Liz Truss says she had “absolutely no shame” in performing a dramatic U-turn on the government’s plan to scrap the 45p higher rate of tax.
The prime minister told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby she “took the decision very rapidly” to axe the policy, which was “becoming a distraction” from the rest of the government’s economic agenda.
But Home Secretary Suella Braverman told a Conservative Party fringe event hosted by The Telegraph that she was “very disappointed” by the policy reversal, adding that “members of our own parliamentary party staged a coup, effectively”.
Responding to Ms Braverman’s remarks, Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Simon Clarke also revealed that he objects to the U-turn, stating: “Suella speaks a lot of good sense, as usual.”
Ms Truss’s U-turn came on Monday morning – more than a week after the mini-budget on 23 September.
The tax cut for the wealthiest 1% was one of a series of proposals in the government’s tax-cutting mini-budget that prompted turmoil in the markets over the past week, with the pound reaching record lows against the dollar.
The policy also received a bitter backlash from Tory MPs and the public, with Labour surging to opinion poll leads not seen since the early 2000s.
Ms Truss told Sky News that removing the 45p tax rate for those earning £150,000 or more “wasn’t a priority policy” for the government.
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“I listened to people and I think there’s absolutely no shame in a leader listening to people and responding,” Ms Truss said. “And that’s the kind of person I am, and I’ve been totally honest and upfront with people.
“But everything I’ve done as prime minister is focused on helping people get through what is a very difficult winter and very difficult circumstances and putting our country on a stronger footing in the future.”
Announcing the U-turn yesterday, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng said: “We have listened.”
In an earlier broadcast round on Tuesday morning, the PM repeated refused to say whether she trusted the chancellor following the 45p tax rate U-turn, instead saying the two work “very closely”.
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The PM has not ruled out a real-terms cut to benefits.
Penny Mordaunt became the first cabinet minister to openly oppose the idea of not uprating benefits with inflation, telling Times Radio: “I’ve always supported – whether it’s pensions, whether it’s our welfare system – keeping pace with inflation. It makes sense to do so. That’s what I voted for before.”
The leader of the House of Commons added: “We want to make sure that people are looked after and that people can pay their bills. We are not about trying to help people with one hand and take away with another.”
But despite growing pressure to outline her position on the issue, Ms Truss reiterated numerous times on Tuesday morning that “no decision has been made”.
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Should benefits rise with inflation?
Benefits are usually uprated in line with the consumer price index (CPI) rate of inflation from September, with the rise coming into effect the following April.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that each percentage point rise in CPI adds £1.6 billion to welfare spending.
Speaking after Ms Truss’s interview round, former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said it “doesn’t make any sense” to not uprate benefits in line with inflation.
He told a Conservative party fringe event in Birmingham that he resigned as work and pensions secretary under former Conservative PM David Cameron in 2016 because the government had “lost the plot” over cuts to the welfare system and that it “would be a mistake to do that again”.
Earlier, Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis refused to give his position when asked about the government’s plans to uprate benefits on Sky News, telling Kay Burley: “There is a process around this that the Department for Work and Pensions, Chloe Smith, the secretary of state, works through.”
He said announcements will be made “over the autumn”, adding: “I’m not going to pre-judge what that will be.”
Hamas’s Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar has been “eliminated”, according to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But Israeli military sources have said they are not yet able to confirm the death.
Hamas has also not yet confirmed the apparent killing of its leader.
Meanwhile, with Gaza on the brink of famine, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations broke down in tears as he spoke of the suffering of its people.
Image: Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour broke down in tears as he spoke of the suffering of people in Gaza
Riyah Mansour told the Security Council: “Children are dying of starvation. The images of mothers embracing their motionless bodies. Caressing their hair, talking to them, apologising to them, is unbearable.”
He added: “I have grandchildren.I know what they mean to their families. And to see this situation over the Palestinians without us having hearts to do something is beyond the ability of any normal human being to tolerate. Flames and hunger are devouring Palestinian children. This is why we are so outraged as Palestinians everywhere.”
