Cost of living latest news: Rishi Sunak’s government ‘considering Swiss-style relationship with EU’

Labour’s deputy leader has called for a general election in the wake of Jeremy Hunt’s “nightmare before Christmas” Budget.

Angela Rayner said it was clear that prime ministr Rishi Sunak had no plan to grow the UK economy out of its current crisis.

“His only plan is to hike the taxes of working people to foot the bill the Tories left behind after 12 weeks of chaos and 12 years of economic failure,” she said.

“Britain simply can’t afford any more Conservative mismanagement. No one voted for this; we need a general election now.”

The West Suffolk MP was suspended from the party in November after announcing he would take part in the reality TV show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

The former health secretary’s decision to go to Australia with parliament still working sparked a backlash among his constituents and colleagues, including the prime minister.

Rishi Sunak said he was “disappointed” by Mr Hancock’s choice, adding that MPs “should be working hard for their constituents”.

Mr Hancock was suspended – or in political speak had the whip removed – by the Conservative Party on 1 November.

More than half of Britons have blamed the Conservative government over global factors for the cost of living crisis, a poll has revealed.

A nationally representative poll of more than 2,000 people from Find Out Now for Channel 4 News found that 51 per cent of people believe the government was largely culpable for the soaring cost of household bills, while 37 per cent hold international factors, such as the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine, responsible.

In the wake of chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s explosive autumn Budget, 29 per cent of voters said they now trust Labour to run the economy. Meanwhile, just 19 per cent put their faith in the Conservative party on fiscal matters.

Rishi Sunak has reportedly put a stop to the daily grilling of ministers on morning television and radio shows.

Previously, under his predecessors, one minister was chosen by Downing Street every day to answer questions on programmes such as BBC’s Breakfast, ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB) and BBC Radio 4’s Today.

Now the prime minister, who succeeded Liz Truss less than a month ago, will cut the frequency of interviews to about three days a week, The Mirror reports.

In 2014, just hours before the polls closed in the Scottish independence referendum, a BBC reporter was finishing a piece on the huge turnout to vote. In a final flourish, he looked straight down the camera and said: “They said people weren’t interested in politics. They were wrong.”

In the eight years since then, he has been proved correct over and over again, but in ways he could probably never have imagined.

As the UK lurched from crisis to crisis, political news has dominated. Brexit, Donald Trump, Theresa May’s “meaningful votes” – and a total of three prime ministers being toppled in four years.

Kate Devlin explains in her special report.

Rishi Sunak travelled to Ukraine to meet its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and confirm a major new package of air defence for the war-torn country. The visit is Mr Sunak’s first since he became prime minister, and follows in the footsteps of his predecessor Boris Johnson, who developed a personal friendship with the Ukrainian leader.

Mr Sunak told Mr Zelensky that Britain knows “what it means to fight for freedom” and would be with him and his citizens “all the way”.

The £50m package includes 125 anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones, No 10 said. It follows the provision of more than 1,000 new anti-air missiles, announced by the defence secretary earlier this month.

Restaurant company insolvencies have increased by 59 per cent, increasing at faster rate than during Covid pandemic, according to research.

They have soared from 984 in 2020-21 to 1,567 in 2021-22, according to an advisory firm, Mazars.

Rebecca Dacre, a partner at Mazars, said: “It is a very toxic mix of rising input costs, sharply rising finance costs and weak demand. Most restauranteurs have not seen this combination of negative factors before.

“The Christmas trading period is usually a bumper period for hospitality businesses. However, restaurants will be bracing themselves for a very tough winter and many face a real battle to keep afloat.

“There’s a certainty of further insolvencies if they don’t receive much more support from the Government, but the chances of the Government fully turning on the taps is low.”

In last three months, the number of insolvencies of restaurant businesses soared to 453 from 395 the previous quarter, it added.

As well as increasing food and energy costs, restaurants have been hit by shortages of staff, particularly for skilled roles such as chefs, said the report.

Some restaurants have revealed they will be cutting their trading hours to save on the cost of energy.

Sir Keir Starmer has reportedly vowed to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber if he becomes prime minister, Lamiat Sabin reports.

The Labour leader said he would enact this plan to “restore trust in politics”, according to The Observer.

He told his party’s peers at a meeting last week that he wants to transfer power from politicians to people by allowing them to vote on who to appoint to the upper chamber, the paper reported.

Sir Keir reportedly said: “I want to be clear that we do need to restore the trust of the public in every part of the United Kingdom in our system of government.

“House of Lords reform is just one part of that … People have lost faith in the ability of politicians and politics to bring about change, that is why, as well as fixing our economy, we need to fix our politics.”

Senior figures in Rishi Sunak’s government are reportedly planning to move Britain into a Swiss-style relationship with the European Union.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt signalled last week that Mr Sunak’s administration intends to break ranks with Boris Johnson’s approach by removing the majority of trade barriers with the bloc.

Now, according to The Sunday Times, senior government sources have suggested that pursuing frictionless trade means moving towards a Swiss-style agreement with the EU.

Downing Street sources rejected the report.