PMQs is a huge test for a prime minister trying to survive from one day to the next
It’s a sign of how bad things are for the new prime minister that only her third Prime Minister’s Questions is being billed as a potentially defining moment in her short premiership.
MPs tell me that how Liz Truss performs at the dispatch box against Sir Keir Starmer at their weekly joust will be an acid test for the prime minister put on notice by her party.
Having dodged questions on Friday when she reversed key planks of her economic plan, and then left it to her new chancellor complete the mini-Budget and two-year energy support plan reversal, this PMQs will be a moment of reckoning.
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Many of her party doubt she can meet the moment and think a poor performance will again reignite calls for her go.
“I can’t see what she says at PMQs,” one former minister told me. “Her reputation’s in shreds.”
For the opposition this a “moment of jeopardy” to exploit. “On the Labour side looking across you can see a PM’s authority draining away – as we saw with Johnson.
“I’m sure sets of electrodes are being handed to MPs to bounce up and down in support of the prime minister.
“But it will a big moment, and isn’t just about exchanges with Keir Starmer, the most damaging stuff can come from their own side.”
We saw that back in January when David Davis, the former cabinet minister, used PMQs to publicly call on Mr Johnson to resign. And just moments before that happened Bury South MP Christian Wakeford crossed the floor of the House, defecting from the Conservatives to Labour in another body blow for an embattled prime minister.
Mr Johnson clung on for another six months in a rolling political and leadership crisis, finally being pushed out from Downing Street after dozens of ministers quit his government. As he put it in his resignation speech: “When the herd moves it moves.”
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This PMQs will be the latest test of that herd mentality with MPs muttering that she needs to put in a strong showing. She is undoubtedly in deep trouble, with five MPs calling for her publicly to go – although many are privately saying the same.
But if a bad performance is further destabilising, a good performance will now do little to change the fortunes for Ms Truss beyond the immediate moment.
All the talk in Westminster – apart from those cabinet ministers taking to the airwaves to try to shore her up, is about the timing and mechanism for removing and replacing her. The polling around her is disastrous with only one in 10 Britons satisfied with her.
It is the worst polling ever for any leader, from which there is likely no way back. One former cabinet minister told me this week that they thought 90 per cent of the party thought Ms Truss had to go and said Sir Graham Brady will, at some point, have to go to the PM and tell her she no longer has the support of her party and can either stand aside or see a rule change that would force a confidence vote in the PM.
Changing the rules?
What I hear Sir Graham is now working on is a change in the nominations to basically try to force a unity candidate onto the party and avoid a drawn-out run-off in which party members get the final say.
There is talk of setting the nominations bar as perhaps around a third of the parliamentary party – something like 100 or 120 votes. At that level the likely trio with a chance at the top job would be Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt or Penny Mordaunt.
But the aim might be to set the threshold at the level that only one could reach in order to settle the matter quickly, and amongst MPs rather than members, who polling now shows they regret their choice of Ms Truss.
If it all sounds ferociously complicated, that’s because it is. And it comes back to the point that there is not an obvious unity candidate, while MPs are desperate to avoid a protracted run-off – two reasons helping Mr Truss stay in post.
But even if the herd isn’t quite ready to stampede, the outlook is treacherous for the prime minister.
Read more: Which Tory MPs are calling for Truss to go – and how could the PM be ousted?
Her new chancellor told me this week after he had ripped up the mini-Budget and reversed £32bn of tax cuts that there would be “eye-wateringly difficult decisions” to take around spending. That’s because he has to fill a fiscal black hole running to perhaps £40bn-£50bn through spending cuts and further tax rises.
One former cabinet minister told me that the cuts Mr Hunt is eyeing will be much bigger than those dealt by former chancellor George Osborne. “They might end up having to do double the amount of cuts than in the austerity years. Jeremy is really worried about it.”
Unease over spending cuts
And so he should be. MPs and ministers are already agitating against potential spending cuts, after Mr Hunt on Monday put everything back on the table. He refused in an interview with me on Monday to commit to uprating pension or benefits by inflation or honouring Liz Truss’s promise to lift defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of the decade.
The Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and his deputy James Heappey have suggested they could quit if this pledge is reversed, while two MPs have already publicly said they will not support the government if it attempts to end the pensions triple lock.
“Pensioners should not be paying the price for the cost of living crisis whether caused by the war in Ukraine or mini budgets,” wrote Tory MP Maria Caulfield on Twitter last night.
Mr Hunt is also eyeing up additional taxes to raise funds for government coffers. Options include possible windfall taxes on banks and energy companies – again Ms Truss vowed not to introduce an energy windfall tax when she became PM – as a way to help plug the gap.
It goes without saying that all of this is fraught with political difficulty and if the markets decide Mr Hunt can’t get his spending cuts through parliament and begin selling off government debt, there could be another bout of market turbulence, with all the potentially fatal fall-out that has for Ms Truss. That fiscal statement, billed for 31 October, really could prove a frightful event.
PMQs is undoubtedly a huge test for the prime minister today whose reputation has been shredded this week. But this is just the first test of many she’s going to face. For now, this is a PM and a No 10 just trying to survive from one day to the next.
Ukraine’s president is offering an olive branch to Donald Trump with a dramatic public message aimed at mending their relationship and ending Russia’s war.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy chose social media – the US leader’s favourite mode of communication – to make his point.
