Liz Truss has hinted she believes her disastrous mini-budget could have worked out for the UK economy in the long term.
The former prime minister was in Westminster on Wednesday at the launch of the Growth Commission – a new organisation set up by Ms Truss to bring together economists focused on the issue of low growth, echoing her priorities from her short-lived premiership.
She was overheard at the event comparing sluggish growth in the UK to a “boiling a frog situation”, saying it hadn’t “dramatically gone away” with her exit from Downing Street, but “got worse and worse”.
And asked by reporters if her fiscal plans had been the right one, she replied: “It’s a long game.”
In the Commission’s first report, unveiled at today’s launch, the group claimed the average British person was £10,000 worse off than people in the US.
The report also said “consistent growth levels” of 3% by 2040 were achievable in the UK, and would lead to £ 35,000 worth of higher spending per household.
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One of the group’s co-chairman, Shanker Singham, claimed opportunities for growth in the UK were “abundant and increasing”.
He added: “Failure to act will see us miss out on the opportunities presented by huge technological advances that we have seen especially over the last 20 years.”
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But the Commission did not outline policy suggestions of how to reach this figure, instead saying it would provide further analysis around large scale fiscal events.
While the ex-PM attended today’s event, she has no formal role in the organisation.
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Liz Truss’s rise and fall
Ms Truss took over in Number 10 back in September, with a promise to take on the so-called “anti-growth coalition” both in parliament and Whitehall.
But following a number of un-costed tax cuts outlined in her mini-budget, the markets were sent into a spiral, damaging both the economy and her credentials.
But Ms Truss lost the support of the Conservative Party and resigned after just 49 days in power.
Mr Hunt remained as chancellor in Rishi Sunak’s cabinet and the pair have taken a different approach, focusing on cutting inflation rather than taxes.
However, despite promises to halve the figure before the year is out, the number has remained stubborn and the Bank of England has continued to increase interest rates as a result.
Hamas will release another round of hostages on Thursday, including Arbel Yehoud, after agreeing with Israel that displaced Palestinians will be allowed back into northern Gaza from Monday.
As well as Ms Yehoud, who was expected to be released yesterday, two more hostages including soldier Agam Berger will be released, according to the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Three additional hostages will also be released on Saturday under the new agreement.
Hamas also gave the government a list showing the status of all hostages due to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire.
In return, displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza will be allowed to travel back to northern areas.
Israel will also give Hamas a list of 400 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons who have been arrested since 7 October 2023, according to a spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry.
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Huge crowds await return to northern Gaza after delays
Tens of thousands of people were blocked from returning to northern Gaza after Israel refused to open checkpoints because it said Hamas had breached the ceasefire agreement.
Israel had insisted that Ms Yehoud be released on Saturday because she is a woman, a civilian and alive, and therefore should have been in the top category of hostages freed, according to the agreement.
Palestinians waiting to return to northern Gaza were frustrated by the weekend’s delays.
“A sea of people is waiting for a signal to move back to Gaza City and the north,” said Tamer al Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City.
“This is the deal that was signed, isn’t it? Many of those people have no idea whether their houses back home are still standing.
“But they want to go regardless, they want to put up the tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel home,” he told the Reuters news agency via a chat app.
Israeli forces have killed 22 people in southern Lebanon and injured more than 120 as residents try to return home, Lebanese authorities say.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, citizens were attacked while they were trying to enter their still-occupied towns.
Under a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, the Israeli military was supposed to have withdrawn by a Sunday deadline.
But on Friday, Israel said it would keep troops in the south of the country beyond the deadline.
It said Lebanese forces were not deploying quickly enough, while Lebanon said its forces cannot move into areas until Israeli troops leave.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people remain blocked from returning to northern Gaza after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refused to open checkpoints to allow crossings into the north.
A day after a second exchange involving four Israeli women hostages held in Gaza for 200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, scores of stranded Palestinians waited along the main roads leading north.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food, and tents that served as shelters for over a year for those in the central and southern areas of the enclave.
“A sea of people is waiting for a signal to move back to Gaza City and the north,” said Tamer al Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City.