Sinwar was one of Israel‘s most wanted and the younger brother of the Palestinian militant group’s former leader Yahya Sinwar.
The older sibling was the mastermind of the October 7 2023 attack, which killed 1,200 people in Israel, with around 250 others taken hostage into Gaza.
The attack triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza which decimated the territory, with more than 53,000 people killed, mostly women and children, and over two million displaced, according to health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their tally of fatalities.
Image: Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israel in October 2024. File pic: AP
Speaking to the Knesset on Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu included Mohammed Sinwar in a list of Hamas leaders killed in Israeli strikes. Later, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) sources said they were not yet able to confirm the death.
The prime minister said: “We have killed tens of thousands of terrorists. We killed (Mohammed) Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar.” He did not elaborate.
Image: Benjamin Netanyahu’s claimed could not be confirmed. Pic: AP
The Israeli military had said it struck a Hamas command centre under the European Hospital in the Sinwars’ hometown of Khan Younis, and it declined to comment on whether Sinwar was targeted or killed.
At least six people were killed in the strike and 40 wounded, Gaza’s health ministry said at the time.
Sinwar rose through ranks
Like his older brother, Mohammed Sinwar joined Hamas after it was founded in the late 1980s as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He became a member of the group’s military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades.
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Sinwar rose through the ranks to become a member of its so-called joint chiefs of staff, bringing him close to its longtime commander, Deif, who was killed in a strike last year.
“In the last two days, we have been in a dramatic turn towards a complete defeat of Hamas,” the Israeli leader told the Knesset.
Mr Netanyahu also spoke about how Israel was “taking control of food distribution”, a reference to a new aid distribution system that has been criticised and boycotted by humanitarian groups and the UN.
One killed at site of aid hub
The development comes after one person was killed and 48 others injured when forces opened fire on a crowd that overwhelmed an aid hub in Gaza, according to local health officials.
Palestinians have become increasingly desperate for food after almost three months of Israeli border closures. A blockade has recently been eased.
People broke through fences around the distribution site on Wednesday, and a journalist with the Associated Press said they heard Israeli tank and gunfire, and saw a military helicopter firing flares.
It was not yet known whether the death and injuries were caused by Israeli forces, private contractors or others.
The Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which set up the hub outside Rafah, said its military contractors had not fired on the crowd but “fell back” before resuming aid operations. Israel said its troops nearby had fired warning shots.
The UN and other humanitarian organisations have rejected the new system, saying it will not meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food to control the population.
Israel has vowed to seize control of Gaza and fight until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and exiled, and until the militant group returns the last 58 hostages, including around a third thought to be still alive.
‘This is a man-made catastrophe’
Meanwhile, a US trauma surgeon who has been working in Gaza urged the UN Security Council to not “claim ignorance” about the humanitarian devastation.
Dr Feroze Sidhwa said: “Let’s not forget, this is a man-made catastrophe. It is entirely preventable. Participating in it or not allowing it to happen is a choice.
“This is a deliberate denial of conditions necessary for life: food, shelter, water and medicine. Preventing genocide means refusing to normalise these atrocities.”
The UN World Health Organization has documented around 700 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza during the war. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as command centres and to hide fighters.
Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan Tate have been charged with rape and other offences in the UK.
Andrew Tate, 38, faces 10 charges, including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain, relating to three women.
His brother Tristan Tate, 36, faces 11 charges relating to one woman – including rape, actual bodily harm and human trafficking.
The charges were authorised in January 2024, but full details have only been released now.
Bedfordshire Police issued an international arrest warrant for the brothers over allegations, which they “unequivocally deny”, said to have occurred between 2012 and 2015.
The Tate brothers are facing separate allegations of trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering in Romania.
They are also accused of human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women in a different case, which has been sent back to prosecutors.
They are due to be extradited to the UK following the conclusion of proceedings in Romania.
