BEST FOR BRITAIN'S
WEEKEND WIRE

Hi John,

Niall here with your weekly summary of the news just gone, and a glance ahead at what’s coming down the track. Maheen will be back with you next weekend so until then strap yourself in, we have quite a bit to talk about, most of it horrible.

Policy Problems

The race to replace Johnson heated up to around tepid in a week that saw u-turns, hustings, another televised debate and even a leaked video.

The story of the week from this contest was Liz Truss’ car crash of a policy announcement in which the front runner decided that in the face of the highest inflation and tax burden in generations, public sector workers across the country deserve a pay cut. 

With sums lifted straight from a Taxpayer Alliance team away day, Truss said she would crack down on civil servant pay across the country in a bid to save £11billion. It was quickly pointed out that this would also apply to teachers, police officers and NHS workers (yes those ones we used to clap for) and as a cherry on top, Truss’s calculations were off by a cool £400m, or as we call it in the business, ‘one Tory insider PPE contract’.

To be fair to Truss, as soon as the backlash to the announcement became clear, she did the brave thing and claimed journalists misrepresented the policy by quoting her press release verbatim.

Kay makes hay

Much was made of the debacle on the final television debate of the race on Thursday where Sky News’ Kay Burley raked the Foreign Secretary over the coals for the policy. Watch the fireworks here.

Despite the discomfort, the Sky debate brings us to about 7 hours of back to back unfiltered, primetime Tory party broadcasting and that’s before the highlights on news and radio bulletins.

We’re a bit worried about what this might be doing to the national conversation, particularly when most moderators aren’t quite up to the standard of Burley in the field of making Liz Truss squirm. Our CEO Naomi wrote about the issue in the Daily Mirror this week. Read the extended version here.

Ebenezer Sunak

Not to be outdone, Sunak struck back today with a policy as unpopular with the public as he appears to be with Conservative members. 

During a campaign trail stump speech, the former Chancellor channelled his inner Scrooge and boasted about his record of removing funding from “deprived urban areas”. Yes he actually acknowledged the need before apparently cutting support.

The video has caused a storm with opposition politicians claiming this is Sunak showing his true colours. Whatever you think, it’s a mega scroop from Rachael Wearmouth in her new stint as Deputy Political Editor of the New Statesman and can be seen here. 

All things considered, this leadership race is an epic exercise in navel-gazing but don’t worry, it’s not like millions of people in the UK have just been told about their impending financial oblivion.

Oh…

Shocking Rises

Yes, not only is the cost of energy increasing, from next year it's going to increase more often.

On Thursday it was announced that as well as increasing the bill again in October, this time to north of £3,000 for the average family per year, Ofgem will be able to lift the cap four times next year rather than twice.

We aren’t the only ones asking that if the energy regulators are repeatedly raising the price cap and unloading untold pain to consumers while energy companies enjoy record profits (also announced this week), is it even a price cap and are they even a regulator?

Double Whammy

While bill payers were still reeling from this announcement the Bank of England came in with the left hook just hours later announcing the largest increase in interest rates for almost 30 years from 1.25% to 1.75%. Bad news for people with credit card debt and without fixed mortgages.

Pouring salt in the wound, Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, signed off by predicting the UK will enter recession by the end of the year and with the unhelpful advice that people should not ask for increased pay. Good luck with that.

Mogg-a Culpa

In 2018 everyone’s favourite Victorian workhouse manager, Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed there would be no delays or disruption at the port of Dover post-Brexit and so almost inevitably, this month we have had huge delays and disruption at the port of Dover.

In the first post Brexit, post-Covid restriction summer, there have been some truly apocalyptic scenes on the M20 with some lorry drivers describing 12 hour waits with no restrooms.

Most experts and industry leaders attest that this is because of the added checks required for Brits at the EU border which now includes passport stamps and this week the Brexit Opportunities Minister was forced to admit he got it wrong on live radio, albeit “for the right reasons” whatever that means. 

We've called on Mogg to apologise for his duplicity and you can catch our CEO’s blistering analysis of his mea culpa here.

A HGV for you and me

Former get-rich-quick shyster and current Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today claimed a Brexit win in that British motorists could soon have the post-Brexit freedom to get behind the wheel of an articulated lorry or 12 tonne bus without any additional qualifications.

In an effort to avoid a repeat of last year when supermarket supply chains were badly disrupted because of a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK, Shapps has opened a consultation on lifting requirements for people to take additional tests before driving vehicles weighing more than 3.5 tonnes. Maybe the plan is to make the roads so dangerous that people can’t get to the shops and see the shelves are empty.

What Shapps failed to mention is that Brexit has actually made the lorry driver shortage worse and so making our roads less safe to help fix the problem is hardly the ‘Brexit bonus’ he’s billing it to be. Seemingly we at Best for Britain were the only ones to point that out.

Starmer succumbs

Not content with watching the Tories tear strips out of each other, The Labour leader embarked on his own poorly timed civil war last week, sacking one of his frontbench for disobeying his blanket ban on attending picket lines and reportedly improvising policy.

The discord took a dangerous turn for Starmer this week when the much higher profile Shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy pressed the flesh with striking communications workers. It’s unclear if Nandy’s survival in the Shadow Cabinet marks a climbdown from this moratorium on supporting strikers but with a poll this week showing Labour and the Tories are once again neck and neck, he’ll need to get his house in order before either Sunak or Truss (let’s face it, it’s Truss) enjoys a honeymoon bounce.

--------------------------------------------------------------

And that’s your lot. Have a great weekend everyone!

Niall McGourty
Director of Communications, Best for Britain

PS. Please do support the campaign with either a one-off donation to the Better Democracy Fund, or by becoming a regular supporter. Your support will mean we can bring progressive parties together, fight undemocratic changes to our elections, and campaign for a change in our voting system to make all votes count.