Your Saturday UK Briefing: Why Truss’s Supporters Are on Edge
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Something for the weekend
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(Bloomberg) — Well, hello there.
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It’s Boris Johnson’s last couple of days in charge before he reluctantly hands over the keys to No. 10 to, presumably, Liz Truss. After weeks of staking out an aggressively libertarian agenda and with their goal within reach, Team Truss is plotting how to steer the country—not to mention a divided Tory party—through the brutal economic storm coming this winter. Alex Wickham reports how some of her policies have her closest supporters on edge.
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Alex also looks at who’ll be in (probably) Kwasi Kwarteng’s treasury team and, more significantly, who’s set to get nudged out. The signs are that Truss will push on with her campaign promise to break from the “economic orthodoxy” that she has repeatedly said isn’t working.
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In a bleak reminder of how tenuous things are across the Channel, Europe’s attempts to cut its dependency on Russian gas suffered a major blow when Gazprom said it wouldn’t be able to reopen the all-important Nord Stream pipeline on time after all. Very sorry, “technical issues.”
It’s worth remembering that while Britain doesn’t depend on Russia for its gas, the move is set to add more turmoil to wholesale prices, and therefore energy bills. Six in 10 factories are now at risk of going under, leaving businesses facing a stark choice between cutting production or shutting up shop altogether, according to a lobby group.
Our graphics team cooked up a handy chart breaking down which appliances cost the most to run. But for one niche industry, it’s not all doom and gloom. Surprise, surprise, the upper end of the market for Swiss watchmaking is thriving, Andy Hoffman writes.
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Bloomberg Green reports how Europe’s record drought is showing that too little, not too much water, could spell disaster for millions of Dutch homes as a drought-induced fungi rots their foundations. And we have an easy question for you. When it comes to green incentives for consumers, who does it better: Europe or the US?
Few, if any, have done it better than Serena Williams. Her US Open adventure is over, capping a glittering 27-year career that defined a new era of tennis and inspired sponsors to take female athletes more seriously.
And finally, have a listen to Alastair Campbell on the “Politics” podcast. He explains why the thinks the Labour Party missed a huge opportunity in failing to highlight the mess left by Johnson, and that Truss will now have to clean up.
Enjoy the rest of your Saturday, and we’ll be back tomorrow with a look-ahead to the coming week.
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