‘I know brighter days lie ahead’: Liz Truss bids farewell to Downing Street

Published

2 years ago

October 25, 2022

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Liz Truss has insisted “brighter days lie ahead” for the country as she gave her final speech before leaving Number 10.

Speaking outside Downing Street, Ms Truss, who has become the UK’s shortest serving prime minister after just seven weeks, wished Rishi Sunak “every success” as he takes the reins.

But she appeared to double down on her political philosophy, saying “Brexit freedoms” should allow taxes to be lower, and adding: “We simply cannot afford to be a low growth country”.

New PM – latest updates from Downing Street

“I am more convinced than ever that we need to be bold and confront the challenges that we face,” she said.

“As the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote, it’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”

Ms Truss went to Buckingham Palace to officially offer her resignation to the King.

Just before 11am, the Royal Household confirmed the event had taken place and that King Charles was “graciously pleased to accept”.

Now the new leader of the Conservative Party, Mr Sunak, is meeting the King, where he will be asked to form a new government.

In her speech, the outgoing PM claimed her short-lived administration had “acted urgently and decisively on the side of hard working families and businesses” by reversing the rise in National Insurance and introducing help with energy bills over the winter.

But there was no apology after the economic chaos of recent weeks following her tax slashing mini-budget that ultimately let to her downfall.

Instead, she revealed she planned to stay in politics, “spending more time in my constituency and continuing to serve South West Norfolk from the backbenches”, before echoing the speech she made on entering Downing Street.

“Our country continues to battle through a storm, but I believe in Britain,” she said. “I believe in the British people and I know that brighter days lie ahead.”

Truss was forced to focus on principles, not achievements

Joe Pike

Political correspondent

@joepike

Liz Truss’s speech departing Downing Street was only slightly more memorable than the one she delivered on arrival.

With such an insubstantial legacy, she was forced to focus on her principles, rather than her achievements.

Ms Truss returned to her insistence that the UK “cannot afford to be a low growth country”, her belief in lower taxes, and also said: “Ukraine must prevail”.

She seemed to be attempting to argue that it was her boldness that brought her down – critics would argue it was a dangerous and irresponsible lack of political caution.

With echoes of Boris Johnson, Ms Truss quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca, saying: “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare. It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”

These Downing Street farewells are by their very nature laced with failure, but today there was no real acknowledgment of the disastrous nature of Ms Truss’s premiership.

In the three minute six second address, she did not apologise or show regret for the economic mess she has left for her successor, or indeed for millions of people across the country.

Instead she seemed to be offering advice to Mr Sunak – that he should be radical in delivering Brexit and changing the economic landscape of the UK.

Like Gordon Brown in 2010 and David Cameron in 2016, the Truss children (Frances, 16, and Liberty, 13) watched their mother speak outside Number 10 and joined her in meeting the monarch at Buckingham Palace.

Liz Truss said she will now be spending more time in her Norfolk constituency – a clear sign she is not expecting a role in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet.

Reports suggests she intends to “take a break” from frontline politics, but that of course is hardly her choice. Ms Truss toxic reputation means future prime ministers are unlikely to want her anywhere near their top teams.

Ms Truss won the keys to Number 10 at the start of September after a summer-long leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson.

She beat Mr Sunak with 57% of the votes from party members and promised them she would “deliver, deliver, deliver”.

The start of her premiership was dominated by the death of the Queen, with her attending tribute events across the country to support the new King and giving a reading at the monarch’s funeral.

But her time in office was defined by the mini-budget that sent markets into turmoil and the pound dropping at record rates.

Ms Truss tried to regain her authority by firing her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and replacing him with Jeremy Hunt, who within days had reversed nearly all her policies.

But after the resignation of her home secretary and chaos in parliament over a vote on fracking, she said she accepted she could no longer stay in post.

Mr Sunak was chosen to replace her by Tory MPs four days later, and will shortly become the country’s new prime minister.

World

At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

Published

1 hour ago

November 15, 2024

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.

A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.

They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.

Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.

The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.

The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.

All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.

Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.

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COP29: UN climate summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, warn leading figures

Published

3 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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COP29: UN climate summits 'no longer fit for purpose', warn leading figures

UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and should only be hosted by countries who are trying to give up fossil fuels, veterans of the process have said.

An open letter to the United Nations, signed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, made a dramatic intervention in the 29th COP climate summit, under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Frustration over petrostate hosts – following last year’s summit in UAE – as well as the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, prohibitive costs, and slow progress have been mounting in recent years.

The letter acknowledges the strides COPs have made on ramping up climate policies.

“But it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said.

“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”

The letter’s 22 signatories also include former Ireland President Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate body (UNFCCC) that runs the annual COP summits.

It called for the process to be streamlined and for countries to be held accountable for their promises.

Sky News analysis has found only “marginal” progress has been made since the “historic” pledge from COP28 last year to transition away from fossil fuels.

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The letter also called for “strict eligibility criteria” for host countries to exclude those “who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.

This year’s host country, petrostate Azerbaijan, has been engulfed in controversy.

Its authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev used his opening address to criticise western hypocrisy and praise oil and gas as a “gift” from God. His criticism of France, with whom relations have long been tense, drove the French minister to cancel a trip to the summit.

While the government and its COP team run separate operations, host countries are supposed to smooth over disagreements and find consensus between the almost 200 countries gathered.

COP presidencies are also nominating themselves to be climate leaders and throwing their own countries under the spotlight.

Azerbaijan is a small developing country that relies significantly on oil and gas revenues. But it has made slow progress on building out clean power – getting just 1.5% of its energy from clean sources – and led a harsh crackdown on critics in the run up to the COP.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, its lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev was unable to say whether Azerbaijan preferred to extract all its oil and gas or seek another, cleaner economic pathway – hard though that would be.

In a news conference yesterday, Mr Rafiyev said the president had been “quite clear” and he would not comment further.

“We have opened our doors to everybody,” he added.

Some diplomats here have hinted that Azerbaijan’s presidency team mean well but might be a little out of their depth. They have never been out in front at previous COPs, but they also only had a year to prepare for their turn hosting the mighty summit.

“My sense of this is that they’re a little underprepared, a little overwhelmed and a little bit short,” said one, speaking anonymously, as is customary for diplomats trying to maintain good relations.

“But I’m not sure that that’s politics. It might just be bandwidth and preparation and things like that.”

Different regions in the world take turns to host a COP. This year it was up to Eastern Europe, but the selection process took longer than usual due to tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and between Azerbaijan and rival Armenia.

Achim Steiner of the UN Development Programme, called it “troubling” that some countries face questions over their host roles.

“Are there countries that are by definition good hosts and others are bad hosts?” he asked.

“In the United Nations, we maintain the principle of every nation, first of all, should have a right to be heard.

“Labels are not always the fairest way of describing a nation. Some of the largest oil producers have hosted this COP in the past, and seemingly this seemed to be a perfectly acceptable phenomenon.”

COP stands for “conference of the parties” and refers to countries (“parties”) who have signed the underlying climate treaty.

Azerbaijan’s COP29 team and the UN’s climate body have been contacted with a request to comment.

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Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners

Published

19 hours ago

November 14, 2024

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Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to 'smoke out' thousands of illegal miners

A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.

The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.

Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.

It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.

The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.

Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.

A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.

It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.

Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.

In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.

Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.

Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.

The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.

Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.

Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.