London Playbook: Preparing for power — Cabinet of talents? — Manifesto move

 

London Playbook: Preparing for power — Cabinet of talents? — Manifesto move

BY ANNABELLE DICKSON

AUGUST 22, 2022 8:00 AM

 

 

POLITICO London Playbook

By ANNABELLE DICKSON

 

Good Monday morning. This is Annabelle Dickson. I’ll also be bringing you Playbook on Tuesday before Emilio Casalicchio takes over for the rest of the week.

 

DRIVING THE DAY

PREPARING FOR POWER: Boris Johnson has returned from the beach to find his Foreign Secretary Liz Truss all but measuring up the Downing Street curtains. The winner of the Tory leadership contest will not be announced until two weeks from today, but all anybody in Westminster is talking about is who will scoop a top spot in a Truss Cabinet, and how on earth the new prime minister can respond to the stark challenge to living standards of sky high energy bills, the scale of which will become clear when the new energy price cap is announced later this week.

 

Chevening chat: Over the weekend Truss was holed up with close aides in Chevening House, the grace and favor home she has access to as foreign secretary, nailing down whom she will put in her top team if she wins, and which policies she will pursue (h/t to the Sunday Times for getting wind of it). Allies were being tight-lipped about the outcome of the away day last night, insisting there is “no complacency,” but that it is right that preparations for No. 10 Downing Street are being made.

 

Not so fast: Hope springs eternal over at rival Rishi Sunak’s campaign HQ, where his team insists it’s still “all to play for.” Not nearly as many people have voted as people think, an ally tells Playbook. One bold Cabinet minister backing the former chancellor optimistically told the Observer he believed Sunak still had a one-in-three chance of winning. Sunak will be on the BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show this afternoon, speaking to stand-in presenter Vanessa Feltz. He will also be doing three member events.

 

OB errr: Sunak’s team have jumped on reports in the Sunday Times that Truss is not planning to ask the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to do a formal forecast of the public finances before setting out her cost of living plan next month. A Sunak campaign spokesperson accuses Truss of trying to “avoid independent scrutiny of the OBR in their emergency budget,” claiming she “cannot deliver a support package as well as come good on £50 billion worth of unfunded, permanent tax cuts in one go.”

 

No time to waste: Team Truss reckon the OBR would need 10 weeks to conduct its analysis, which would mean no action from the government until late November. They say there is no time to waste. “The cost of living crisis means immediate action is required,” a campaign spokesperson tells Playbook. Truss would act as soon as possible to cut taxes and introduce a temporary moratorium on energy levies, they said.

 

Referee: That position may not hold. Deputy director of the highly respected Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank Carl Emmerson tells the i paper there “isn’t a good reason for not having an update if one can be done.” He says one would be “very welcome,” particularly given the previous forecast in March would be “very out of date.”

 

Abandon the niceties: In the Times, Mel Stride, chairman of the Treasury select committee and a Sunak supporter, says it would be “ill-advised” to push ahead without some formal forecasting, but on the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night Tim Loughton, who Playbook doesn’t think has declared his allegiance to either candidate, agrees on the need for speed. He said there would need to be “substantial measures without all the niceties of a huge red book that goes with it at that time.” He suggested there could be a full budget later on in the autumn.

 

And what about that detail? Truss continues to keep her cards close to her chest about exactly what might be in her emergency budget. She told the Sun on Sunday’s new Political Editor Kate Ferguson, who had a scoop-filled debut, that she’s looking at help “across the board,” including for businesses. Truss did offer some Sun-reader-pleasing red meat, promising to review IR35 tax rules for the self-employed, which the paper says have wrongly clobbered tradesmen.

 

GIVING IT SOME ENERGY: As the long summer leadership contest has run on, the scale of the challenge for the new PM has looked more bleak by the day. Experts are not just warning about the increasingly unaffordable cost of energy, but also the potential for blackouts.

 

Business blackout: POLITICO’s Graham Lanktree has a must-read piece which looks at the potential for soaring energy prices to threaten the survival of businesses critical to driving post-Brexit exports. Most worryingly, major industrial sectors believe U.K. firms can no longer depend on the certainty of energy imports from Europe this winter — increasing the risk of both planned and uncontrolled blackouts, he reports.

 

Pay off: The National Grid meanwhile is drawing up plans to reward households for turning down appliances at peak times to protect the country from blackouts, the Sunday Times’s Harry Yorke and Nicholas Hellen report. Electric car owners might also be allowed to sell surplus power from their batteries back to the National Grid.

 

Affordable: If energy is readily available, only the very wealthiest look like they will be able to afford it. The energy consultancy Auxilione forecast the energy price cap could hit £6,000 in April over the weekend. An astonishing jump from the already terrifying £3,576 cap which is expected to be announced for October later this week. The Sunday Telegraph, among others, has more.

 

Help needed: Amid all this, more detail has emerged about the options being drawn up by the Treasury to offer to the new PM and chancellor next month.

