Last Thursday night my friend burst into tears explaining that the job centre was deciding whether or not to cut her Universal Credit payments because she had missed an appointment. The reason she missed her appointment was because she had a job interview. She had given the job centre plenty of notice, but her absence still had to be passed onto a decision maker because she had previously missed other appointments – for other job interviews, and once because she’d had Covid. You don’t have to be an expert on the welfare system to see that this is an obvious flaw. Proponents of Universal Credit claim that it incentivises people to work, yet the system is designed in such a way ...

The Tories have a relatability problem. And a credibility problem. And a problem understanding basic economics. But let's consider the first, variously demonstrated by Rishi Sunak showing he doesn’t know how to pay in a supermarket; Jacob Rees-Mogg’s haunted Victorian-esque family photographs; and the Conservative chairman Jake Berry suggesting that people struggling with bills might like to consider being paid more. Last week’s mini-Budget promised such policies as tax cuts for corporations, a removal of the cap on bankers’ bonuses, and the abolition of the 45p tax rate for those who earn the most – the latter of which Kwasi Kwarteng has since, embarrassingly, reneged on. The Conservatives have never looked more like corporate vampires in their high tower, uninterested in encountering real people other than to transfer wealth from them to the ...

The only thing certain about Liz Truss' U-turn over the 45p tax rate is: it's going to be worse for her than it looks. The Prime Minister told the BBC point blank on Sunday morning that the tax cut for the highest earners would go ahead; Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor, told the press it would stay as late as 10.30pm on Sunday night (2 October). So the midnight capitulation throws the whole Tory growth strategy into disarray, and severely undermines their competence and cohesion. Architects of the tax cut, such as Mark Littlewood of the right-wing think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs, are now saying the sums involved are a "rounding error". Kwarteng has called the cancelled tax cut "a ...

“I have drawn great comfort and inspiration from the relentless enthusiasm of people of all ages – especially the young – in calling for everyone to play their part,” Elizabeth II noted in a video-message at Cop26, the UN climate conference, last year. At the time these words seemed innocuously vague. Today they have new weight. After an intervention by Liz Truss, Charles III will not be following his mother’s lead at Cop27 in Egypt in November. Despite the King being a renowned and long-standing champion of environmental protection, The Times reports that the Prime Minister advised him not to attend. So instead of urging others to “play their part”, his own role will be lessened. That it is Truss who has ...

It’s fair to say that the BBC is not universally admired among Conservatives. From free-marketeers who dislike its funding model and hegemonic status to culture warriors who accuse it of pushing a woke agenda, there are plenty on the right who want to reform, or even scrap, the Corporation. Such attitudes aren’t universal. There remain plenty of Tories who, like me, think the BBC is an important national institution and plays (or at least, can play) a valuable role in national life; who recognise it as an unparalleled vehicle for soft power overseas, and an effective way of delivering public service broadcasting at home that might not appeal to commercial channels. In an ideal world, the BBC would make it easier to ...

Since last Friday (23 September) the government has caused a dramatic run on the pound, forced the removal of almost 1,000 mortgage products, and triggered a “material risk” to the solvency of the country’s pension funds. For many people that would be enough for one week, but Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng went for one more push this afternoon (30 September) when they announced that they will not release the forecasts of their own regulator, the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), until 23 November.  The average person could be forgiven for thinking that the question of whether the OBR is allowed to publish a report or not is a bit dull. But this is a question with serious implications for your ...

Grief compels us to memorialise those we have lost. In a Belgian cemetery, the artist Kathe Köllwitz built Grieving Parents, two granite statues of a man and a woman watching over the graves of 25,000 German soldiers killed during the Great War. One of the soldiers was her son, whose death left “a wound in our lives that will never heal”.  For millions of people, the death of the Queen gave them a connection to their own grief, a way to remember their own wounds. She reigned for longer than most of us have lived and stood as a constant in the background of our lives, a stoic witness to our celebrations and our sorrows. The intimacy many felt for a ...

In Tory England, all roads lead to austerity. As Liz Truss forges ahead with tax cuts for the richest, even as they wreck the UK’s economic integrity, her ministers hint at who will pay: welfare claimants, the low-paid and people who rely the most on public services. Chris Philp, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, has refused to confirm whether benefits will be increased in line with September’s inflation level next April, as was planned by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. He is also writing to government departments asking them to make cuts. It’s austerity 2.0, and there's nothing left to cut. Even though the Prime Minister promised during her leadership campaign that she would not bring back austerity – “I’m very ...