Inside Politics: ‘Electoral suicide’

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

The Commonwealth Games may have finished but the race to replace Boris Johnson still has a few weeks to run yet. Will it be Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak on top of the Tory podium come September? Sunak today confirms he would provide more help with energy bills if he wins the keys to No 10.

Parliament is not sitting.

Paul Scully, local government minister and Liz Truss backer, on Sky News Breakfast at 8.05am.

Mark Harper, Tory MP and Rishi Sunak supporter, on LBC at 8.50am.

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that he’ll provide more help with energy bills to ease the cost of living crisis if he becomes the next prime minister. Team Sunak has made a pledge to intervene at the end of August/start of September, once the energy price cap rises, and it becomes clear by exactly how much bills are going to increase.

There is no figure on how much help will be made available and to whom, with the former chancellor insisting that the support can be paid for by “efficiencies savings across Whitehall” – with “any one-off borrowing” kept to a “minimum”.

As you might expect, that word “borrowing” has riled up Team Truss, who has accused Sunak of yet another U-turn while questioning how his plans to spend more money would not stoke inflation while the foreign secretary’s would.

Sunak says the help will provide “support for families to help with the unprecedented situation we face”. Truss’s position on further interventions remains unclear. She said over the weekend that her plan is to make tax cuts, not give people more “handouts” – before an aide rowed back to say that she is ruling nothing out.

Truss’s plans to cut taxes are likely to come under further scrutiny as the campaign enters its final stages and Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and Sunak supporter, has thrown down the gauntlet to Truss, warning that her plans would amount to political “suicide” for the Tories.

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Following the Bank of England’s dire economic forecast last week, the cost of living crisis – and how to deal with it – is very much the number one issue in politics and the one posing the biggest challenge to whoever wins the keys to No 10 Downing Street.

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has warned that neither Truss nor Sunak understands the enormity of the challenge facing millions of families across the country and is urging them both to go much farther in providing help to those struggling to pay their bills.

Experts have predicted that the energy price cap could rise to £3,358 annually from October, and could hit £3,615 from January. In October 2021 the average energy bill was £1,400 a year.

Davey says the next PM should scrap the planned rise in October and the cost covered with a windfall tax on oil and gas companies. His party estimates the cost of the policy would be £36bn and suggested the windfall tax on oil and gas company profits should be expanded to help cover it.

“We need bold and urgent action to help families pay their bills and heat their homes this winter. There is no other choice,” Davey said. “This is an emergency, and the government must step in now to save families and pensioners £1,400 by cancelling the planned rise in energy bills this October.”

Dominic Raab, justice secretary and Sunak supporter, says Truss tax cuts would be ‘electoral suicide’.

“If we go to the country in September with an emergency budget that fails to measure up to the task, voters will not forgive us as they see their living standards eroded and the financial security they cherish disappear before their eyes. Such a failure will read unmistakenly to the public like an electoral suicide note and see our great party cast into the impotent oblivion of opposition.”

Daily Mirror Whitehall correspondent Mikey Smith on campaign to keep Boris in No 10.

“Imagine there being an active campaign to get Boris Johnson to stay on as PM, and not one to bring Gordon Brown back. Not saying either is the answer, but one seems objectively less of a batshit idea than the other.”

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