BEST FOR BRITAIN'S
WEEKEND WIRE

Dear John

It’s the weekend! Each time it rolls around we at Best for Britain are always surprised at how fast it has arrived and at just how much has happened since our last updates.

As the Tory leadership race continues, there’s lots to share so we’ll keep this intro short and kick off your weekly run through of what you need to know.

Feeling energised?

The row over Britain’s energy crisis rages on this week. On Monday, Keir Starmer issued his big plan to help with the soaring cost of energy - and received some positive media attention as a result. 

Starmer suggests freezing the energy price cap at the current level, while investing in longer-term cost-saving measures such as home insulation to reduce bills in future. 

It seems neither Rishi Sunak nor Liz Truss knew quite how to respond to this suggestion. Sunak has ruled out freezing the price cap whereas Truss has made clear that she thinks ending environmental interventions is better. 

Truss, who is likely to win the Tory leadership contest and become our next PM, has been attacked for her plans with regards to energy bills, which many say will  fail to help pensioners and only scratch the surface for millions more. 

Liz’s lecturing

Leaked audio this week revealed that Liz Truss doesn’t really think much of British workers. 

In an audio recording published by the Guardian Liz Truss said that British workers needed to have more ‘graft’ and that they lacked the ‘skill and application’ of their foreign counterparts. If anyone’s getting a little deja vu, it’s because Truss has already said these things in the book Britannia Unchained, which she co-wrote along with fellow Tory MPs Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Chris Skidmore. 

Britannia Unchained was an interesting book that has come back to haunt its writers on many occasions. The book lambasts the UK’s low productivity and praises the labour forces of countries like China, arguing that Brits should work longer hours. This is despite the fact that, as the TUC pointed out in response to Truss’s comments, that British workers work on average two hours more than the EU average. 

Lovely to know our future PM has zero respect for us!

Truss’s true colours

It turns out though that Truss’s disdain for British workers was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Also embarrassing the leadership frontrunner this week is news that Liz Truss co-authored a pamphlet in which she called for people to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10%. Admittedly the pamphlet is 13 years old but these are pretty strong views which do not bode well for a cost of living crisis and an ailing NHS. 

Not only is Truss unsupportive of the people she is supposed to serve, but she clearly undervalues one of our most cherished institutions and the people who keep it running. 

Silent treatment 

Disturbing news this week has revealed that the Cabinet Office has implemented a new policy which could see it ban external speakers who have been critical of the Government. 

An article in the Financial Times reported that civil servants in the Cabinet Office were being asked to vet potential speakers’ social media going back five years before inviting them to speak. This is because, according to a colleague of Jacob Rees-Mogg, recent years have seen ‘extremist’ speakers come to speak to the Cabinet Office. Because apparently now criticism is the same as extremism - a clear sign that the Government is keen to keep contradictory opinions out of the civil service. 

If this makes you worried for our democracy (and it should), why not head to Best for Britain’s Better Democracy page and find out how you can do more to safeguard our fundamental rights and freedoms?

Source of shame

This week, the British army general Sir John McColl, who formerly served as the Head of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, has strongly criticised Britain’s evacuation from Afghanistan and continued treatment of refugees. 

He has poured scorn on the Government for prioritising dogs over people and the fact that the resettlement system ‘remains broken’. 

In April of this year, 12000 Afghan refugees remain in hotels across the UK and we learned this week that some were being told to find new homes on Rightmove.

Many Afghans who worked for the UK remain stuck in Afghanistan or surrounding countries, seemingly abandoned by the country they helped at great risk. It is a national shame for which the Government are yet to apologise. 

TUC recommends

At the start of this week, the TUC issued a recommendation that Covid-19 be classed as an occupational disease following recommendations made by the APPG on Coronavirus, of which Best for Britain is secretariat.

An occupational disease is one that is developed through workplace exposure, and can be attributed through a direct causal link to work. Such a classification would enable workers to receive enhanced financial support if they develop Long Covid as a result of work such as our frontline NHS staff, and would allow for the Government to monitor workplaces that continue to be or which emerge as hotspots for Covid transmission. 17 EU countries have already classified Covid-19 as an occupational disease so (as ever) the UK is well behind. 

Exacerbating the problems

This week, the NFU has warned that as much as £60 million worth of UK crops might be going to waste as a result of labour shortages on UK farms. 

There are many contributing factors to these labour shortages, but a big one is, of course, Brexit. 

Because of the end of freedom of movement, the UK farming sector is experiencing extraordinary workforce shortages , resulting in perfectly good food being left to rot, meaning we need to import less fresh, more expensive food which in turn is exacerbating the cost of living crisis.

Worker shortages and the seasonal worker scheme is something the UK Trade and Business Commission, of which Best for Britain is also secretariat, has been talking about for some time now - and has even achieved some success with, persuading the Government to open up 10,000 more seasonal worker visas. But the Commission knows the Government must go further in order to comprehensively address the labour shortages facing farmers and the many other sectors of our economy dealing with similar issues. 

Find out more about this by watching the UK Trade and Business Commission session on the cost of living and the UK’s food strategy. 

Rishi loves wraps

And finally, in yet another valiant but hapless effort to prove he’s not completely out of touch, Britain’s richest MP, Rishi Sunak, claimed his preferred McDonald’s order is the breakfast wrap with hash browns. 

There was just a slight snag: this item hasn’t been on the menu for over two years. 

He even messed up a photo-op to prove that despite what we saw at that petrol station, he definitely does know how to use contactless. Better luck next time, Rishi.

That’s all from us this week - have a relaxing weekend and we’ll be back with more soon.

Best wishes,

Maheen Behrana

Senior Campaigns and Policy Officer, Best for Britain

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