🔵 Sunak/No10 aides blasted over PMQs. Kemi/Penny accused of manoeuvres. Plotters plan next salvo
🔴 Sue Gray’s leaks fury. Blame game aims at Lucy Powell v pro-Reeves hawks
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
— Sunak and his top No10 aides are accused by other Tories of being bad at politics after his Piers Morgan handshake and PMQs trans joke
— even a loyalist admits he’s slow to react under pressure
— fears he could fall apart in a ‘presidential’ campaign
Some Tory MPs — even Rishi Sunak allies — are starting to fear a worst-case scenario: electoral wipeout
They’re asking: what if the polls just don’t narrow?
Ie. What if it’s not Major 92 or 97, but more like Canada 93?
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
— conventional wisdom is that polls will close as we get nearer election day, with Tory strategists hoping to get the gap down to single figures
— but some are starting ask the unthinkable: what if that just doesn’t happen and Labour’s lead isn’t soft?
How Rishi Sunak went from being a sceptic of the Rwanda plan — and instinctively relaxed about high legal migration — to betting his political future on a policy he never loved
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
— When Priti Patel first proposed Rwanda in spring 2022, chancellor Sunak didn’t think much of it
— Sunak and the Treasury privately expressed doubts on logistical, value for money and ethical grounds, according to six people involved in the policy work
— Rishi Sunak is now polling **worse than Liz Truss** with the key voters who decided the last election
— Sunak has presided over a “year of decline” that’s caused an “implosion” in the Tory vote, according to a major study by @JLPartnersPolls
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
— @JLPartnersPolls analysed 12 months plus of polls by nine polling companies to plot voting intention of key 2019 Tory voters
— they say this gives a deeper and more nuanced assessment of true public opinion
NEW: Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle opens a deep rift with the Tory right and sparks criticism that he doesn’t have a coherent political strategy
— Right-wingers accuse the PM of a purge. They spent the day plotting how to fight Sunak *before* the election
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
🛒 one Tory official says Sunak is the new trolley, lurching from reset to reset, tacking to the right recently on net zero and culture war rhetoric, now curiosly moving to the centre with Cameron
🛥️ MP says he’s a yacht listing from right to left
NEW: Home Office officials and the UK Health Security Agency repeatedly warned the government about the risks of an infectious disease outbreak on board vessels holding migrants, prior to the Bibby Stockholm Legionella evacuation, people familiar said
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Home Office officials advised ministers they could be sued by asylum seekers if they became ill while living on ships / barges under government care, the sources said
It was one of the reasons the policy was previously rejected
EXCLUSIVE: The Covid Inquiry is trying to track down 2 previously unknown WhatsApp groups integral to govt decision making
Members: Simon Case, Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance and senior officials
Cabinet Office only handing over what it deems “relevant”
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
🤳 WhatsApp Group 1: Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty, other senior Cabinet Office officials
🤳 WhatsApp Group 2: Vallance, Whitty, senior Cabinet Office and Treasury officials, permanent secretaries of key departments
EXCLUSIVE: Bloomberg has obtained written legal advice from the government‘s top lawyer Sir James Eadie KC to the Cabinet Office
It advises them NOT to hand over “politically sensitive” material about ministers’ private discussions to the Covid inquiry
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Eadie advised that disclosing “politically sensitive” material to the inquiry on discussions between ministers would breach Cabinet collective responsibility, which allows confidentiality to debate policy
NEW: Russia is trying eliminate Ukrainian identity in the areas it’s occupied, to ensure they can never be reintegrated into Ukraine, European intelligence officials said
Putin has little interest in negotiating over those areas, officials have assessed
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Moscow has entrenched its control of large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine by engineering cultural and demographic shifts through violence, economic coercion and the replacement of local populations, the officials said
Rishi Sunak is considering cutting inheritance tax at the next election, according to people familiar
Senior Tories think this could be the secret weapon to close the polls
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Sunak was privately keen on the idea of a pre-election inheritance tax cut back when he was chancellor, and it remains a live option
That’s according to ministers in the current govt who also served with Sunak when he was chancellor
EXCLUSIVE: Home Office rejected plan to put migrants on ships/barges last year because it could be MORE expensive than using hotels
— Leaked docs show costs of £100,000s-an-HOUR to moor ships
— Officials warned it could surpass the £7m-a-day for hotels
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Home Office officials advised the previous govt that ports would likely reject requests to moor cruise ships holding migrants for months on end, or charge exorbitant costs
There would also be greater safety and security issues for the people on board
Rishi Sunak staked his premiership on stopping small boats
But members of his govt, Home Office officials and Tory MPs on the right and centre fear the policy is unworkable, and warn the political strategy could backfire
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
No10 aides were delighted with how the boats bill landed this week. Positive write-ups in Tory-leaning papers
Aides saw the BBC’s decision to repeatedly lead the news on Gary Lineker — highlighting the govt v left/lib divide — as Christmas come early
EXCLUSIVE: The UK government suspects Russian nationals have exploited lax checks by the companies register in attempts to launder war profits stolen from Ukraine
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
UK law enforcement has identified large numbers of sham companies incorporated in Britain by foreign nationals, likely to launder money or evade tax
Hundreds are controlled by Russians
Some are now trying to exploit the war in Ukraine for financial gain
The Tory party needs to raise £25 million in the next year after a donor exodus left a black hole in its finances
Story on troubles at Conservative HQ and the challenges for the next party chairman — the job no one wants
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
When Nadhim Zahawi took the job in October he was alarmed to find CCHQ had been running at £5 million in the red last year
At one point CCHQ went into its overdraft on its bank account to pay its staff wage bill, according to people familiar
— what happened at Chequers on Thursday
— Hunt’s entrenched inflation warning
— big NHS emergency plan coming Monday
— ‘radical’ small boats law coming in Feb
— Isaac Levido says it’s not over yet
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Tory strategist Isaac Levido’s Chequers presentation was uncompromising, finding a widespread feeling in Britain that nothing’s working
But also that people didn’t feel particularly strongly about Labour, they just wanted a govt to get its act together
EXCLUSIVE: UK security officials raised concerns about a visit Nadhim Zahawi made to Iraqi Kurdistan while he was vaccines minister, according to five people familiar with the matter
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Zahawi flew to Iraqi Kurdistan, where he has family and has had business interests in the past, during the pandemic
While there, he used his government laptop to log in to his emails, triggering an alert among security officials in the UK, per sources
Tory MPs fear an existential threat: the ‘Conservative dream’ — homeownership, rewarding hard work, living longer and passing on a better life to your children — is dying after 13 years of power
7 subscribed