In-depth reporting, data and actionable intelligence for policy professionals – all in one place.

What's driving the day in Westminster. Politics and policymaking in the UK capital.

Press play to listen to this article

Send tips here | Subscribe for free | Listen to Playbook and view in your browser

FLY ME TO THE MOON: It’s a very exciting day for fans of space exploration. The Artemis I mission to the moon should hopefully get underway this afternoon. The uncrewed rocket is due to head off into space between 1.33 p.m. and 3.33 p.m. U.K. time. You can watch the proceedings from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida here. 

Blast-off: There won’t be any humans on board this time (though Shaun the Sheep will be traveling), but the ultimate aim of the Artemis program is to return people to the moon for the first time since 1972, and eventually land them on Mars. The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe has a nice piece about the excitement on the ground from Cape Canaveral in Florida here.

Good Monday morning. This is Annabelle Dickson. I’ll be bringing you Tuesday’s London Playbook too. Enjoy the bank holiday sunshine before the countdown to a new prime minister begins in earnest. 

MEANWHILE ON PLANET EARTH: Britain’s prime ministerial purgatory will finally end a week today catapulting Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak out of the Tory leadership contest parallel universe into a world where promises come with a cost, and trade-offs collide with reality. Amid fresh briefing over the weekend about the direction of travel being plotted by Team Truss and her supporters in the likely event she walks into No. 10 Downing Street next week, there has been a fresh bout of attacks on Trussonomics. Plus ça change.

**A message from UK Fisheries: What became of the ‘Sea of Opportunity?’ The UK’s distant waters fleet has seen its overall quotas halved since 2019, risking our food security and forcing us to import more from Norway, Iceland – and Russia. Click here to see what the Government must do NOW to protect our industry.**

Black hole: Britons, many of whom will be spending the long weekend not going out and instead grimly assessing their household budgets, continue to wait for news about who might get help and what it might look like after Ofgem confirmed on Friday that bills will soar to a whopping £3,549 a year on average from the start of October. Truss, the frontrunner to become PM next week, promised she has a “clear plan to get Britain through this storm and out the other side” in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, but the continued lack of detail has left a void which is being filled by anonymous allies and supporters offering tidbits about her thinking to curious hacks.

Sent into orbit: Team Truss was forced to clarify the foreign secretary “isn’t ruling anything out” last night after the BBC was briefed that Truss had “ruled out” further direct support to everyone to help pay their energy bills. “Liz has been clear we need to lower the burden of taxation and focus on boosting energy supplies and this will be her priority as prime minister,” a campaign source told Playbook, and others. “She’s also been clear further support may be required to help. Her preference is to target this to those most in need, but she isn’t ruling anything out,” the source added.

Deep rockets: The big story of the weekend is the suggestion Truss is considering announcing a major VAT cut in the weeks after she wins power. The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times got the first whiff of the eye-catching option, which is viewed by her supporters as a way to help troubled households deal with inflation, and aid businesses grappling with closure-inducing uncapped power costs. A source described it as the “nuclear” option to the Telegraph, which was briefed on the prospect of a 5 percent cut. Supporters tell today’s Sun that Truss is “being pushed to be more radical” and to slash the sales tax by a whopping 10 percent. 

Get sirius: Predictably, her rival, the former chancellor, is not impressed. A Sunak source hit back that the plan was “flawed on many levels” given VAT is not paid on basic items such as food. “Cutting VAT will benefit higher income households more, leaving very little to no benefit for lower income households who will need the most help this winter,” the Sunak source added. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, tells today’s Times the proposal is “inappropriate” and risks exacerbating inflation.

In the ozone: The Sunday Times says Truss is also considering cutting income tax, with allies telling the paper Truss believes the level above which people begin paying income tax should be lifted several years ahead of the Treasury’s schedule. Today’s Times says a significant increase in Universal Credit from October is also being considered for the 8.5 million most vulnerable families.

Giving them a rocket: On the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night a frustrated Siobhain McDonagh exploded: “People don’t want coded words or long articles in broadsheets in Sunday papers.” The Labour MP said people just wanted to know what the government is going to do.

Gravity of the situation: There are plenty of case studies highlighting the real-world impact of the price hikes around today. The Mirror’s Mikey Smith picks up warnings that a third of U.K. music venues risk closure because of energy price hikes, while the Guardian reports thousands of corner shops could close.

