Over this speech hung a sense that the Chancellor was with impeccable dutifulness making the best of a bad job.
One ex-minister described the corporation tax rise to me as “categorically the wrong decision”. But the same old question for backbenchers remains: what will you sacrifice for tax cuts?
It’s possible that he has pulled off a political coup, begun radically to re-set the UK’s relationship with the EU – and created the circumstances in which voters may give him a second look.
Our question is a finger-to-the-wind test not only of what the panel thinks of the Prime Minister’s handling of the Protocol so far, but of his standing generally – and it’s not good news for him.
The Prime Minister is not abandoning the trade agenda on the altar of the farming lobby, just proceeding with more caution
Merely “looking at” such measures as raising the pension age and reforming the benefits system will not be enough to demonstrate fiscal credibility.
Johnson’s defenestration and the war in Ukraine have fatally undermined the push for decarbonsation. But increasing our domestic energy supply will prove just as difficult.
The Ukrainian President transformed the atmosphere at Westminster, uniting past British heroes with the present heroes fighting to evict his country’s invaders.
The aghast reaction of some in the political entertainment industry to Sunak’s low-key reshuffle shows many have still not gotten used to a Prime Minister more interested in quietly delivering than feeding the SW1 soap opera.
The Prime Minister also confirms “we will continue to support Ukraine to ensure a decisive military victory on the battlefield this year.”
Hers is a flimsy proposition that Team Rishi could easily defeat, if only they had something substantial to put in its stead.
Even though she won a big majority of the Conservative members plus the largest number of MPs declaring, there was a feeling from the very outset that she would not be allowed to govern in the way she wanted.
The ex-Prime Minister tells Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls that she’s “not desperate to get back into Number 10”.
The Prime Minister must learn from his predecessor and condemn Beijing’s hostile activity.