Minister tries to quash rumours of plot to oust Rishi Sunak

Published

2 months ago

March 17, 2024

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Rishi Sunak will lead the Tories into the next general election, the transport secretary insisted, amid reports of a plot to oust the prime minister.

Mark Harper dismissed speculation some Conservative rebels want the prime minister to be replaced with Commons leader Penny Mordaunt.

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Asked on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips if Mr Sunak will still be leader at the next election, Mr Harper said: “Yes he will.

“And he’ll take us into that election and he’ll set out very clearly that we’re a government with a plan.”

Asked on the rumours about Ms Mordaunt, he said his colleagues should focus on what is “right for the country”.

“That is the approach that the prime minister takes as well,” he added.

“He focuses on making the right decisions, even if in the short term they’re not necessarily popular…. I’m confident those decisions will pay off.”

Replacing Mr Sunak would involve imposing a sixth prime minister on the country since the 2010 general election, and the third without going to the polls.

Ms Mordaunt has herself shot down speculation she is involved in a plot to become the next Tory leader, telling Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby the idea is “nonsense” and “the public are rather tired of these stories”.

One of her backers also called the reports a “made up briefing”.

With the Tories languishing behind Labour by around 20 points in the polls – and many senior MPs at risk of losing their seats – there has long been speculation about Mr Sunak’s position.

Reports in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph over the weekend had suggested MPs on the right of the party met moderates this week to discuss uniting behind Ms Mordaunt if the prime minister faces a no confidence vote.

It followed a difficult fortnight for Mr Sunak, in which he came under fire over his handling of racist comments reportedly made by a major party donor, and the defection of Lee Anderson – who Mr Sunak had promoted to Tory deputy chairman – to the right-wing populist Reform UK party.

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Some Tories were also angry at the perceived lack of giveaways in Jeremy Hunt’s budget, saying he should have cut income tax rather than national insurance.

May election rumours ‘nonsense’

Shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth said Mr Sunak could put the rumours of a leadership change to bed himself if he named the date of the general election.

He told Sky News: “There’s Tory MPs who are in the papers today saying Rishi Sunak can’t continue.

“This is not in the national interest anymore. It is irresponsible. We need stability in this country.

“He could stabilise this by calling, naming the date of a general election. Otherwise, I fear we may have a Tory leadership election ahead of a general election.”

The latest date the next election can be held is January 2025, though Mr Sunak has said his “working assumption” is that he will call it in the second half of this year.

Labour MPs have called the prime minister a “chicken” for ruling out an election on 2 May, to coincide with local elections.

Some pundits had speculated Mr Sunak could go early to stave off plans to overthrow him, reap any benefits from the spring budget and avoid a rise in Channel crossings over the summer.

However Mr Harper said reports there could have been a snap election in May were “nonsense”.

“The prime minister made it quite clear at the beginning of the year that his working assumption was the election was going to be at the end of the year.

“So all this sort of froth we’ve had about an election being in May was always nonsense frankly, and he made that clear at the beginning of the year.”

Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

14 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”

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Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

16 hours ago

May 5, 2024

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Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.

“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.

“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.

“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”

This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.

This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.

For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.

Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.

Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.

“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”

And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.

His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.

What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.

It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.

But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.

The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.

For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.