Eclipsed: The contrast between U.K. government’s public messaging and that of some of its European counterparts is certainly stark. German Economy Minister Robert Habeck was able to announce his country’s gas storage facilities were filling up faster than planned yesterday. The government goal of achieving 85 percent storage capacity by October could be reached by the beginning of September, he said. Reuters has more on his comments to Der Spiegel. On the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night former U.K. diplomat Peter Ricketts was scathing of a U.K. government that has been “drifting over the last two months.” He highlighted the contrast with other major world leaders who have been putting in place “very ambitious proposals” to deal with the crisis,

What Lunar-tics:  After a summer of Tory leadership paralysis, it is worth remembering that parliament is only due to return for three weeks next month. Campaigner Gina Miller has called on Truss and Sunak to cancel the planned conference recess, due to begin on September 22. The Guardian has more.

Hold on a moon-ite: In another conventional-wisdom-defying YouGov poll, the Times says nearly half of Tory voters want energy companies returned to public ownership. Just 28 percent are opposed to such a move. Playbook is old enough to remember Tory MPs gleefully mocking Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto, which floated the idea of taking large parts of the energy industry back under public ownership. Life comes at you fast sometimes.

Between a rock and a hard place: The polling also provides a stark illustration of just how serious the crisis is. More than a fifth of those polled said they would not be able to heat their home “except on a very limited basis,” and 5 percent did not believe they could heat their home at all. Separate Savanta ComRes research, commissioned by the Lib Dems, found almost one in four adults in the U.K. will not switch on the heating at all this winter. The Guardian has a write-up.

Bad atmosphere: Amid all the focus on Truss, Sunak’s supporters continue to insist their man is still in with a shot. It appears to have at least spooked the current PM. A Tory Party source told the Sun on Sunday’s Kate Ferguson the PM is “really worried Rishi might actually snatch a shock victory and be the next PM” and “won’t sleep easy until he knows Liz has the keys to No. 10.”

Star pollsters: Pollsters are more relaxed. Opinium’s Chris Curtis tells Playbook the size of the lead from multiple pollsters (all of whom are using different methodologies) implies that even a larger than average polling error isn’t going to lead to Sunak winning. Joe Twyman of Deltapoll agrees. “When you’re consistently behind by so much, you don’t have much alternative other than to question the polls to some degree,” he says. Pollsters have a good record of historical accuracy in leadership contests, he reckons, pointing out YouGov polls as far back as 2001 had former leader Iain Duncan Smith ahead at a time it was thought unlikely he would triumph. 

Martian to victory? Sunak still battles on. He has a member event in his Richmond constituency today. Team Truss had no campaign news today.

Help on the (milky) way: On his penultimate weekend as PM, Boris Johnson popped up to let us know things are going to be “very tough.” But in a typically boosterish piece for the Mail on Sunday he said there would be a “huge package of financial support” from whomever takes over next month, boasting: “We have the cash to support families across the country because we have already proved the pessimists wrong.” The main purpose of the piece appeared to be to pin the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin, and give us a long list of Johnson’s achievements in office.

Keeping a halo profile: That’s not it. The Telegraph hears Johnson will warn his successor not to give up on investing in green energy in favor of short-term fixes for the cost of living crisis this week.

The constellation prize: After pretty much announcing his departure from frontline politics with a broadside at Truss earlier this month, former Leveling Up Secretary Michael Gove has been spotted out in Ibiza, the Mediterranean dance capital. It comes just months after he threw some shapes north of the border on a trip to Scotland. The Mirror has the all-important picture.

And in comet-y timing: The U.K.’s biggest warship — HMS Prince of Wales — broke down off the south coast shortly after setting sail on a “landmark mission” to the U.S. last night. (H/t Deborah Haynes via @NavyLookout). The metaphor was not lost on Twitter.

**Dive deep with POLITICO Pro. Get a 360° view of any topic through Pro’s connections between journalistic insight, data and more. Learn more here.**

CHINA THREAT: Truss plans to class China as a “threat” to national security for the first time, giving it a similar status to Russia, the Times reports this morning. On the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night, Ricketts said China was “the real threat for the next generation,” but said the U.K. had to balance security vigilance and be very tough on human rights, while also maintaining a capacity to trade with “one of the largest and most vigorous markets in the world.” He said he wasn’t sure declaring China a threat was “the most nuanced way to do it.” 

