Campaign group welcomes plan to limit civil service internships to working class
The idea, it says, is to make Whitehall better reflect the country and harness a broader range of talent.
The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has criticised the plan. She said she would 'scrap all this rubbish' and just 'hire the best people'.
To discuss, we were joined now by the head of the Social Mobility Foundation, Sarah Atkinson.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Truss accuses Badenoch of not telling truth about Tory failures
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, is not telling the truth about the 'real failures of 14 years of Conservative government', the former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss has said. Writing in the Telegraph Truss said: 'In a recent speech Kemi said: 'From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear.' If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative party is in serious trouble.' Truss's comments cameafter Badenoch's own Telegraph article in which she claimed the current Labour government was failing to heed the warnings of the disastrous mini-budget that defined Truss' short-lived premiership. The former prime minister has been fighting a desperate battle to rewrite the narrative around her 45 days in office in 2022. She released a memoir and embarked on a campaign tour that allowed her to talk up her record and offer her views on the political landscape in the UK and US. In her Telegraph article, she claimed her mini-budget would have helped the UK escape a 'doom-loop' of low growth and high taxes. 'Yet, it was sabotaged by the Bank of England and the Treasury – which didn't want to be challenged and wanted to cover up their failings – and Conservative MPs who either didn't believe in supply-side economics or cravenly wanted preferment under a Sunak premiership.' But Truss has faced an uphill battle – not least when she was mocked by the campaign group Led By Donkeys, which unfurled a banner during one of her appearances bearing the phrase: 'I crashed the economy.' It also included a picture of a lettuce – a reference to a Daily Star livestream stunt that sought to determine whether Truss's battle to survive in No 10 could last longer than a 60p iceberg lettuce from Tesco. Illustrating her criticism of the current Labour government, Badenoch invoked Truss's failures in No 10. 'Picture the scene: a new prime minister and chancellor spending billions without also making the necessary savings to offset their splurge and balance the books. The markets react adversely, interest rates spike and the cost of living gets worse with prices soaring. 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes,' she wrote in the Telegraph on Saturday. Hitting back, Truss wrote: 'She is wrong. Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion And listing several policy recommendations that place her close to the US president, Donald Trump, politically, Truss added: 'It is disappointing that, instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated.'
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Badenoch not telling truth about Tory failures, says Truss
Liz Truss has said Kemi Badenoch is not telling the truth about Tory failures. Writing in The Telegraph, the former prime minister says the Tories are in 'serious trouble' unless they begin to admit the failings they made in their last government on human rights and the economy. It comes after Mrs Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were making 'even bigger mistakes' than Ms Truss and had not learnt the lessons of her mini-budget. Responding, Ms Truss says: 'It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. 'I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated. 'It was a fatal mistake not to repeal Labour legislation like the Human Rights Act because the modernisers wanted to be the 'heirs to Blair'. 'Huge damage was done to our liberties through draconian lockdowns and enforcement championed by Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. 'The economy was wrecked with profligate Covid spending by Sunak. The huge increase in immigration has been a disaster.' The remarks risk igniting a row in the Conservative Party over Ms Truss's legacy. Previously, Mrs Badenoch had only criticised Ms Truss in private, telling her shadow cabinet in January that it would be helpful if she made fewer interventions. But in an article for The Telegraph, Mrs Badenoch said: 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.' Almost three years after the mini-budget of September 2022, Ms Reeves and Sir Keir still regularly resort to blaming the mini-budget for unpopular decisions on tax and spending. But some in the Conservative Party argue that Ms Truss had the right vision for a low-tax economy. Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Truss accuses her successor of spreading 'spurious narratives'. She says: 'Kemi Badenoch has said Labour need to learn the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. She is wrong. ' Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster. 'The mini-budget was the right approach at the right time that would have resulted in higher growth, lower debt and cheaper energy… Contrary to what Kemi says, it's not true that we had no plans to restrain spending. We wanted to link welfare increases to wages rather than prices, which would have saved £7bn in that year alone.' Ms Truss says it was impossible to bring in policies associated with Javier Milei, the Argentine president, when Conservative MPs did not even support welfare reform. She calls for the Office of Budget Responsibility to be scrapped and Bank of England independence to be rescinded, and says new leadership should be appointed at the Treasury. The former prime minister quotes Mrs Badenoch who said in a recent speech: 'From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear.' Ms Truss concludes: 'If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative Party is in serious trouble.' In her now infamous mini-budget in September 2022, Ms Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor, announced a series of surprise tax cuts. It was not accompanied by a forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, nor did it contain any spending restraints. It provoked a calamitous market reaction, with government borrowing costs surging and higher mortgage rates. Ms Truss resigned the next month. Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, had led internal Tory criticism of the mini-budget, vowing last month that the party would 'never, ever' repeat it. Baroness Maclean of Redditch, one of Mrs Badenoch's closest allies, told a meeting in June that the party had 'done the apologies' and should now move on to setting out policies. But a few weeks later Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told activists that the Tories should keep acknowledging their mistakes. A Conservative Party spokesman said: 'Labour are doubling down on the mistakes of the past – and Reform would go even further with more welfare spending and more borrowing. Only the Conservative Party is committed to reducing government spending and ensuring the country lives within its means.' The real failures of 14 years of Conservative government By Liz Truss Kemi Badenoch has said Labour need to learn the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. She is wrong. Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster. The mini-budget was the right approach at the right time that would have resulted in higher growth, lower debt and cheaper energy. The 45p income tax rate raises virtually no revenue; abolishing it would help retain talent. Corporation tax kept at 19 per cent would have attracted businesses. Fracking would have lowered British energy prices and saved manufacturing industry. Contrary to what Kemi says, it's not true that we had no plans to restrain spending. We wanted to link welfare increases to wages rather than prices, which would have saved £7bn in that year alone – far more than Labour's botched reforms. However, many Conservative MPs would not support it and it was their lack of support that was one of the primary problems. A Javier Milei agenda was just not possible in 2022 when the Conservative Parliamentary Party even baulked at welfare savings. We can see from the counterfactual of both Sunak/Hunt and Starmer/Reeves that instead of the 'unfunded tax cuts' I was accused of, we have 'unfunded tax rises'. Whether the abolition of non-dom status or the increase in capital gains tax, our astronomic tax burden has driven talent out of the country and killed growth. This economic doom loop is likely to lead to a financial collapse and an inability for the UK to fund its debt. The mini-budget was precisely a chance to escape this doom loop. Yet, it was sabotaged by the Bank of England and the Treasury – which didn't want to be challenged and wanted to cover up their failings – and Conservative MPs who either didn't believe in supply-side economics or cravenly wanted preferment under a Sunak premiership. The price of British debt is now consistently higher than it was in 2022, yet Reeves does not face the constant wall of noise that I did, nor the level of criticism from those who were allegedly on side. Failure to regulate The guns were trained on me but the real culprit was the Bank of England. It admitted in a paper released last year that two-thirds of the market movement in autumn 2022 was down to its failure to regulate the pensions market. One of its jobs is ensuring financial stability. Another is holding down inflation. It failed on both counts. The criticism of my failing to secure a forecast from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) is also hogwash. Rishi Sunak did not seek an OBR forecast for Covid spending nor did Rachel Reeves for her 2025 spending review – both of which cost far more than the mini-budget package. The difference was that I was taking on the economic establishment rather than going along with it. The Bank of England blamed me in order to protect its position. It has huge entrenched power and a ready audience in the mainstream media. After the Blair government made it unaccountable, monetary policy is no longer in the hands of the elected government. The situation was made even worse when George Osborne established the OBR, embedding a Left-wing approach to fiscal policy. The OBR has consistently underestimated public spending and overestimated the revenue from tax rises. Despite every Budget that has been scored by the OBR 'hitting the debt target', borrowing always comes in 'higher than expected'. If a new government wants serious economic change – emulating the policies of Milei and Trump – it will have to dismantle this apparatus first. Power must be returned to the executive to implement economic policy. The Bank of England Act 1998 should be repealed. The OBR should be abolished and new leadership appointed at the Treasury. The Prime Minister – like the president of the United States – should be responsible for public spending with a similar structure to the US Office of Management and Budget. Spurious narratives It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated. It was a fatal mistake not to repeal Labour legislation like the Human Rights Act because the 'modernisers' wanted to be the 'heirs to Blair'. Huge damage was done to our liberties through draconian lockdowns and enforcement championed by Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. The economy was wrecked with profligate Covid spending by Sunak. The huge increase in immigration has been a disaster. In a recent speech Kemi said 'From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear'. If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative Party is in serious trouble.
BBC News
8 hours ago
- BBC News
Government pledges extra £100m funding to tackle people smuggling
The Home Office has announced £100m in extra funding as part of efforts to crack down on illegal people smuggling in the English money will pay for up to 300 additional National Crime Agency (NCA) officers as well as new technology and than 25,000 people made the journey from France to the UK in small boats before the end of July, a record for this point in the Secretary Yvette Cooper said the move would help the UK better "track the [smuggling] gangs and bring them down". The Conservative Party called it a "desperate grab for headlines which will make no real difference". Last month, the government agreed a "one in, one out" pilot scheme with France which aims to deter migrants from crossing the Channel. Under the scheme, some arrivals would be returned to France and in exchange the UK would accept an equivalent number of asylum seekers, subject to security to the Home Office, the new £100m will boost border security and strengthen investigations targeting smuggling kingpins who have operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Cooper said gangs had shown a "a ruthless ability to adapt their tactics and maximise their profits, no matter how many lives they put at risk".The NCA has 91 ongoing investigations into people-smuggling networks affecting the UK, the agency's director general of operations Rob Jones said. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Labour of having "no serious plan" to tackle the issue."The British public deserves real action, not empty slogans and tinkering at the edges," he in the Daily Express, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said it was an effort to "throw taxpayer money at the illegal immigration crisis and hope it will go away"."Another £100 million here or there won't move the needle. It won't stop the boats or the gangs," he and previous Conservative governments have both struggled to reduce the number of people coming to the UK illegally in small Conservatives had proposed sending arrivals to Rwanda, but the scheme was delayed by legal challenges. The general election was called before it could be of Sir Keir Starmer's first acts as prime minister was to scrap the plan, calling it a another measure, which was revealed on Sunday, people advertising illegal Channel crossings online could face up to five years in prison under a new offence the government plans to illegal immigration to the UK is already a crime, but officials believe the new offence would give police and other agencies more power to disrupt criminal would criminalise the creation of material for publication online which promotes or offers services that facilitate a breach of UK immigration would include people using social media to advertise fake passports or visas, or the promise of illegal work opportunities in the UK, and as well as jail time could carry a large fine.
