“Rishi Sunak’s goal of getting Rwanda deportation flights off the ground this spring looks all but dead after the government failed to overcome parliamentary deadlock over his Rwanda bill. The House of Lords inflicted further defeats on the government on Wednesday night after ministers refused to offer concessions to protect Afghan veterans who worked alongside British troops from being deported to Rwanda. The ongoing stand-off between the Lords and the House of Commons means that the bill will not become law until next week at the earliest. Sunak has repeatedly insisted the first flights will take off by the end of spring, but the latest delay means it is unlikely that flights will take off until mid-June at the earliest.” – The Times
Editorial:
>Today: Simon Gordon in Comment: Whatever the result at the next election, the Red Wall is the future of the Conservative Party
“Euro judges risk planting the seeds of their own destruction by meddling in domestic politics, Lord Cameron has warned. Their ruling against Switzerland for not doing enough on climate change was a dangerous overreach, the Foreign Secretary said yesterday. Many Tory MPs want to leave the European Court of Human Rights to stop it thwarting efforts to stop illegal migration. Rishi Sunak has vowed to quit the Strasbourg court if it blocks flights to Rwanda. While Lord Cameron said there were no plans to leave the ECHR, he put its judges on notice that members would not tolerate them blocking elected governments… A rump of Tory MPs are lobbying the PM to put leaving the ECHR in the party’s election manifesto.” – The Sun
Editorial:
>Yesterday:
“Rishi Sunak has said that Liz Truss was “wrong” on the economy in his bluntest attack on his predecessor since entering No 10. The prime minister pointed out that he had “repeatedly” warned that Truss’s policies would lead to disaster as he dropped his 18-month attempt at conciliation in the name of party unity. Truss has spent this week on a promotional book tour in which she has defended her record, renewed her attack on the “deep state” and accused Sunak of presiding over a “technocracy”, while pushing a host of radical policies such as abolishing the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Supreme Court. She capped a busy week by voting against Sunak’s “unconservative” smoking ban, suggesting that it was turning the government into “finger-wagging, nannying control freaks”.” – The Times
Comment:
Editorial:
>Today: John Oxley’s column: Our party needs an honest debate about these 14 years, not ex-leaders polishing their records
>Yesterday:
“Despairing Conservative MPs opened fire last night after the Treasury confirmed there will be no increase in defence spending before the General Election. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s refusal to commit to a cash boost, despite just yesterday talking up the need for more defence spending, could mean the Tories face an even tougher battle at the ballot box. The attack was led by three former Defence Ministers; James Heappey, Mark Francois and Tobias Ellwood. Mr Heappey, who has repeatedly called for defence spending to rise to 2.5 per cent of GDP, had submitted a written parliamentary question asking when an increase would happen. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Laura Trott, responded on Mr Hunt’s behalf saying the ‘pathway’ to 2.5 per cent ‘will be set out at the next Spending Review’.” – Daily Mail
Comment:
Editorial:
>Yesterday:
“Thames Water must sort out its own financial problems, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said, as he warned that the government would never insure investors against poor decisions. Hunt said on Wednesday he would not tell a private company how to structure its balance sheet, adding that it would be “completely wrong” if customers at Britain’s biggest water group had to pick up the tab for bad decisions made by its managers or owners. Thames Water, which provides water services to 15mn people in southern England, is facing the prospect of a messy debt restructuring or even a temporary renationalisation amid public anger over sewage pollution and mistrust of England’s privatised water system. Hunt was asked about Thames Water by reporters during a visit to Washington for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank.” – FT
>Yesterday:
“David Cameron has said it is clear Israel is “making a decision to act” in response to last weekend’s Iranian mass drone and ballistic missile attack, as Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off calls for restraint and said his country would make its own decisions about how to defend itself. Lord Cameron, the UK foreign secretary, speaking on a visit to Jerusalem, said he hoped the Israeli response would be carried out in a way that minimised escalation. “It’s right to have made our views clear about what should happen next, but it’s clear the Israelis are making a decision to act,” he said after meeting the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. “We hope they do so in a way that does as little to escalate this as possible,” he added, becoming the first non-Israeli politician to openly admit that some kind of military reprisal is inevitable.” – The Guardian
Comment:
>Today: Mike Pollard in Local Government: A sectarian elephant in the room?
“A Tory MP is under investigation over allegations that he misused campaign funds and abused his position after making a late-night phone call saying he’d been locked up by “bad people” who were demanding thousands of pounds, the Times can reveal. Mark Menzies, the Conservative MP for Fylde and a government trade envoy, rang an elderly local party volunteer at 3.15am in December saying he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of “life and death”. The sum, which rose to £6,500, was paid by his office manager from her personal bank account and subsequently reimbursed from campaign funds raised from donors. Some £14,000 given by donors for use on Tory campaign activities had previously been transferred to Menzies’s personal bank account and used for his private medical expenses.” – The Times
“Rishi Sunak today took aim at Sir Keir Starmer as he told the Labour chief he should read over Angela Rayner’s tax advice. At a fiery PMQs, Mr Sunak insisted Sir Keir should focus on the “two homes” scandal plaguing his party rather than spending time making jibes at Liz Truss. The Labour chief has previously admitted he hasn’t personally scanned legal advice the deputy opposition boss claims clears her name… It comes as a police probe into Ms Rayner is now looking at multiple allegations on top of her council house row. Labour’s deputy leader is currently being investigated by cops over allegations she broke election law over her former home.” – The Sun
Sketches:
>Yesterday: ToryDiary: Andrew Gimson’s Commons sketch: Sunak gives his pious, ponderous opponent a bloody nose
“Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s new tax tsar previously called pensioners ‘codgers’ who had it ‘ridiculously good’. Sir Edward Troup, a former Tory Treasury special adviser, also said it was ‘ridiculous’ that pensioners received free TV licences and argued for them to be taxed more. His comments emerged after Labour appointed him to its new expert panel on tackling tax avoidance earlier this month. Appearing at a Resolution Foundation roundtable in 2019, Sir Edward called for increases to income tax, National Insurance contributions, VAT and corporation tax. Advising politicians to raise taxes by stealth, the former special adviser to then Tory chancellor Lord Clarke warned that today’s pensioners have ‘had it ridiculously good’.” – Daily Mail
More:
“Humza Yousaf will dump Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship pledge of cutting Scotland’s greenhouse gases by 75 per cent by the end of the decade, it has been reported. Ms Sturgeon said her SNP administration was a global leader on climate change when the target was introduced in 2019, calling it the “most stretching” in the world. But in an embarrassing climbdown, Mr Yousaf’s SNP-Green government is expected to use a ministerial statement at Holyrood on Thursday to confirm that the 2030 target has been ditched. Harmful emissions were supposed to have been cut by three-quarters compared to 1990 levels. BBC Scotland reported that a final goal of Scotland being net zero by 2045 – five years ahead of the rest of the UK – would remain, but that annual climate targets covering emissions from sectors such as transport and heating could also be scrapped.” – Daily Telegraph