Politics

A cabinet minister has told Sky News they believe Boris Johnson could secure the 100 nominations he needs from Conservative MPs to progress in the Tory leadership race if he were to stand. Speculation is mounting that Mr Johnson could launch a comeback to frontline politics after the dramatic resignation of Liz Truss, his successor,

Rishi Sunak has announced his bid to become the next Conservative leader and prime minister, six weeks after Liz Truss beat him to the top job. The former chancellor has put himself forward for the second time in a matter of months after the extraordinary resignation of Ms Truss on Thursday, 44 days into her

Candidates to replace Liz Truss as Tory leader will need at least 100 nominations from Conservative MPs, 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady has said. This will rule out a number of candidates from running, and means the maximum number of people able to stand is three. During the last leadership election, Rishi Sunak won

In a statement lasting less than five minutes, on the steps of Downing Street, where 44 days ago she pledged to “deliver, deliver, deliver”, Liz Truss just announced her resignation. She says the leadership election to replace her will be completed within a week. MPs certainly want a quick resolution to the chaos, not another

After Wednesday, it’s worth asking: who is in charge? The last 12 hours suggests it’s very hard to say. Few say Liz Truss, since her word is no longer her bond, her writ limited. So what are the other possibilities? Few think it is Mark Fullbrook, the embattled chief of staff, but few believe his

Liz Truss has pulled out of a planned event this afternoon, during which she was due to take questions from journalists. Downing Street has not given any reason for the canning of the trip to an electronics manufacturer. A source said the visit was cancelled due to “government business”, but declined to elaborate further. Politics

It’s a sign of how bad things are for the new prime minister that only her third Prime Minister’s Questions is being billed as a potentially defining moment in her short premiership. MPs tell me that how Liz Truss performs at the dispatch box against Sir Keir Starmer at their weekly joust will be an

A minister has warned Liz Truss cannot afford to make any more mistakes, as the prime minister fights to save her premiership. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said he remains supportive of Ms Truss, unlike many of his colleagues, but there was no more room for error after a day of U-turns. New chancellor Jeremy

It looks to be over. Jeremy Hunt’s decision to not just junk most of Liz Truss’s tax-cutting plan but go further and ditch much of her flagship energy policy signalled the end of not only “Trussonomics”, but potentially the prime minister herself. When the end comes is unclear: Ms Truss may have been bought some

Sir Keir Starmer has mocked Liz Truss for ducking an urgent question on the economy in the Commons, saying ”the lady is not for turning – up”. Responding to Penny Mordaunt, the Labour leader thanked her for answering the question, adding: “I guess under this Tory government, everybody gets to be prime minister for 15 minutes.”

Just last month Liz Truss told Britons they could “ride out the storm” in her first speech as prime minister – now she has been warned “the game is up” as rumours swirl of plots to oust her. Tory MPs have started to publicly call for Ms Truss to step down, while former chancellor George

A senior Tory has accused the government of looking “like libertarian jihadists” and treating the country as “laboratory mice” over the past few weeks. Robert Halfon, former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and an education minister under Theresa May, said he believes Liz Truss needs to apologise to the public for the economic turmoil

The home secretary has unveiled plans for a major crackdown on climate protesters as she pledged to stop demonstrators holding the public “to ransom”. Under the plans, Suella Braverman will give police stronger powers to take a more “proactive” approach when dealing with protests that threaten or cause “serious disruption or a serious adverse impact

Jeremy Hunt has confirmed that Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic vision is not only dead, but that the immediate actions of this administration will be to do almost exactly the opposite of what the prime minister promised during the summer leadership campaign. This was a cold, hard reality check from a chancellor who is being

Tory MPs appear to be divided over the future of Liz Truss as prime minister following her major U-turn announcement. Ms Truss reversed a key policy to scrap the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% after she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor. Heated messages were shared in Conservative Party WhatsApp groups after

Treasury chief secretary Chris Philp has been moved to the Cabinet Office following the sacking of Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Liz Truss is seeking to get her embattled fledgling government back on track following the market turmoil unleashed by the mini-budget. Economic chaos was triggered after the government last month announced a £45bn package of unfunded tax

Labour has pledged to ban fracking “once and for all”, calling it “an unjust charter for earthquakes”. The party is working to bring forward an opposition day motion to maintain the ban on the controversial gas extraction method, after Liz Truss said she would lift it as part of her energy security plan. The moratorium

Discussions are under way in Downing Street over whether to scrap some of the contentious proposals in the chancellor’s tax-cutting mini-budget, Sky News understands. The proposed changes to corporation tax and dividend tax are understood to be under discussion. Downing Street insisted earlier on Thursday that there will be no more U-turns on policies in

Liz Truss has pledged not to cut public spending to balance the books in her first PMQs since the chancellor’s contentious mini-budget – despite a leading economics-focused think tank warning the government is billions short of the sums needed. The prime minister insisted she was “absolutely” not planning public spending reductions, but vowed that taxpayers’

Jacob Rees-Mogg has declared his confidence in the governor of the Bank of England, but disputed that pension funds are at “systemic” risk. Speaking to Sky News, the business secretary said “of course” he has confidence in Andrew Bailey, describing him as “respected”. He questioned, however, whether there was a “systemic problem” with pensions after