“This is the deal that was signed, isn’t it? Many of those people have no idea whether their houses back home are still standing. But they want to go regardless, they want to put up the tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel home,” he told the Reuters news agency via a chat app.
Donald Trump has said Jordan and Egypt should take in Palestinians from war-ravaged Gaza.
The US president called on the two nations to take in people either temporarily or permanently, adding: “We should just clear out the whole thing.”
“It’s literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” he told reporters after a call with Jordan’s King Abdullah.
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The Hamas-backed plan for Gaza
The ceasefire deal – mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt – allows for thousands of displaced Palestinians to return to their communities.
However, not long after the Israeli female soldiers were released on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza until civilian hostage Arbel Yehud was released.
Israel had reportedly demanded she be on the list of the hostages released yesterday. However, she was not included by Hamas.
It is thought she might be held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group in the Gaza Strip.
A Hamas official told Reuters she was alive and well and would be released next Saturday.
The militant group later issued a statement blaming Israel for the delay and accusing it of stalling.
Reacting to Mr Trump’s suggestion, an official of Hamas echoed longstanding Palestinian fears about being driven permanently from their homes.
Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if [such offers] appear to have good intentions under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in the proposals of US President Trump,” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told the Reuters on Sunday.
People in Belarus have started to vote in the presidential election, which is all but certain to extend the rule of Alexander Lukashenko.
The authoritarian leader is expected to win a seventh term as leader in Sunday’s election, extending his 31 years in power in Sunday’s election.
Citizens were pictured heading to the polls in the country’s capital, Minsk. A total of 6.9 million people are registered to cast their ballots before voting ends at 5pm tonight UK time.
Four opposition candidates also appear on ballots, but all are loyal to Mr Lukashenko and have praised his rule.
Many of the actual opponents to the incumbent president are either in prison or have been exiled abroad as a result of a crackdown on dissent and free speech.
It comes after mass protests after the election in 2020 threatened his claim to the presidency as Western governments backed the opposition’s assertion that he falsified the results and stole victory from its candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
The demonstrations went on for months and led to the arrest of more than 65,000 people, many of whom are still in prison.
Ms Tsikhanouskaya, who fled Belarus under government pressure, told The Associated Press that Sunday’s election was “a senseless farce, a Lukashenko ritual”.
In preparation for this year’s election, polling stations have removed the curtains covering ballot boxes, and voters are forbidden from photographing their ballots – a response to the opposition’s call in 2020 for voters to take pictures to make it more difficult for authorities to rig the vote.
Police have also conducted large-scale drills before the election as a way to prepare for dispersing a protest.
Who is Alexander Lukashenko?
Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994.
The 70-year-old took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union, which earned him the nickname “Europe’s Last Dictator”.
Belarus was part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.
Mr Lukashenko has restored Soviet-style controls on the economy, discouraged use of the Belarusian language in favour of Russian, and pushed for abandoning the country’s red-and-white national flag in favour of one similar to what it used as a Soviet republic.
He also remains a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Throughout his rule, he’s relied on subsidies and political support from Russia, let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and agreed to host some of the country’s tactical nuclear weapons.
Mr Lukashenko’s support for the war in Ukraine has led to the rupture of Belarus’ ties with the US and the European Union.
Both said in the run-up to Sunday’s vote that it could not be free and fair because independent media are banned in Belarus and all leading opposition figures have been jailed or forced to flee abroad.
Speaking at a press conference as he cast his own vote on Sunday, Mr Lukashenko said some of his political opponents had “chosen” to go to prison, adding that no one was preventing from speaking out in the country.
“We didn’t kick anyone out of the country,” he said, adding: “[But prison was] for people who opened their mouths too wide, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law.”
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Belarus president set to extend rule
The president has repeatedly claimed that he wasn’t clinging to power at the last election and would “quietly and calmly hand it over to the new generation”.
Since July last year, he has also pardoned more than 250 people described as political prisoners by activists.
Artyom Shraybman, a Belarus expert with the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Centre, told Reuters that Mr Lukashenko plans to use the pardons and his election win to try and ease his total dependence on Russia and start a conversation with the West about easing sanctions.