Liz Truss has for the first time acknowledged that “there has been disruption” to the UK economy following last week’s mini budget.
Since the chancellor’s announcement of £45bn in tax cuts the value of the pound has plummeted, nearly half of mortgages have been pulled and the Bank of England launched a £65bn bail-out to save pension funds from collapse.
Asked on Friday whether she accepted this is largely a crisis of her government’s own making, the prime minister said: “It was very, very important that we took urgent steps to deal with the costs that families are facing this winter, putting in place the energy price guarantee for which we’ve had to borrow to cover the cost… but also making sure that we are not raising taxes at a time where there are global economic forces caused by the war in Ukraine that we need to deal with.
“I recognise there has been disruption. But it was really, really important that we were able to get help to families as soon as possible – that help is coming this weekend.
“Because this is going to be a difficult winter and I’m determined to do all I can to help families and help the economy at this time.”
The government’s energy price guarantee comes into force on Saturday.
It means the average household shouldn’t have to pay more than £2,500 a year on their energy bills.
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Ms Truss defended the decision to present last week’s mini-budget without an accompanying forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) due to the need to respond rapidly to rising energy prices, amid concerns that average annual household bills could soon reach £6,000.
The lack of such a forecast is blamed by many – including Mel Stride MP, the Conservative chair of the treasury select committee – of contributing to the week’s turmoil on the markets.
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The OBR said a forecast had been offered to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng but was not commissioned.
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1:15
Truss: Right to ‘take decisive action’
On Friday morning, the prime minister and chancellor met the OBR’s budget responsibility committee and afterwards issued a statement saying they “made it clear they value its scrutiny”.
But Ms Truss did not accept that failing to commission a forecast last week had been a mistake.
“It was important we acted quickly, in that timescale there couldn’t be a full OBR forecast. But we are committed to the OBR forecast.
“We are working together with the OBR. There will be an event on 23 November where the policies are fully analysed by the OBR, but it was a real priority to me to make sure we’re working to help struggling families.”
On Thursday, the chancellor committed to maintaining the triple lock on state pensions, which means they would rise in line with inflation (the triple lock means following whichever is higher consumer price inflation, average wage growth or 2.5%).
But the prime minister declined to offer a guarantee that benefits would also rise in line with inflation, despite a pledge from Boris Johnson’s government to do so.
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7:53
‘People have no faith in govt’
Ms Truss said the issue is “something that the work and pensions secretary is looking at, and she will make an announcement in due course, as is the normal practice for the autumn”.
But the prime minister argued the reversal of the National Insurance hike and support for businesses’ energy bills will help families.
“I had real fears that businesses could go out of business this winter because they were facing unaffordable energy bills,” she added.
“We put in place a business scheme, we put in place support for households across the country. That has cost us money, but it was important we acted quickly.”
With the latest polls putting Labour more than 30 points ahead of the Conservatives, many backbenchers are concerned about the prospect of losing their seats at the next election.
Senior MP Charles Walker said on Friday the conversation is no longer about winning, but how much the party loses by.
But the prime minister declined to comment on whether her party is heading towards electoral defeat, responding that “100% of her focus” is on supporting “the British public and British businesses through this difficult winter”.
It was a welcome party of sorts, and it was assembled near arrivals at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
A few people clutched flowers, others brought presents, while everyone carried a sense of relief.
Two children from Gaza had been given permission to enter Britain for specialist medical care and the pair would arrive on the evening flight from Cairo.
It was a significant moment – the first time UK visas had been granted to children from this war-ravaged enclave – and the product of months of struggle by a small group of British volunteers.
Image: Ghena Abed, five, needs urgent treatment to save the vision in her left eye
As those in attendance offered up a cheer, a five-year-old called Ghena Abed emerged shyly from behind the security gates. With fluid pressing on her optic nerve, she needs urgent treatment to save the vision in her left eye.
Also in this party was a 12-year-old girl called Rama Qudiah. She is weak and malnourished and suffers from incontinence. Medics think she requires an operation on her bowel.
Image: Medics think Rama Qudiah, 12, needs a bowel operation
Her mother, Rana, told us their arrival in Britian “is just a like a dream”.
Her daughter has certainly been fortunate. A small number of children from Gaza have benefited from medical evacuations, with the majority receiving care in countries in the Middle East, Europe, as well as the United States.
Image: Rama’s mother, Rana
In March, the Israelis signed a deal with Jordan which could allow 2,000 children to leave the enclave for treatment of war injuries and conditions like cancer. However, just 29 were allowed to go at first instance.
The process has not been easy
Until now, not a single child from Gaza has entered the UK for medical care since the start of the current conflict, and the process has not been an easy one for the volunteers at Project Pure Hope.
They told Sky News it has taken 17 months to arrange temporary visas for Ghena and Rama.
Image: Dr Farzana Rahman from Project Pure Hope
“A lot of us are health care workers and I think it’s in our DNA that when we see people who are suffering, particularly children, we want to try and do something and that’s what motivated us,” says Dr Farzana Rahman from Project Pure Hope.
When asked why she thinks it has taken so much time to secure their visas, Dr Rahman said: “I don’t know.”
Group argues it has no time to lose to help other children
But it is clear the arrival of children from Gaza is an issue of sensitivity. The British volunteers told us on a number of occasions that all costs would be met by private sources. The children will return to Gaza when the treatment is completed.