 

By prescription: The most eye-catching idea is to allow GPs to write prescriptions to give the most vulnerable money off their energy bills. The Sun’s Kate Ferguson got the scoop. She says this could come in the form of cash from local councils, or vouchers. The British Medical Association is not impressed, telling PA’s Sam Blewett the addition to doctors’ workloads would be “totally unacceptable.” But Energy Systems Catapult CEO Guy Newey, whose company ran a small pilot last winter, says there is merit in the plan.

 

Tackling profits: The Sunday Telegraph reckons Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng will offer renewables companies a fixed-term rate at which to sell energy to suppliers for 15 years if they agree to stop selling cheap renewables at high wholesale prices. Sources tell the Sunday Tele the deal is attractive as it would help with their financial planning.

 

Going nuclear: Meanwhile, the Sunday Times says chief secretary to the Treasury and major Truss supporter Simon Clarke is not happy the PM and chancellor have quietly approved funding for a new nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk. He says in a leaked letter that the decision is big enough to materially affect the spending choices of the incoming government.

 

Energy generators: Nadhim Zahawi is due to meet energy generation companies at various points this week, including Ørsted, Newcleo and RWE, and the Treasury says he is planning to set out government ambitions to strengthen U.K. domestic energy security, including quicker expansion of nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, oil and gas. Watch this space. His time as chancellor could soon be up.

 

INSULATION NATION: Labour will go hard today on accusations the government is failing to make insulating homes a “national mission” as it tries to keep up the momentum of its energy bill price cap announcement last week. Shadow Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband has some strong quotes out this morning, which the Guardian picks up. Leader Keir Starmer is visiting a housing development in north London to see insulation in action, and will record a broadcast clip later morning.

 

SCOOP — MANIFESTO MOVE: Starmer has handed his policy chief Claire Ainsley a new role planning the party’s general election manifesto. The job, which will see her focus more on longer-term policy development, is one of a number of changes expected as the party ramps up its operations to take on the new Tory leader, Playbook is told.

 

ALSO TO CONTEND WITH: As if the energy crisis wasn’t enough for a new PM to grapple with, Britain’s already under-pressure supply chains are likely to be hit by the eight-day walkout at Britain’s largest port, Felixstowe. Judah Levine, head of research at global freight booking and data platform Freightos, told POLITICO’s Graham Lanktree that even before the strike many vessels faced delays on arrival. New labor disruptions, he said, “would likely worsen congestion and delays to U.K. logistics, and help keep freight rates up” with a looming strike in Liverpool potentially removing “an alternative port for volumes meant for Felixstowe.”

 

**What does the Tory leadership race mean for your industry? Our POLITICO Pro experts offer you granular insights into what the future legislature will look like and how it will impact your business. Learn more on POLITICO Pro here.**

 

CAMPAIGN ROUNDUP

CABINET OF TALENTS? The other big talking point at the moment is exactly whom Truss will pick to be in her government. Saturday’s Times had the most comprehensive look at the latest thinking on a potential Truss Cabinet.

 

Help is coming: Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng continues to be tipped as the next chancellor — making his op-ed for the Mail on Sunday, and assurances “help is coming,” all the more newsworthy. Attorney General Suella Braverman is said to be a “done deal” to replace Priti Patel as home secretary, with James Cleverly still being tipped to be foreign sec.

 

Level of surprise: Suggestions the mega-rich old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg could be leveling up secretary got the reaction you might expect on weekend Twitter. Rees-Mogg decided to double down on Truss’ controversial suggestion that British workers need more graft, telling the Mail on Sunday the leak last week had “attracted confected political criticism but they reflect an unfortunate reality in much of the British state.” Playbook is not sure if this helps or hinders his Cabinet cause.

 

Another option? The Sun reckons the PM wants to put Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen in the Lords so he can join Cabinet and “ram home the leveling up agenda.”

 

Whipped up: Suggestions Thérèse Coffey, whom Charlotte Ivers profiles in the Sunday Times, could become the first female chief whip, went down the best with Tory MPs, even among those not backing Truss. One MP told Playbook most people feel Coffey has done a pretty good job at the Department for Work and Pensions, and with a few deputies appointed from the center of the party, it could be an inspired move. It has certainly gone down better than earlier reports that former party leader Iain Duncan Smith was in line for the party management job.

 

Hospital pass? The Times reckons Truss is considering offering her rival Sunak the job of sorting out Britain’s perpetually in-crisis health and social care services. Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi could potentially be offered the job if Sunak says no, the paper reckons. The scale of the challenge facing whoever takes the job is stark. A Sunday Times piece looking at excess deaths, and the numbers of 999 crews queuing outside hospitals, should send a chill down the spine of any aspiring health secretary. The horrific impact of the staffing crisis on social care services is spelt out on the front of the Guardian.

 

Not impressed: The latest Cabinet rumors have not gone down well with some MPs. One minister told Playbook there is a danger “Liz could reinforce all the worst parts of Boris’ tendencies,” questioning what some of those tipped for high office had actually delivered in the past. “Delivery will matter as much as ideology — it’s the lack of delivery that’s killing us in the polls,” the minister said.

