Liz Truss refuses to commit to triple lock on pensions despite backing it two weeks ago – UK politics live | Politics

The live-streamed battle for survival between Liz Truss and a lettuce has become a global talking point, from Buenos Aires to Madrid.

Political pundits across the world have been poring over the Daily Star’s broadcast in recent days as the British prime minister’s future has been plunged into doubt.

“Who will win? Liz Truss or a lettuce?” wondered Portugal’s Renascença network alongside a video summarising the prime minister’s predicament.

“I think that right now the lettuce is in a stronger position than the prime minister,” the journalist José Luis Sastre told listeners of Spain’s Cadena Ser radio network on Monday.

Over the Atlantic in Latin America, the stand-off between Liz Truss and the lettuce has also sparked an outpouring of pity for the politician, as well as admiration for “el humor británico”.

Mexico’s Aristegui Noticias was among the outlets which this week reported on the lettuce contest and wondered how long “la dama iceberg” would cling to her job.

In Peru’s El Comercio newspaper, Milagros Asto Sánchez also asked whether Truss would outlast “a decomposing lechuga”.

In Brazil, which is in the midst of a political crisis of its own, political scientists and pundits have been glued to the vegetable live-stream.

“Liz Truss took over as prime minister less than a month ago, but the chaos … in which her government finds itself has led many to ask how long she will remain in Downing Street,” Brazil’s Folha de São Paulo informed its readers as the Truss v lettuce struggle went on.

Gove says Britons face ‘lot of pain’ in coming months as Truss’s departure now inevitable

Henry Dyer

Michael Gove has said: “All of us are going to face a hell of a lot of pain in the next two months”, and that “we are going through hell”.

At an event this morning organised by the JLA Speakers Bureau, Gove, the former levelling up secretary, cited Dante in saying: “After hell comes purgatory and paradise”. He said:

Purgatory is going to be a tough economic medicine applied in this country and elsewhere. For how long I don’t know. But until and unless the interest rate increases, and other measures required in order to kill and reduce inflation are in place, then we won’t get out of this mess.

Gove said he was a “relentless optimist” for paradise, saying “scientists and technologists […] have been responsible for all of the major elements of progress throughout human history”.

Referencing his criticism in 2016 of experts, he joked that “what will solve us, resolve us, save us in the future, I have to say and confess are experts overall”.

When the event’s host, the LBC presenter Sangita Myska said she thought it was “no longer a question of whether Liz Truss goes, but when she goes”, Gove said she was “absolutely right”. He added:

The question for any leader is: what happens when the programme or the platform on which you secured the leadership has been shredded.

Asked by Myska if Jeremy Hunt was credible as a chancellor, Gove said he was, citing Hunt’s experience with the 2012 Olympics, and his time as health secretary, and in the Foreign Office.

Gove, who previously supported David Cameron and Boris Johnson in their preparation for prime minister’s questions, suggested Keir Starmer’s opening question to Truss could be: “Why?”

Gove also joked that he had been Truss’s boss, which is “of course a role which is now a jobshare between Jeremy Hunt and the bond markets”; and that “we all know now” why Truss had gained the nickname “the human hand grenade”.

Gove said he thought fracking would not take place anywhere in the UK “because no community will be sufficiently incentivised to do it”.

He told the Guardian his remarks were made under the Chatham House rule, but this was not raised by the host of the event at the time, or at any stage while registering for the event.

Northern Ireland faces assembly elections before Christmas unless power sharing restored soon, says Heaton-Harris

Lisa O’Carroll

Northern Ireland will face assembly elections before Christmas, unless power sharing is restored in the next 10 days, the government has confirmed.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, hinted at an 8 December or 15 December polling day during evidence at a Commons select committee.

He told MPs he was using all his “charm” and guile to “coax everybody” to return to a Stormont devolved government by the 28 October deadline but none of the parties expect this to happen in light of continued boycott by the Democratic Unionist party amid a row over the Northern Ireland protocol.

He told MPs the negotiations over the protocol were “tough” but they were talking about what a “landing zone” looks like.

He said the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, was leading the talks but refused to comment any further.

One of China’s most senior diplomats in the UK was involved in the violence against pro-democracy protesters at the Manchester consulate, Alicia Kearns, the new chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee, has told MPs. My colleagues Josh Haliday and Emma Graham-Harrison have the story here.

Mark Drakeford, the Labour first minister in Wales, is generally seen as one of the most calm and level-headed figures at the top of politics in the UK. He has even been described as a bit dull (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But in the Senedd this afternoon, he lost his temper when Andrew RT Davies, the Welsh Conservative leader, quoted someone saying that Wales had become a “third-world country” for healthcare under Labour. Drakeford told Davies:

You have chosen to use that language here this afternoon. And what do those people face? They face cuts to their pay because of the policy of your government. And now they face cuts to the budgets that the health service itself will have at its disposal.

It is shocking. It is absolutely shocking to me that you will think that you can turn up here this afternoon with the mess that your party has made to the budgets of this country, to the reputation of this country around the world. That you promise those people there will be more to come.