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Project Pure Hope is not finished, however – group members have drawn up a list of other children they can help, and argue they have no time to lose.
“One of the hardest parts of trying to make progress in this area is that delays cost lives. A number of children have died who we haven’t been able to help and this is an urgent situation and I think for all of us that’s the hardest part,” says Dr Rahman.
The biggest city in the Sahel has been ransacked and left in ruins.
War erupted in Sudan’s capital Khartoum in April 2023 and sent millions searching for safety.
The city was quickly captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a power struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for total control.
At least 61,000 people were killed from the fighting and siege conditions in Khartoum state alone.
Thousands more were maimed and many remain missing.
The empty streets they left behind are lined with charred, bullet-ridden buildings and robbed store fronts.
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The once shiny skyscrapers built along the confluence of the River Nile are now husks of blackened steel.
The neighbourhoods are skeletal. Generational homes are deserted and hollow.
Image: Damage from fighting around Khartoum
Trenches snake the streets where copper electric cables were ripped out of the ground and pulled out of lampposts now overridden with weeds.
The majority of the 13 million people displaced by this war fled Khartoum. Many left in a rush, assuming it would only take a few weeks for peace to be restored.
My parents were among those millions and in the midst of the abandoned, looted homes is the house where I grew up.
Image: Yousra Elbagir’s family home was left in ruins by RSF troops
Image: Yousra said it was likely a bomb had previously fallen nearby and shaken the house at its base
A shell of a home
I have to strain my eyes to see the turn to my house. All the usual markers are gone. There are no gatherings of young people drinking coffee with tea ladies in the leafy shade – just gaping billboard frames that once held up advertisements behind cars of courting couples parked by the Nile.
Our garden is both overgrown and dried to death.
The mango, lemon and jasmine trees carefully planted by my mother and brother have withered.
Image: Structural damage to the outside of the home
The Bougainvillea has reached over the pathway and blocked off the main entrance. We go through the small black side door.
Our family car is no longer in the garage, forcing us to walk around it.
It was stolen shortly after my parents evacuated.
The two chairs my mum and dad would sit at the centre of the front lawn are still there, but surrounded by thorny weeds and twisted, bleached vines.
Image: How the home looked before Sudan’s war
Image: And how it looks now
The neighbour’s once lush garden is barren too.
Their tall palm trees at the front of the house have been beheaded – rounding off into a greyish stump instead of lush fronds.
Everyone in Khartoum is coming back to a game of Russian roulette. Searching out their houses to confirm suspicions of whether it was blasted, burned or punctured with bullets.
Many homes were looted and bruised by nearby combat but some are still standing. Others have been completely destroyed.
Image: How the home looked before the war
Image: And how it looks now
The outside of our house looks smooth from the street but has a crack in the base of the front wall visible from up close.
It is likely a bomb fell nearby and shook the house at its base – a reminder of the airstrikes and shelling that my parents and their neighbours fled.
Inside, the damage is choking.
Most of the furniture has been taken except a few lone couches.
The carpets and curtains have been stripped. The electrical panels and wiring pulled out. The appliances, dishes, glasses and spices snatched from the kitchens.
Image: Yousra shows her mother pictures found in the home
The walls are bare apart from the few items they decided to spare. Ceilings have been punctured and cushions torn open in their hunt for hidden gold.
The walls are marked with the names of RSF troops that came in and out of this house like it was their own.
The home that has been the centre of our life in Sudan is a shell.
Image: Sudan’s war has left the country fractured
Glimmers of hope
The picture of sheer wreckage settles and signs of familiarity come into focus.
A family photo album that is 20 years old.
The rocking chair my mother cradled me and my sister in. My university certificate.
Image: Yousra finds her university certificate in the wreckage
Celebratory snaps of my siblings’ weddings. Books my brother has had since the early nineties.
The painting above my bed that I have pined over during the two years – custom-made and gifted to me for my 24th birthday and signed by my family on the back.
There are signs of dirt and damage on all these items our looters discarded but it is enough.
Image: Yousra’s parents pictured at home before they fled Khartoum
Evidence of material destruction but a reminder of what we can hope will endure.
The spirit of the people that gathered to laugh, cry and break bread in these rooms.
Image: A portrait of Yousra’s grandmother damaged by RSF troops
The hospitality and warmth of a Sudanese home with an open door.
The community and sense of togetherness that can never truly be robbed.
What remains in our hearts and our city is a sign of what will get us through.
A few days later, I spoke to Mr Zelenskyy in person when he confided to me that maybe he would have to step down if NATO could guarantee Ukraine membership – a man who perhaps sensed he could never win against a hostile Mr Trump.
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Sky News meets Zelenskyy: The key moments
Yet, fast-forward to last weekend in Rome, and an iconic picture of the two men in close conversation at the Pope’s funeral.
This time round, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin on the receiving end of the presidential anger, blaming him for the fact that “too many people are dying!”
Image: Trump and Zelenskyy talk in the Vatican. Pic: AP
To Trump’s supporters, this is the smart negotiator, constantly repositioning himself as new information comes in, prior to pulling off a spectacular deal.
To his many detractors, it indicates a dangerous incoherence that is replicated in other key areas, including tariffs as well as his relationship with his allies in Europe and his foes in Beijing.
Flexible or fallible; in control or all at sea? In the fast and furious world of Donald Trump, it’s almost impossible to call.
The only constants are his unwavering self-belief, or as the man himself says: “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”