“Rishi Sunak has arrived in Manchester for what could be his last party conference before the next election. Ahead of the four-day event, he announced £1.1bn of cash for towns the government says have been “overlooked”…Mr Sunak will not make his main speech until Wednesday, however to mark the start of the conference, the government has announced £1.1bn of funding aimed at regenerating high streets and tackling anti-social behaviour. The money will be shared between 55 towns – including Torquay, Rotherham and Kilmarnock – with each getting £20m over a decade.” – BBC
>Today:
“Rishi Sunak is preparing to use new legal powers to ignore injunctions from Strasbourg judges if the Supreme Court gives the go-ahead to the Rwanda policy in November, The Telegraph understands. Allies expect the Prime Minister to ignore further attempts by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to ground deportation flights with emergency orders if the Government wins the case.” – Sunday Telegraph
“Interviewed by The Sunday Times in the office in the Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall where Churchill had worked as First Lord of the Admiralty, Badenoch raised the prospect of leaving the ECHR. It made her the second cabinet minister in a week to make the proposal, after Suella Braverman, the home secretary, delivered a “warning shot” to Strasbourg judges that Britain could quit if the convention continued to hold up the government’s plans to deport migrants to Rwanda. Badenoch, the business secretary who has been described as the “new darling of the right” and is seen as Braverman’s main Tory leadership rival, said the option of quitting the ECHR is “definitely something that needs to be on the table”. Conservative politicians, including former prime ministers Theresa May and David Cameron, have long flirted with leaving the ECHR.” – Sunday Times
“Rishi Sunak is today facing a mounting revolt from Conservative MPs demanding tax cuts – spearheaded by his predecessor Liz Truss. As the Tories gathered for their annual conference in Manchester, Ms Truss was poised to urge the Prime Minister to slash Corporation Tax to ‘unleash British business’….The call – to be made in a ‘Great British Growth Rally’ tomorrow – came as more Tory MPs signed a pledge not to vote for any increase in the overall tax burden. Ex-party chairman Sir Jake Berry – who last week disclosed that 33 Tories had already backed the plan – told The Mail on Sunday that support for the tax vow was growing.It commits the MPs to not vote in favour of the Government’s Autumn Statement, due in November, if it raises the overall tax burden.” – The Mail on Sunday
“Britain will ramp up its training programme for Ukrainian soldiers under plans being discussed with military chiefs, the new Defence Secretary has disclosed. In an interview with The Telegraph, Grant Shapps said that he had held talks with Army leaders about moving “more training and production” of military equipment into Ukraine. He also called on more British defence firms to set up factories in Ukraine. Following a trip to Kyiv last week, Mr Shapps also reveals that he has talked to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, about how Britain’s Navy could play a role in defending commercial vessels from Russian attacks in the Black Sea.” – Sunday Telegraph
“The Opinium poll for the Observer of more than 3,000 voters – which includes over 900 2019 Tory voters – contains mixed news for Sunak and his party. On the one hand, it shows Labour’s lead has been cut to 10 points (down five compared with a fortnight ago). Labour is on 39 points (down two) while the Tories are on 29 (up three), suggesting Sunak’s blitz of announcements, including rowing back on net-zero commitments and floating plans to abolish inheritance tax, may have had positive effects…But on the downside among 2019 Tory voters, just 66% say they will back the Tories again, 12% will switch to Labour, 13% to Reform, 5% to the Lib Dems and 3% to the Greens.” – The Observer
“Michael Gove today reveals how he aims to outlaw slacker councils from bringing in the four-day week — as he blasts town hall staff who skive on the job. In an exclusive interview with The Sun on Sunday, the top Cabinet minister disclosed that he is looking into a law change to prevent such “quiet quitting” at local authorities.” – The Sun on Sunday
“A group of Conservative MPs representing the North of England has set out a manifesto calling for a dedicated Cabinet minister for the region and 500,000 homes to be built. The Northern Research Group (NRG) also wants to see a commitment to devolving some of Westminster’s tax responsibilities to the North and the prioritisation of a rail line linking Liverpool in the west to Hull in the east. It comes as ministers have recently refused to commit to building the northern leg of HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, via Crewe, over cost concerns associated with the high-speed rail project.” – Sunday Express
“The papers also highlight a significant and new piece of research that backs up what we have long intuitively known. Large incumbent companies have a tendency to secure for themselves through regulation protections against competition. Research from Goethe University suggests that 31-37% of market power increases can be attributed to new regulation in the US. This highlights the fact that part of the problem in the G7 is the increase in market power of large incumbents and that we need to differentiate between firms that increase market share through ordinary competitive processes and those that use laws and regulations to protect their position. The former should be encouraged, the latter discouraged. Too often, our regulatory, tax and fiscal policies do the reverse.” – Shanker Singham, Sunday Telegraph
“Sunak is struggling against a statist current – or, since the pandemic, a statist torrent. We are in a Leftist cultural moment, with record public support for spending increases, nationalisations and price controls. Perhaps the torrent will, as polls suggest, wash the Tories away. But, by Heaven, how heartening to see the PM swimming with steady strokes against it.” – Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph