Inside Politics: Two weeks to go

Sunak launches fresh attack on Truss’s economic plan as leadership race enters final two weeks, writes Matt Mathers

(EPA/Reuters/Getty)

Hello there, I’m Matt Mathers and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

Boris Johnson has come back from the beach to spend the rest of his holiday in No 10 Downing Street. Liz Truss, accused over the weekend of “taking a holiday from reality” in the Tory leadership contest, is this morning facing fresh attacks on her economic plans, which Rishi Sunak says are built on sand.

Inside the bubble

Parliament is not sitting.

Shadow levelling up secretary Alex Norris on Sky News Breakfast at 8.05am.

Treasury committee chairman and Sunak supporter Mel Stride on Times Radio at 8.20am.

Daily briefing

Monday Monday

Some Monday morning optimism: today is 22 August, meaning there are only two weeks to go until the end of the Tory leadership contest. The two candidates are still battling it out over their respective economic plans, with Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, launching another attack on rival Liz Truss.

The broadside was new but the attack line was the same: Sunak said Truss’s plan to slash taxes would plunge the economy into an inflationary “spiral”, as he accused the foreign secretary and her supporters of finally waking up to the “reality of what winter brings”. The language coming from Team Truss on a fiscal intervention to help people with their energy bills has begun to shift, and she has hinted that she’ll provide assistance “across the board”.

But although Team Truss is beginning to talk more about what she first described as “handouts”, the details about how she would intervene – and pay for it – remain scant, or a “mystery”, as Team Sunak put it. Sunak has also accused Truss of trying to avoid scrutiny amid reports she would not ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to do a forecast on the public finances before setting out a cost of living plan. Labour, meanwhile, is calling for whoever wins the race to replace prime minister Johnson to launch a major insulation programme to cut bills for future winters. Battles between the pair this week will be fought against the backdrop of Ofgem’s latest announcement on the energy price cap on Friday when bills are expected to rise to around £3,600.

Two weeks out from 5 September, Truss remains the firm favourite and reportedly spent part of the weekend at Chevening – her grace and favour country residence – with allies discussing plans for entering government. Team Sunak, meanwhile, insists that it is “all to play for”.

(EPA/Reuters/Getty)

Crap talk

The amount of crap pouring out of the mouths of the two candidates over the past number of weeks is now being matched by that which is being pumped into the sea by water companies, which are coming under intense scrutiny amid the widespread drought.

And analysis by The Independent reveals all wastewater companies in England and Wales have failed to meet their targets to tackle pollution or sewage floods. The 11 largest companies monitored by water regulator Ofwat are together facing tens of millions of pounds in financial penalties for last year’s failings.

Jim McMahon, shadow secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said the data “lays bare the negligence of water companies and Tory recklessness in allowing raw sewage to be dumped onto our beaches, onto our playing fields and into our seas, reservoirs and lakes”.

It comes as Truss and Sunak are urged not to sideline the climate crisis in their Tory leadership race, amid growing alarm that this issue is being forgotten. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says the contenders for No 10 were elected on their party’s “greenest manifesto ever” and that they must make “clear commitments” to make-or-break green measures.

On the record

Team Sunak spokesperson on Truss’s economic plans.

“Following weeks of rejecting direct support payments as ‘handouts’, Truss supporters have slowly woken up to the reality of what winter brings. They now say that they will provide people with help – but what help for who, when and how it will be paid for remains a mystery.”

From the Twitterati

Byline Times politics editor Adam Bienkov on Rachel Johnson’s interview with father Stanley.

“I’m not saying UK media and politics is too narrow and insular, but the prime minister’s sister has her own national radio show, in which she interviews the prime minister’s father about the prime minister’s government.”

Essential reading

• Simon Walters, The Independent: Liz Truss is known for her love of sums – but does she add up as first choice for No 10?
• Hilary Schan, The Independent: If Keir Starmer wants to be prime minister, he needs to back working people
• Trevor Phillips, The Times: Diversity makes us stronger, as the RAF knows
• Helen Lewis, The Atlantic: How social justice became a new religion

Inside Politics first appeared in our daily morning email. You can sign up via this link.