May to step down as an MP
“Former UK prime minister Theresa May has become the latest Conservative MP to announce that she will step down in the coming general election. May, who served as premier for three years between 2016 and 2019, said in a statement to the Maidenhead Advertiser newspaper that she had taken the decision to leave parliament to “champion causes close to my heart”, including doing work combating modern slavery. She inherited the premiership from David Cameron in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum and her stint in office was plagued by the struggle to pass a deal with the EU. The MP for Maidenhead, Berkshire, she was first elected in 1997.” – The Financial Times
- The former Prime Minister says she wants to focus on causes close to her heart after 27 years in Parliament – The Guardian
- Will Truss make a comeback – or is she deluded? – Rachel Sylvester, The Times
- Johnson has two paths back into frontline politics – and Sunak may not like either – Anne McElvoy, The I
>Today:
- Paul Scully in Comment: What the Conservatives can learn from my decision to step down
Sunak ‘refuses to rule out May election’
“Rishi Sunak refused to rule out a May general election…prompting renewed speculation about when he is planning to trigger the vote. The unveiling of new tax cuts, in the form of a 2p reduction in workers’ National Insurance, has contributed to debate about whether No 10 could be planning an early election. Mr Sunak said, “I’m not going to say anything extra about that,” when pressed in one interview, though in another interview he blamed Labour for talking up an early election. The decision to not categorically rule out the possibility of a spring rather than an autumn election…means the speculation could well run for weeks. However, many Tory MPs and government insiders not in Mr Sunak’s inner circle expect that autumn will ultimately be selected…” – The Daily Telegraph
>Today:
Budget 1) Hunt pulls £200 million from councils after clawing back house sale funds
“Jeremy Hunt has wound down a scheme that delivered an extra £200mn a year for social housing in England, in a controversial move that will further squeeze the finances of cash-strapped local councils. The chancellor’s decision to end a policy of letting local authorities keep 100 per cent of the revenues from sales of council homes was taken as part of the deliberations for his Budget on Wednesday. Local government and Whitehall insiders said the change was made despite representations from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to extend the two-year policy that was due to expire in April. Whitehall insiders said internal calculations submitted to the Treasury showed that the policy delivered £180mn-£200mn a year to local housing budgets.” – The Financial Times
- Hunt clashes with BBC’s Rajan over ‘unworthy’ Budget remarks – The Daily Telegraph
Budget 2) His National Insurance pledge is ‘not worth the paper it’s written on’, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies
“Jeremy Hunt’s promise to scrap National Insurance is “not worth the paper it is written on,” the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said. Paul Johnson said that abolishing such a major tax would only be plausible if other taxes increased or spending was cut. The Chancellor raised the possibility of abolishing the levy on workers’ pay in Wednesday’s Budget, saying that charging employees both National Insurance and income tax is not fair. “The result is a complicated system that penalises work instead of encouraging it,” Mr Hunt said, as he cut employees’ NI by another 2p to 8pc. “Our long-term ambition is to end this unfairness.” However, Mr Johnson said National Insurance was simply too big a cash generator for the Government to forego.” – The Daily Telegraph
- Pensioners are the ‘biggest losers’ from Hunt’s Budget – The Daily Mail
- Labour claims Chancellor will create a £46 billion fiscal hole with pledge to scrap National Insurance – The Financial Times
- What is the OBR? Inside the watchdog keeping chancellors in check – The Times
- Pensioners suffer biggest losses from Tory tax raid as Hunt boosts millennials – The Daily Telegraph
- Rich non-doms ‘dismayed’ by Hunt’s decision to end tax breaks – The Financial Times
- ‘Staycation tax’ backlash as the Budget removes benefits from short-term holiday lets – The Daily Telegraph
- Tories need to start rethinking the state – Editorial, The Daily Telegraph
- The Tories have ceased to be a party of small government dedicated to lower taxes and reduced public spending – Editorial, The Times
- This is how Tories fall: by promising tax cuts while doing the opposite – Fraser Nelson, The Daily Telegraph
- Wonk King stared into his laptop and revealed the Budget’s grim reality – Tom Peck, The Times
- This was a bad Budget for pensioners – Tom Utley, The Daily Mail
- Despite Hunt’s tax-cutting Budget, Tories are too late to avert election Armageddon – Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun
Budget 3) Labour ‘tooks at tax loopholes’ after the Chancellor swipes non-dom plans
“Labour is looking to fund its spending pledges through closing tax loopholes and cutting waste after Jeremy Hunt used his budget to steal one of the opposition’s key revenue-raisers. The chancellor abolished the non-dom tax regime to raise £2.7 billion a year which he put towards cutting national insurance in an attempt to create clear dividing lines with Labour. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, insisted she would not drop promises to fund NHS backlog recovery, emergency dentistry and free breakfast clubs in primary schools, which taxing non-doms had previously been earmarked for. After promising to keep Hunt’s tax cut, she acknowledged this meant money would have to be found elsewhere for policies which cost about £1.6 billion a year…” – The Times
