Tory leadership race – latest: Sunak and Truss set to come face-to-face today for penultimate debate

Language used by the government during its Covid-19 briefings throughout the pandemic was “vague, slippery and ambiguous” so as to reduce accountability, a new study has found.

Researchers from Nottingham Trent University found that ministers adopted “lexicogrammatical strategies” to share responsibility for policy decisions with the public.

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Freezing energy bills will not help people who need the most support with the cost of living crisis, a minister has said.

Armed Forces Minister James Heappey said the “eyewatering” sum would not be the best way through a winter of price hikes.

Speaking to Sky News he said: “I don’t think that a universal freezing of everybody’s energy bill really helps to get taxpayer’s money into the bank accounts of the people who need support the most.”

Instead, he said both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had proposed the “better solution” of “more targeted packages” of support to the least well off.

The government must increase its energy bills discount by at least 150 per cent, a consumer group has warned.

The government “must do more” to help energy consumers pay soaring bills, the consumer group “Which?” warned ahead of Friday’s announcement of the energy price cap for the three months from October.

The current package of government support was announced in May, but price cap forecasts have risen massively since then.

Rishi Sunak said that one of the major mistakes was to empower scientists during the Covid pandemic.I

n an interview with The Spectator, he said that it was a mistake to allow the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much sway over policy.

He also revealed that he was banned from discussing “trade-offs” of restrictions, such as missed doctor appointments and mounting NHS backlogs.

He claimed during the interview that he became “very emotional” at times about the damage closing schools would cause to children, but said his objections were met with a “big silence” from colleagues.

The two Tory leadership candidates are going head-to-head today in the penultimate debate of the campaign.

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have both tried to woo voters even as the cost of living crisis grips the country and rising energy bills continue to overshadow the contest between the two.

On Wednesday, Mr Sunak said: “Inflation has got to be the priority and that is why I will grip it in a way that no-one else will.”

He added: “Actually, alternative plans that are complacent about the risk of inflation pretend that we can just borrow tens of billions of pounds and that there are no hard choices for Government, I don’t think are realistic.”

On the other hand, just ahead of Thursday’s face-to-face, Ms Truss focussed on her plans of tax cuts, supply-side reform, better regulation and targeted investment zones.

Ms Truss also pledged to tackle trade union strike action, such as that at the Port of Felixstowe this week.

Liz Truss has signalled that she will not appoint an ethics adviser if she replaces Boris Johnson, suggesting it was unnecessary because she knew “the difference between right and wrong”.

Read the full story by Adam Forrest here:

The government would need to spend more than £110bn to cover almost all of Britons’ extra energy costs over the next year, a new report by Institute for Government (IfG) has found.

It would cost £23bn to cover October’s energy price cap hike, according to the think tank – with the average household set to spend £900 more on energy this autumn than was expected only three months ago.

Read the full story by Adam Forrest here:

Boris Johnson has urged the British public to endure higher energy bills as the price of freedom in Europe because “the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood.”

In a surprise visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, UK Prime Minister said: If we’re paying our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood.

“And that’s why we know we must stay the course. Because if Putin were to succeed, then no country on Russia’s perimeter would be safe.”

Ukraine “can and will win this war” with Russia, Boris Johnson said as he visited Kyiv to mark the country’s Independence Day.

The Prime Minister, making his last visit to Ukraine before leaving office, said the UK “will continue to stand with our Ukrainian friends” as he set out a further £54 million package of military aid.