NEW BACKER: Northern Ireland Minister Conor Burns was also on the BBC’s Westminster Hour last night and revealed he had voted for Truss in the leadership contest. After previously keeping his counsel, he said he was happy to show his hand as there was “no longer any question of personal advantage or advancement.” It is not exactly a surprise Burns is not backing Sunak given he is one of Johnson’s most loyal allies.

WANTED: The Mail on Sunday reckons Truss is on the hunt for her own “economics guru” — like Margaret Thatcher and Alan Walters — and is sounding out figures in the City and academia to advise her on the cost of living crisis. 

CONTINUITY BORIS: Truss looks set to emulate the Boris playbook and visit Ukraine in her first months in office if she becomes the next PM, the Sun on Sunday says

LISTEN TO THIS: The 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs had a hand in deciding the timing and shape of this summer’s leadership contest and the BBC has a super documentary looking at how the group organically evolved as a self-help forum for MPs on Radio 4 tonight at 8 p.m. Playbook was given a sneak preview and can highly recommend it for those wondering how it all began for the backbench Tory trade union. It is also essential listening for a new PM who may encounter party management issues. Truss hasn’t even been crowned and the Sunday Times team has already been told talk of an early leadership challenge is “real,” amid seller’s remorse over the defenestration of Boris Johnson. 🙄

AND READ THIS: Two excellent columns by Charlotte Ivers and Robert Colvile in the Sunday Times looking at the despair of the younger generation should be essential reading for anyone joining the new government. Last time Playbook checked, Charlotte and Rob were not exactly rabble-rousing Labour activists.

BECOMING A TARGET: POLITICO’s Emilio Casalicchio has a compelling piece today looking in-depth at how the retired MI6 boss Richard Dearlove, his Brexiteer friends and a celebrity Marxist became targets in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Emilio reveals the hack of Dearlove’s friend Gwythian Prins, a professor at the London School of Economics, whose personal emails were published on fringe far-left websites earlier this year, is being investigated by British security services.

Allegations: The piece looks at how the leaks were presented as sensational proof that “coup plotters” now ran the U.K. government, with a website alleging that ex-MI6 chief Dearlove “together with his former colleagues and CIA cronies conducted [a] successful intelligence operation against No. 10,” when in fact the emails reveal no such thing.

Write-up: Emilio talked to the British-born reporter Kit Klarenberg, who was behind a piece on the leaks for the Grayzone website. He insists he had not consciously set out to exaggerate the significance of the contents of the leaked emails.

FCDO IN-TRAY I: The next foreign secretary — rumored to be James Cleverly if Truss wins — could be welcomed by striking civil servants, according to the Telegraph’s Tony Diver. Officials in Truss’ department are said to be feeling mutinous over a well-below-inflation 3 percent pay offer and a broken promise to increase the wages of staff who worked in DFID pre-merger. Amid other threats from some mandarins to “work to rule” unless a cap on pay rises is lifted, one Foreign Office civil servant told the Telegraph that “all of a sudden I don’t feel like giving this organization a single second of my free time outside my core hours.”

FCDO in-tray II: Save the Children is warning that overseas aid projects will see their budgets slashed by the decision to include spending on the U.K.’s 100,000 Ukrainian refugees within the already-slashed aid budget. The charity estimates that spending will reach £3 billion, which would be a full quarter of aid spend this year. The Indy splashes on Rob Merrick’s story.

BACK TO SCHOOL NEWS I: Allies of the PM are (unsurprisingly) calling for a senior Tory to be added to the privileges committee to “boost Johnson’s chances of a fair hearing” in the Partygate inquiry, Brendan Carlin reported in the MoS. Tory MP Laura Farris will be replaced on the committee when parliament returns next week.

Back to school news II: The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg had the first promo video — and swish graphics — for the BBC’s new flagship Sunday morning show, which will return with the ex-pol-ed hosting next Sunday. Kuenssberg also had an interview in the Sunday Times Magazine: newslines included her pushing back against recent news stories by making a case for BBC impartiality and revealing she ignores her Twitter trolls.

YOU DON’T SAY: The current privatization model for energy and water, and particularly the current form of regulation, is “broken,” former Tory adviser and Oxford professor Dieter Helm told the FT.

COMING TO AN AUCTION HOUSE NEAR YOU: Labour is flogging must-have items like Keir Starmer’s maiden Commons’ speech and tea with Jenny Chapman to raise money for the next election, the Sun’s Jonathan Reilly and Kate Ferguson report. Starmer’s own local party is also auctioning off his verbose conference speech from last year.

