Kalyeena Makortoff
Rising costs have created a “time bomb” for small business owners in the UK, warned the president of the Federation of Small Business (FSB), with nearly half a million companies at risk of going to bankruptcy in a few weeks without a new wave of government support.
While FSB President Martin McTague applauded Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s latest support to consumers through the £ 15bn cost-of-living package announced last week, he said some of these recipients could lose their jobs unless the government implements specific measures for their employers.
McTague told BBC Radio 4 Today:
We have no problem with the way the chancellor handled the needs of consumers. But there is still a big problem with small businesses. They face something like twice the inflation rate of their production prices, and it’s a time bomb. They literally have weeks left before they run out of cash and that would mean hundreds of thousands of businesses and a lot of people will lose their jobs.
McTague pointed to figures from the National Statistics Office, which showed that 40%, or 2 million, of small businesses in the UK had less than three months of cash to support their operations. Of those 2 million, the FSB president said 10%, or 200,000, were in “serious trouble” and that another 300,000 “only have weeks left”.
He said:
It’s a very real possibility because … they don’t have cash reserves. They have no way of dealing with this problem.
Read the full story here:
Peter Walker
Boris Johnson is “abusing the ministerial code” by redrafting it to reduce possible sanctions for non-compliant ministers, said a former member of the government’s ethical standards oversight body, who urged Conservative lawmakers to challenge it.
Jane Martin, a former local government ombudswoman who served on the public life standards committee for five years until December 2021, said Johnson had misused a report from her committee as a stimulus to weaken code.
The prime minister was widely criticized on Friday after announcing a revision of the ministerial code to formally state that ministers who breach the code would not be expected to resign automatically, but could apologize or lose some pay.
In the changes made before an investigation by lawmakers into illicit block parties on Downing Street, Johnson prevented his independent head of ethics, Christopher Geidt, from gaining the power to initiate his own investigations.
He also rewrote the prologue to the code, removing references to honesty, integrity, transparency, and accountability.
In a letter to the Times, Martin said Johnson had used “blatantly manipulative tactics” and ignored the committee’s report used as a basis for rewriting the code.
She wrote:
His recommendations were not designed to lower standards, but to develop a balanced approach to accountability with appropriate sanctions, including preserving the waiver of the most serious offenses, such as deception by parliament.
This Prime Minister is abusing the ministerial code, which is (and should be) his. His writing degrades the seven principles of public life, indicating an option to ignore the foundations of parliamentary responsibility, which he, of course, understands.
He concludes that he is avoiding liability for all conventional channels. Surely Conservative MPs can no longer ignore this.
Read more here:
Updated at 10.24 BST
Culture Minister Chris Philp has said he will give his € 400 discount to a charity.
When asked by Nick Ferrari of LBC if he would follow the example of Chancellor Rishi Sunak, Philp said:
I hadn’t thought about it until you asked, Nick, but I think that’s a good idea. Yes, I will donate it to a local Croydon charity.
A Culture Minister has said it is not “immediately obvious” that there is an investigation into an alleged second event at No. 10 organized by the Prime Minister’s wife.
Sky News was asked by Chris Philp about reports that emerged over the weekend that Carrie Johnson had organized a couple of parties on the Downing Street floor.
On whether he thought the alleged meetings should be investigated, Philp said:
Well, I think we’ve had an incredibly complete set of research over a period of almost six months. Obviously, we published Sue Gray’s research last week. And he interviewed, God knows, dozens or even hundreds of people in the course of his research, looked at emails, messages, and everything else.
And we’ve had the metropolitan police investigation, which, again, has gone on and on for a few months. And they did so with full police powers.
So, having had two separate investigations, including the police for many months, it is not immediately obvious to me that we need further investigation when this has probably been the most … rightly so, the set of most investigated incidents. in depth. the last times.
For a summary of the history of the party in question, here is the full story:
Updated at 10.07 BST
UK foreign policy in Ukraine will not change depending on whether Boris Johnson is prime minister, Tobias Ellwood said.
The former Conservative minister told Sky News:
Do not assume that, just because Boris Johnson can be replaced or not, that our foreign policy will change in Ukraine. We have been offering weapon systems and support since 2014.
As I have just illustrated, there is a leadership gap in Europe at the moment. That is where I would like Britain to move forward in consolidating a coalition if NATO does not. This is what I would like to see Britain do.
Therefore, we do not use Ukraine as a fig leaf to deny the fact that we have a serious problem in our party that needs to be addressed. There has now been talk of a reshuffle to remove any other questioning voice, you know, that could criticize what the Prime Minister is doing in private.
This is exactly the wrong path we should take. It was the absence of listening to these curious minds that actually allowed the legislation to support Owen Paterson, for example, not to be examined.
On whether he would be waiting for a call if there was a refurbishment, Ellwood said, “I wouldn’t. I’m not sure I’ll answer that.”
Updated at 10.08 BST
Nicola Slawson
Boris Johnson is facing ongoing pressure from his own party as the aftermath of Partygate resonates and more MPs are calling for him to resign as prime minister.
Former Conservative minister Tobias Ellwood said the Conservative Party’s images appeared to be “in denial”.
The prime minister’s prime minister told Sky News that the party was “increasingly in a difficult position”.
He said:
This will be a testing summer. Polls now say we could lose 90 seats. And we still seem to be in denial. I think it’s time to get rid of this partisan Stockholm syndrome.
Our party brand is suffering. We will lose the next election in the current trajectory as reflected in the last local elections.
And when you make church elders in the party, like Lord Hague, express great concern now, you know, we have to listen. “
When asked by Sky News if he had received more public support for his view of the Prime Minister, Ellwood said he had received a lot of private support from people who agreed but were unwilling to state publicly.
He said the concerns within the party were not just about Partygate. He says reclaiming imperial measures is not “conservative thinking of a single nation,” for example, and the way the government seems to continue to filter out premature ads is also sowing discontent.
He said:
Not only is there a concern about behavior behavior at number 10 because this has broken trust with the British people, but now it is concerned about the number 10 thinking, what our policies are.
What we are seeing now is an approach to shoring up and persecuting a section of the electorate with policies such as reclaiming imperial measures.
There will be people in our party who will like this nostalgic policy in the hope that it will be enough to win the next election. But this is not the case. This is not a conservative thinking of a single nation that is needed to appeal beyond our base.
It is far from the progressive and visionary thinking we need. And it fits a pattern that I’m afraid of the micro-ads that are being launched more and more around here, which is actually sowing more discontent with more MPs.
Welcome to today’s live blog. Please contact me if you have any questions or feel that I am missing something. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com and I’m @Nicola_Slawson on Twitter.
You can also follow our live blog dedicated to Ukraine here:
Updated at 10.10 BST