Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warns ‘nothing off table’ on tax cuts as senior Tory says government behaving like ‘libertarian jihadists’

Published

3 years ago

October 17, 2022

admin

A senior Tory has accused the government of looking “like libertarian jihadists” and treating the country as “laboratory mice” over the past few weeks.

Robert Halfon, former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and an education minister under Theresa May, said he believes Liz Truss needs to apologise to the public for the economic turmoil caused by the mini-budget three weeks ago.

He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: “I worry that over the past few weeks the government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as laboratory mice on which to carry out an ultra-free market experiment.

“There’s been one horror story after another.”

Cut to basic rate of income tax could be delayed – follow live politics updates

He added that the public is “frightened” about what is happening to the economy and said the prime minister needs to set out a “real vision” for the future of Britain.

Mr Halfon, who now chairs the education select committee, said he “welcomed” some of the comments made by Jeremy Hunt on his first day as the new chancellor after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked on Friday.

Ahead of Mr Kwarteng’s sacking, Mr Halfon accused Ms Truss of trashing “the last 10 years” of Conservative government during a meeting of backbench Tory MPs she was addressing.

He told the prime minister the mini-budget disproportionately benefited the wealthy and meant she had abandoned “workers’ conservatism”, The Times reported.

Sir Charles Bean, former deputy at the Bank of England, rubbished the government’s claim the recent market turmoil was due to a “global phenomenon”.

He told Sophy Ridge on Sunday it was “disingenuous” to say it is entirely due to global events and said the UK economy was similar to Germany, but now looks “more like Italy and Greece”.

Is defence spending pledge off the books?

Andrew Griffith, financial secretary to the Treasury, hinted Ms Truss may abandon her campaign pledges, including a promise to lift defence spending from 2% to 3% by the end of the decade.

Asked specifically about committing to an increase in defence spending, he told Sophy Ridge: “There are no commitments, I’m afraid, that I can make at 9am on a Sunday morning because we’re going into a process.

“I think in fairness, you’d be the first to say ‘why would you be making decisions without taking those into full consideration and without, of course, involving the OBR’, which is something that I think all of us have said that with hindsight would have been nicer to do.”

Leading defence think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, calculated increasing defence spending to 3% of national income by 2030 would mean more than 40,000 extra military personnel and an extra £157 billion in spending.

But if that commitment is ditched, highly respected Defence Secretary Ben Wallace would likely resign, Sky News defence and security editor Deborah Haynes said.

Asked whether any backtracking on defence spending goals would be a resigning issue, a defence source said Mr Wallace would hold the prime minister to the pledges made.

That commitment appears to be in the balance after Mr Hunt this weekend repeatedly said he will ask all government departments to find “efficiency savings”.

‘Not taking anything off the table’

In his latest comments, Mr Hunt told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I’m going to be asking every government department to find further efficiency savings.

“I’m not taking anything off the table, I want to keep as many of those tax cuts as I possibly can, because our long-term health depends on being a low-tax economy. And I strongly believe that.”

Click to subscribe to the Sophy Ridge on Sunday podcast

Mr Hunt added that he does not think the future will be “anything like” the former period of austerity under David Cameron and George Osborne.

Labour’s Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, said the last three weeks of Conservative Party action has been a “disgrace” and an “embarrassment”.

“I think every time Conservative ministers come on and pretend somehow that this isn’t their responsibility, confidence falls further,” he told Sky News.

“Who is in charge of this government? What are this government’s policies? I don’t know the answer to those questions.”

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

9 hours ago

July 14, 2025

admin

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

World

Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

21 hours ago

July 13, 2025

admin

Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

World

IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

Published

24 hours ago

July 13, 2025

admin

IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.