Also in the Labour wars: One to watch out for during conference season. Kate Ferguson writes in the Sun that Labour is looking into changing its constitution to rule out formal coalitions with nationalist parties like the SNP, as part of evergreen efforts to defuse Tory “coalition of chaos” attacks. It’s not clear yet what this means for Welsh Labour or its cooperation agreement with Plaid Cymru — MS Alun Davies was leading some bemused Welsh responses to the story on Twitter.

Striking times: Another one to watch out for during next month’s conference seasons. The Trades Union Congress could coordinate strikes by thousands of union members in separate pay dispute, the Observer reported this weekend.

CURRYING FAVOR: Border Force bosses forked out £1,500 on a Cinnamon Club working lunch with 16 “high-level French officials,” the Sun’s Jonathan Reilly reports.

STATE OF THE UNION: Nicola Sturgeon will wade through Edinburgh’s mountains of rubbish to make her fifth festival appearance of the summer tonight with an International Book Festival sit-down with Succession actor — and SNP supporter — Brian Cox. In-person tickets are sold out but you can watch online here. Meanwhile, bin strike talks will continue today with council umbrella group Cosla set to make an improved offer to the unions as per the Times’ Kieran Andrews.

**A message from UK Fisheries: Fishing is part of the life blood of our country, but the Government’s disastrous handling of quota negotiations since 2019 is bleeding us dry. The Kirkella – the UK’s last remaining distant waters freezer trawler – is struggling to operate on less than half of the fish we brought home for our national dish in 2019. This means reduced income for our British crews and their families and a greater reliance on imports of whitefish from Norway, Iceland and even Russia. This dangerous situation is well within the Government’s power to fix, but incredibly they have failed to negotiate properly with our trading partners around the North Sea, and have not used Britain’s considerable bargaining muscle as an importer of seafood products to help our industry thrive and grow. The new Conservative administration must act urgently to save Britain’s fishers. Click here to read more.**

Today program: Former Chancellor Alistair Darling (7.50 a.m.).

BBC Breakfast: TUC head of economics Kate Bell (6.50 a.m.) … Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine (7.10 a.m.).

Times Radio breakfast: Mike Hawes, chief executive Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (7.05 a.m.) … Defra Minister and Sunak supporter Victoria Prentis (7.15 a.m.) … Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commanding officer of the U.K.’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment (8.20 a.m.).

TalkTV breakfast: TUC head of public services Kevin Rowan (7.20 a.m.) … DEFRA Minister Victoria Prentis (7.30 a.m.) … UKHospitality chief Kate Nicholls (9.05 a.m.).

Reviewing the papers tonight: talkTV (10 p.m.): Broadcaster Daisy McAndrew and commentator Benedict Spence.

(Click on the publication’s name to see its front page.)

Daily Express: Millions facing hardship with ‘end of cash in 5 years.’

Daily Mail: Hospitals hit by £5.5m-a-day bed blocking crisis.

Daily Mirror: Schools and NHS bills emergency.

Daily Star: Phew! This really stinks.

Financial Times: Policymakers warn of challenges in tackling new era of inflation.

i: Truss under pressure to offer energy help for all.

POLITICO UK: How a retired MI6 boss, his Brexiteer friends and a celebrity Marxist became targets in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

PoliticsHome: Liz Truss considering ‘nuclear’ tax cuts to help with cost of living crisis.

The Daily Telegraph: PM — Don’t give up on green energy.

The Guardian: Revealed — Black and Asian cancer patients wait longer for diagnosis.

The Independent: Billions set to be cut from foreign aid projects.

The Times: Half of Tory voters want energy to be nationalised.

WESTMINSTER WEATHER: ☁️☁️☁️ Cloudy with some sunny intervals. Highs of 22C.

BIRTHDAYS: Commentator and former MEP Patrick O’Flynn … Times Literary Supplement Editor Martin Ivens … Google spinner Rosie Luff … The Economist’s Middle East Editor Roger McShane.

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: Editor Zoya Sheftalovich, reporter Andrew McDonald and producer Grace Stranger.

SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | Playbook Paris | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Direct | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | Global Insider | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters

Log in to access content and manage your profile. If you do not have an account you can register here.

By logging in, you confirm acceptance of our POLITICO Privacy Policy.