. Johnson, meanwhile, will attempt to show some leadership today by telling a virtual UN meeting that action on the climate crisis “cannot be another victim of coronavirus”. The PM will urge fellow leaders to “look ahead to how we will rebuild” after the pandemic. Many of us are still worried about how Britain rebuilds after the pandemic and Brexit. MPs have raised fears about the “safe operation of the Channel Tunnel” from January – accusing the government of failing to make preparations for the end of a 1986 treaty governing cross-channel arrangements.

SHENANIGAN REPUBLIC: Will we see an outbreak of violence after the US election? Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care. The president has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses in November. “Well, we’ll have to see what happens,” he said – again casting doubt on postal voting and predicting the vote could end up in the Supreme Court. “Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very – you’ll have a very peaceful – there won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation.” Joe Biden responded by asking: “What country are we in?” He said the Democrats were ready to deal with post-election “shenanigans” from Trump. His team also stated: “The US government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

On the record

“With just over three months to go, how are businesses meant to prepare amid this Conservative carnival of incompetence?”

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves on the looming Kent catastrophe.

From the Twitterati

“Is Kent now part of France, or France now part of Kent? Genuinely confused.”

The Guardian’s John Crace is puzzled…

“Someone sat in an office in Whitehall and said “the solution here is that we force people to have a permit to drive into Kent”. And people nodded and said “good idea”. That actually happened. In real life.”

…and The Mail’s Dan Hodges is amazed.

Essential reading

Jonathan Portes, The Independent: A no-deal Brexit will be twice as damaging for the economy as coronavirus

Kuba Shand-Baptiste, The Independent: The government should shut the pubs – there are more important things to save

Katy Balls, The Spectator: Sweden’s coronavirus expert briefs No 10

Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight: Why the US polls could still be missing some Trump supporters

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