- Labour comes under pressure to reveal how it will raise taxes to pay for cuts and invest in public services – The Daily Mail
- Starmer refuses to say whether he backs higher migration to grow economy – The Daily Telegraph
- Labour disputes Treasury analysis claiming private equity tax raid could cost £3.3 billion – The Financial Times
- Treasury disbanded non-dom tax policy unit weeks before, sources say – The Guardian
- BBC Radio 4’s hectoring oof Hunt could have been scripted by Labour’s spin doctors – Editorial, The Sun
- Can this odd couple get Britain moving again? – Patrick Maguire, The Times
- As the last Labour lot said: ‘There is no money’. So how will Reeves pay for it all? – Harry Cole, The Sun
- Hunt’s red Budget is giving Labour the blues – Emma Duncan, The Times
Europe must rein in Ukraine and Gaza wars before next US presidency, says Cameron
“Europe must do everything possible to rein in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza before the next US president is sworn in, Lord Cameron said at a press conference with his German counterpart in Berlin on Thursday. The Foreign Secretary, who has previously raised concerns about Donald Trump’s approach to the war in Ukraine, said the region’s leaders needed to shepherd the conflicts into the “best possible place” to prove their “strength” to whoever wins the November election. His remarks came weeks after Ben Hodges, a former commander of the US army in Europe, called Mr Trump “strategically illiterate” and urged the former president’s Republican allies to pass a stalled $60 billion (£46.9 billion) aid package to Ukraine.” – The Daily Telegraph
- He says 500 aid trucks a day are needed to prevent Gaza famine – The Daily Telegraph
- Would NATO really go to war with Russia? – Peter Hitchens, The Daily Mail
UK military has ‘no credible funding plan’, MPs warn
“The UK government has no “credible plan” to deliver the military capabilities it seeks and the country’s armed forces will have to cut some of their programmes unless overall defence spending is raised, according to a cross-party group of MPs. The hard-hitting report by parliament’s public accounts committee comes two days after…a pre-election Budget that prioritized tax cuts and provided no real increase in defence spending for the coming year. The committee said the Ministry of Defence faced a £17bn deficit in its plans to equip the military over the next 10 years and warned that this figure could grow by another £12bn — a shortfall that MPs said left the UK in an “alarming place”… UK defence spending is currently just under 2.3 per cent of GDP…” –The Financial Times
- When will Sunak take defence seriously? – Editorial, The Daily Mail
- Overlooking defence in the Budget was the wrong choice – Editorial, The Daily Telegraph
- We need to spend more on defence – as Churchill urged in the Thirties – Andrew Roberts, The Daily Mail
Gove ‘failed to declare hospitality at three football matches’
“Michael Gove failed to declare hospitality worth more than £1,700 at three Queens Park Rangers matches over the course of two years, not just the one occasion when he attended with a Conservative donor, it has emerged. The housing secretary was placed under investigation by the House of Commons standards watchdog last week, after the Guardian reported that he failed to register hospitality he received in August 2021 alongside David Meller, a donor whose firm he had referred to the VIP lane for assessing PPE deals during the Covid pandemic. Meller’s firm, Meller Designs, won six PPE contracts worth £164m. The commissioner did not give details about the inquiry other than to say it related to Gove’s registration of interests.” – The Guardian
Donelan’s ‘£15,000 letter’ was ‘rushed out at midnight’
“Late on a Friday night in October, working until two minutes to midnight, civil servants and lawyers in a government department scrambled to edit and vet a letter from Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, that ended up costing the taxpayer £15,000 in libel damages, internal emails reveal. The letter was finally “cleared” for sending at 11.58pm after incorporating “firm steers” from Donelan, the emails show. It was shared publicly the next day and prompted a libel suit after it falsely accused an academic of being a Hamas sympathiser. Internal emails revealed through a Freedom of Information request from Jesus Siller, a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford, show that the letter was signed off by staff and lawyers at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).” – The Times
- She received government advice before Hamas tweet – The Guardian
News in Brief:
- Biden’s angry State of the Union address – Christopher Bedford, The Spectator
- Rape trials are broken. Are juries to blame? – Dani Garavelli, UnHerd
- Budgets are overrated – Kristian Niemietz, The Critic
- We must continue to build on Thatcher’s vision – Rishi Sunak, CapX
- Scotland in NATO: the SNP glosses over realities – Eliot Wilson, The Ideas Lab
The post Newslinks for Friday 8th March 2024 appeared first on Conservative Home.
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