 

Boris mark II: “Everybody understands you want to give your friends jobs, and your supporters jobs, and everything else, but if she wants to make this work, she’s going to have to do a little bit more than that,” a second Tory MP told Playbook. They said Truss risked making the same mistake as Johnson, who they said had chosen his Cabinet based on loyalty in the 2019 leadership race, rather than competence.

 

Not in there: Former Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove’s excoriating verdict on Truss, and his likely return to the backbenches, could be dangerous for the foreign secretary if she wins, one former adviser tells Playbook. “He’s more dangerous than anyone else because people take him seriously,” they said. “Even people that don’t like him in the Tory Party take him seriously because he’s one of the smartest people in that entire place.” Fans of a Truss skewering were also delighting in Matthew Parris’ latest column in the Times, which was one of the most brutal things Playbook has read in a while — and the bar has been pretty high during this leadership contest.

 

And what about this problem? A potentially bigger problem for Truss is the “better with Boris” narrative that seems to be gaining momentum with the public. Oliver Wright’s piece in today’s Times looking at the public remorse over the departure of Johnson could spell danger for Truss if the early days of her premiership don’t go according to plan. Despite opinion polls strongly suggesting the public thought Johnson needed to go at the time he announced his resignation, the unseemly leadership contest between Truss and Sunak appears to have made Johnson look like a better bet with hindsight. Boris-loving Tory donor Peter Cruddas, the man behind a petition to give members the option to keep the PM in post, will be feeling pretty smug this morning.

 

POLICY OFFERS: Truss is planning reforms to stop GPs leaving the profession early, and that will entice those who have retired to return, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Sunak meanwhile says he will crackdown on activist lawyers who take legal action in an attempt to frustrate the will of parliament if he wins. The Sunday Express has more.

 

TRUSS UNDER FIRE: Truss is coming in for criticism for her plans to scrap all diversity and inclusion roles in Whitehall, as the party’s split over “woke” issues widens. Activist Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones — who is currently setting up a new Black Tories group with Samuel Kasumu — told the i’s Arj Singh that the policy would take the country “backwards,” while he also criticized the Rwanda asylum seeker policy both candidates have committed to introducing. Emmanuel-Jones explained that the group he’s setting up aims to help shed the party’s “toxic” brand with African-Caribbean voters.

 

WONK WATCH: Right-wing think tank Policy Exchange is publishing policy area manifestos for the next PM over the next few weeks and the first one, on health, is out today. The paper sets out 16 policy ideas on the NHS and social care for Team Truss and Sunak to think about, including asking the NHS to prioritise treatment for children and a scaling up of “virtual wards” to ease pressure on the real life ones.

 

BEYOND THE LEADERSHIP RACE

PARLIAMENT: In recess.

 

BORIS IS BACK: The PM is back from his holiday. He spoke to U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last night. Downing Street said it would be a big week for him putting Ukraine back on the agenda. The Sun has more about what we can expect in the coming days.

 

SEWAGE BEACHES LATEST: Monitors which measure the amount of sewage being dumped into English beaches are often either faulty or not installed at all by water companies, new Lib Dem research has found. The party’s analysis shows that there are 1,802 monitors installed by the companies which do not work for at least 90 percent of the time, and that there are 1,717 storm overflows which have no monitors installed at all. Meaning we have even less reliable data on the level of sewage in seaside spots — fair to say this isn’t going away. The Mirror’s Dan Bloom picked up the story.

 

Diversity in action: Plurality in the media took a bit of a battering yesterday. In an LBC interview with the PM’s sister Rachel, his dad Stanley blamed Boris Johnson’s government for the raw sewage being pumped into Britain’s sea. Tory MP Huw Merriman had the most brutal riposte to the rather bizarre moment: “When I was a baby, Johnson and Johnson used to powder backsides rather than be paid to talk out of them.” Ouch.

 

ANIMATING TWITTER OVER THE WEEKEND: The Mail on Sunday reported that interim Leveling Up Secretary Greg Clark is reviewing the decision to award cash to Rotherham as part of the Children’s Capital of Culture initiative, due to controversy over the award to the town at the center of the child sexual exploitation scandal in 2011. The award of the initiative to Rotherham got a lot of attention at the weekend from the likes of Nigel Farage — though Playbook would point out that it looks like this was announced back in February.

 

WASTEMINSTER: Some 2.6 million subsidised dinners for MPs and Lords ended up in landfill, the Sunday Mirror revealed in John Siddle’s great FOI splash. The wasted food weighs a pretty staggering 1.23 million kilograms and would fill 153 eight-ton skips. The Mirror contrasted the figures to the Food Foundation’s research which shows that more than 2 million people often go without food for an entire day.

 

UKRAINE UPDATE: Moscow sees no possibility of a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, a senior Russian diplomat told the FT’s Henry Foy. The FT splashes on the story. Meanwhile, POLITICO’s Lily Hyde reports on Kyiv’s efforts to relocate 750,000 people in a mandatory evacuation of parts of Ukraine where the fighting is fiercest.