And you think you turn up here this afternoon and claim some sort of moral high ground? What sort of world do you belong in?

Earlier today No 10 confirmed that the health budget is not exempt from the requirement for all departments to find savings. (See 2.08am.)

Nation.Cymru has a full report of the Drakeford/Davies exchanges here.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has published some extensive new polling on Brexit. For anyone interested in the topic, it’s a data goldmine, but two findings stand out.

When asked what the UK’s place within Europe should be in the next 10-15 years, just under a quarter (23 per cent) say “inside the European Union”. This is followed by a preference for “a new kind of association with the European Union unlike anything we know today” (19 per cent), a relationship “outside the European single market, but with a closer trade and security partnership than today” (17 per cent) and “outside EU political institutions, but within the European single market” (11 per cent). Only 7 per cent of the public wishes to “keep things as they are now after Brexit” and another 7 per cent would prefer “no or minimal economic and political ties with the European Union”.

Overall, about a third of the public favour at least the single-market type relationship with the EU. Another third favour a closer relationship than today while remaining outside the EU and the single market, but do not have a clear idea of what that relationship might entail.

Most Britons (59 per cent) think that Britain’s exit from the EU has worsened our economy, with 20 per cent thinking that it has made no difference and just 14 per cent seeing an improvement. Only a small percentage of the public (6 per cent) don’t know, meaning that voters have largely made up their minds about the economic effects of Brexit – and their views are mostly negative.

While there is a 2016 effect, with over four-fifths of Remainers thinking Brexit has worsened Britain’s economy, even Leavers are unenthusiastic about the economic effects of Brexit. Over two-thirds of Leavers say that it has either worsened the UK’s economy (34 per cent) or made no difference (35 per cent), compared to only about a quarter (24 per cent) who think that Britain’s economy has improved as a result of Brexit.

Commenting on the findings, Tony Blair said:

Those like myself who were passionately opposed to Brexit will continue to believe it was a mistake. But we should acknowledge that it will not be undone under this generation of political leadership.

Those who supported Brexit should give up trying to ‘prove’ to the rest of us that it was the right decision if only we believed in it enough.

This polling shows that the British people want a sensible way forward on Brexit which recognises that in the foreseeable future at least the decision to leave Europe cannot be reversed. But that Britain needs a constructive relationship with the continent of which we are a part.

What therefore makes sense is for the British government to fix the problems arising from Brexit, notably on the Northern Ireland protocol, and then build, over time, the right trading, security and political cooperation for the future.

Keir Starmer has claimed that some Tories are privately saying that it’s time for a Labour government. In an interview on the Jeremy Vine Show, Starmer said Conservative MPs had to decide whether to put the country first or their party first. He went on:

At the moment, they’re putting their party first. Quite a lot of them are saying, behind the scenes, we do think a change of government to Labour might be a good idea, but it wouldn’t be good for our party. That is the wrong way round.

Starmer also renewed his call for a general election. He said:

They’ve had, what, four chancellors in four months. We’re now having an open discussion about whether they’re going to have a further change of prime minister – three prime ministers in three years.

We can’t go on like this, shutting the public out, and I think many people now feel that the real risk now is carrying on with this lot rather than actually having a general election, bringing in a Labour government and securing our economy. That’s the first thing that absolutely needs to be done.

(On his excellent The Rest is Politics podcast recently, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief, pointed out that Labour has only had four chancellors since 1967. But that still points to a much better survival rate than for recent Tory chancellors.)

And here is a full summary of the Downing Street lobby briefing. The PM’s spokesperson answered questions about the cabinet meeting, having been allowed to attend as an observer this morning. Most spokespeople for the PM have attended the cabinet, but the current one (Max Blain) was not allowed to attend the first few meetings under Liz Truss.

• Liz Truss is no longer committed to maintaining the triple lock on pension, No 10 said. (See 1.35pm.)

• No one at cabinet said Truss should resign, the PM’s spokesperson said. Asked if anyone did suggest this, the spokesperson replied: “No.” Asked if Truss was concerned about ministers discussing the need to replace her in private, the spokesperson said:

Her view is she needs to be focused on what is right for the country rather than on any internal discussions among the party at the moment.

But, as the Mirror’s Dan Bloom reports, another answer from the spokesperson suggested ministers were not necessarily 100% supportive.

• Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, told ministers that, although spending would rise overall, departments would have to make savings, the PM’s spokesperson said. But Hunt said cuts or savings should be focused on areas where frontline services would not be affected. The spokesperson said:

[Hunt told cabinet] public spending would continue to rise overall but that departments would continue to be asked to look at finding ways to save taxpayers’ money, with public spending standing at around £1 trillion currently.

The chancellor said this work should focus on areas which should not affect the service the public receives.

Asked if the Department of Health and Social Care would have to find savings too, the spokesperson said Hunt addressed this in the Commons yesterday. Hunt refused to commit to protecting the health budget, but he said as a former health secretary he was well aware of the pressures it faced.