Image: Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan outside a Bucharest court in January. File pic: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via Reuters
A Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have authorised charges against Andrew and Tristan Tate for offences including rape, human trafficking, controlling prostitution and actual bodily harm against three women.
“These charging decisions followed receipt of a file of evidence from Bedfordshire Police.
“A European Arrest Warrant was issued in England in 2024, and as a result the Romanian courts ordered the extradition to the UK of Andrew and Tristan Tate.”
The spokesperson added: “However, the domestic criminal matters in Romania must be settled first.
“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds everyone that criminal proceedings are active, and the defendants have the right to a fair trial.
“It is extremely important that there be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”
Representatives for Andrew Tate have been contacted by Sky News for comment.
Lawyer Matt Jury, of McCue Jury & Partners, representing several alleged British victims of Andrew Tate, said: “We welcome the clarity from the Crown Prosecution Service that our authorities are working to ensure the Tates face justice here in the UK – they cannot be allowed to escape extradition.
“At the same time, we ask once more that CPS admit its mistake in failing to prosecute Tate when he lived in the UK and finally charge him for the rape and assault of the other three women, our clients, who originally filed criminal complaints against him as long ago as 2014 but were failed by the system.
“They deserve justice, too.”
The allegations were subject to a police investigation, which was closed in 2019.
A former surgeon who sexually abused hundreds of children in France has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting 299 children in one of France‘s largest-ever child sex abuse cases.
Most of the victims were abused while under anaesthesia or waking up from operations, with an almost equal number of boys and girls. Two victims took their own lives years before the trial.
He was accused of 300 separate offences – 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults – in more than a dozen hospitals between 1989 and 2014.
Le Scouarnec is already serving a 15-year prison sentence for a 2020 conviction for the rape and sexual assault of four children, including two nieces.
During the trial in Morbihan, in western France, prosecutors described Le Scouarnec as “a devil in a white coat” and requested the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
“I’m aware that the harm I’ve caused is beyond repair,” Le Scouarnec said at the opening of the trial in February.
“I owe it to all these people and their loved ones to admit my actions and their consequences, which they’ve endured and will keep having to endure all their lives.”
The court ordered Le Scouarnec should serve at least two-thirds of the sentence before he can be eligible for release.
Presiding Judge Aude Buresi said Le Scouarnec had preyed on victims when they were at their most vulnerable.
“Your acts were a blind spot in the medical world, to the extent that your colleagues, the medical authorities, were incapable of stopping your actions,” the judge told Le Scouarnec.
He kept detailed records of the abuse he inflicted in notebooks and diaries and some only became aware they had been abused when contacted by investigators after their names appeared in his journals.
Others only realised they had been admitted to hospital at the time by checking their medical journals.
Image: Le Scouarnec in a courtroom sketch. Pic: Reuters
“I didn’t see them as people,” Le Scouarnec told the court during the trial.
“They were the destination of my fantasies. As the trial went on, I began to see them as individuals, with emotions, anger, suffering and distress.”
Le Scouarnec was never investigated during his career, despite being sentenced in 2005 for owning child sexual abuse images.
He was only apprehended after he retired in 2017 when a girl told her mother that Le Scouarnec had sexually abused her while she was playing in the garden of her home.
When the police searched Le Scouarnec’s house they found 300,000 indecent photos and videos of children, 70 child-sized dolls and hundreds of notebooks and diaries detailing his acts of abuse.
Dozens of victims and rights campaigners gathered outside the courthouse in Brittany ahead of the verdict with a banner made of hundreds of pieces of white paper with black silhouettes – one for each victim. Some papers featured a first name and age, while others referred to the victim as “Anonymous”.
The local prosecutor has opened a separate investigation to determine if there was any criminal liability by agencies or individuals who could have prevented the abuse.
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A group of victims said in a statement before the verdict: “This trial, which could have served as an open-air laboratory to expose the serious failings of our institutions, seems to leave no mark on the government, the medical community, or society at large.”