Latest updates: follow all the developments as the new leader of the Conservatives is elected
Good morning. Parties hold leadership contests so that candidates can set out their policies and members can choose which they like best. But the Conservative party ballot, which will end today with Liz Truss all but certain to be chosen as the new leader, to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister after an audience with the Queen tomorrow, has seen that process inverted. The cost of energy will pose the biggest crisis for the next PM, but Truss and her rival, Rishi Sunak, only spoke in general terms about how they would handle it and yesterday Truss, in her interview for the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, even suggested it would be improper for her to say what she would do. Sounding like a chancellor before budget day, Truss said:
What I want to reassure people is I will act, if elected as prime minister, within one week. Now, what I can’t do, Laura, on this show, is tell you exactly what that announcement would be … It would be completely wrong.
Scottish Power has proposed a £100 billion plan for a two-year energy bill freeze, financed by loans underwritten by the Treasury. The proposal is backed by other energy firms.
One energy company source said the idea has been “extremely actively explored” by Truss campaign figures and that Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary tipped to become chancellor if Ms Truss wins, appeared “very open” to options for a freeze.
Senior Tories lined up for appointments in Truss’s cabinet have been told “in no uncertain terms” not to scorn the idea that energy bills could be frozen.
Industry sources said that a price freeze for consumers was “the only conversation that anyone was having with the government”, including discussions involving Kwasi Kwarteng, who is expected to be Truss’s chancellor.