He did not go so far as to apologise for a fiery bust-up with Mr Trump at the Oval Office last Friday – a move that some members of the US administration have called for, even though it was the American president and his deputy JD Vance who laid into Mr Zelenskyy.
Instead, he described the encounter as “regrettable”, saying it “did not go the way it was supposed to be” and it was “time to make things right”.
Ukrainian forces fire a missile towards Russian troops near Chasiv Yar. Pic: Reuters
Most significantly though was his spelling out of a vision for the first stage of how Russia’s war with Ukraine could end.
Pushing back on false claims by Trump allies such as Elon Musk that Mr Zelenskyy wants an endless war, he said that Ukraine is committed to peace and is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible.
Crucially, he said: “We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky – ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure – and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”
Appealing to the US president’s ego, he praised Mr Trump’s “strong leadership” and repeated his gratitude for past American support – again responding to criticism from the American commander in chief and his team that he is not showing enough gratitude.
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He also said Kyiv was ready to sign a key minerals deal with Washington – something else Mr Trump is seeking.
This message appears to be an attempt by Mr Zelenskyy to steer his relationship with Mr Trump back on track and to map out his idea for an end to the war – a conflict that Ukraine did not seek but which was brought to its land by Russia’s invading forces.
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, before their Oval Office bust-up. Pic: AP
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Key now will be how the US president responds.
Will Mr Zelenskyy’s expression of regret and clear wish to end the war provide enough of an off-ramp for Mr Trump to defuse the row and – for the sake of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself – switch back on the flow of military assistance to the country?
Another major factor, of course, is how Vladimir Putin reacts and whether he could countenance a limited ceasefire in a war that he started and – unlike Mr Zelenskyy – appears to have no genuine desire to halt.
Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada have come into effect, as has an additional 10% on Chinese products, bringing the total import tax to 20%.
The US president confirmed the tariffs in a speech at the White House – and his announcement sent US and European stocks down sharply.
The tariffs will be felt heavily by US companies which have factories in Canada and Mexico, such as carmakers.
Mr Trump said: “They’re going to have a tariff. So what they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”
There’s “no room left” for a deal that would see the tariffs shelved if fentanyl flowing into the US is curbed by its neighbours, he added.
Mexico and Canada face tariffs of 25%, with 10% for Canadian energy, the Trump administration confirmed.
And tariffs on Chinese imports have doubled, raising them from 10% to 20%.
Canada announced it would retaliate immediately, imposing 25% tariffs on US imports worth C$30bn (£16.3bn). It added the tariffs would be extended in 21 days to cover more US goods entering the country if the US did not lift its sanctions against Canada.
China also vowed to retaliate and reiterated its stance that the Trump administration was trying to “shift the blame” and
“bully” Beijing over fentanyl flows.
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What is America’s trade position?
Mr Trump’s speech stoked fears of a trade war in North America, prompting a financial market sell-off.
Stock market indexes the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite fell by 1.48% and 2.64% respectively on Monday.
The share prices for automobile companies including General Motors, which has significant truck production in Mexico, Automaker and Ford also fell.
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Consumers in the US could see price hikes within days, an expert has said.
Gustavo Flores-Macias, a public policy professor at Cornell University, New York, said “the automobile sector, in particular, is likely to see considerable negative consequences”.
This is due to supply chains that “crisscross the three countries in the manufacturing process” and ” because of the expected increase in the price of vehicles, which can dampen demand,” he added.
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The Trump administration is gearing up to bring in other tariffs in the coming weeks.
On 2 April, reciprocal tariffs will take effect on all countries that impose duties on US products.
He is also considering 25% tariffs on goods from the EU “very soon” after claiming the bloc was created to “screw the United States”.
A truck has collided with a bus in southern Bolivia, killing at least 31 people, according to police – just two days after a deadly crash claimed at least 37 lives.
Officers said the bus rolled some 500m (1,640ft) down a ravine after the collision on Monday, which took place on the highway between Oruro, in the Bolivian Altiplano, and the highland mining city of Potosi.
The driver of the truck has been arrested, while the cause of the accident is under investigation.
Police spokesperson Limbert Choque said men and women were among the dead, and 22 people suffered injuries.
Rescue teams operating at the site of the crash. Pic: Bolivia’s attorney general/Reuters
Bolivia’s President, Luis Arce, expressed condolences for the victims on social media: “This unfortunate event must be investigated to establish responsibilities,” he said in a post on Facebook.
“We send our most sincere condolences to the bereaved families, wishing them the necessary strength to face these difficult times.”
The crash happened between Oruro and Potosi
On Saturday morning, a crash between two buses killed more than three dozen people in the same region.
It happened between Colchani and the city of Uyuni, a major tourist attraction and the world’s largest salt flat.
People stand near the wreckage of one of the two buses involved in a crash on Saturday. Pic: Reuters/Potosi Departmental Command
Coincidentally, one of the buses was heading to Oruro, where one of the most important carnival celebrations in Latin America is currently taking place.
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More than 30 people were also killed after a bus crash on 17 February.
In that crash, police said the driver appeared to have lost control of the vehicle, causing it to drop more than 800m (2,600ft) off a precipice in the southwestern area of Yocalla.
Bolivia’s mountainous, undermaintained and poorly supervised roads are some of the deadliest in the world, claiming an average 1,400 fatalities every year.
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