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Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s youngest prime minister in modern times and the country’s first non-white leader after Conservative MPs overwhelmingly backed him to succeed Liz Truss. The former chancellor’s path to office was cleared on Sunday when ex-prime minister Boris Johnson abandoned his hopes of a comeback. Johnson had secured the public backing of

Boris Johnson was on Sunday desperately seeking more Conservative MPs to support his comeback bid, as he tried to secure the 100 nominations needed to enter the ballot to become Britain’s next prime minister. Talks on Saturday night between Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor and frontrunner in the contest, did not result in

Penny Mordaunt has held nine ministerial positions in eight government departments, including three cabinet posts. Yet until this summer’s Conservative leadership contest, when she came third, she was an unfamiliar figure to most of the British public. Now she is making another bid to become prime minister, touting her “fresh face” as a virtue that

Conservative MPs were on Friday deeply divided by the prospect of Boris Johnson returning as party leader and UK prime minister — just three months after he quit following a string of scandals. Contenders to replace Liz Truss — who dramatically resigned on Thursday after only six weeks in power — were racing to secure

Liz Truss was on Thursday forced to quit as UK prime minister, drawing to a dramatic close 44 days in office which saw her preside over an economic meltdown and catastrophic damage to the ruling Conservative party. Truss was told to quit by senior party figures on Thursday morning, leaving bitterly divided Tory MPs facing

UK prime minister Liz Truss committed to increasing state pensions in line with prices next year as Britain’s inflation rate rose to a 40-year high of 10.1 per cent in September. Speaking during prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Truss sought to reassure pensioners their incomes would not fall behind inflation

The Bank of England is set to delay the sale of billions of pounds of government bonds in a bid to foster greater stability in gilt markets following the UK’s failed “mini” Budget. The BoE had already delayed the start of its sale of £838bn of gilts bought under its quantitative easing programme from October

Jeremy Hunt, the new UK chancellor, on Monday scrapped the bulk of his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cuts in a desperate effort to calm markets, while slashing the government’s energy support package. In an emergency move to rebuild the government’s fiscal credibility, Hunt rewrote the government’s tax and spending plans, putting a wrecking ball through

The UK’s new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has insisted that prime minister Liz Truss is still running the government after reports suggested he was preparing to scrap further parts of her “mini” Budget. Following Truss’s decision to sack her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng on Friday, senior Conservative MPs believe it is a matter of time before she

Jeremy Hunt, the new UK chancellor, has admitted taxes will have to rise and spending will have to be cut after prime minister Liz Truss failed to reassure markets with a U-turn on cutting corporation tax. In his first interviews since replacing Kwasi Kwarteng, who was sacked by the prime minister on Friday, Hunt buried

Liz Truss, UK prime minister, is set to dismiss chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as she prepares to carry out a dramatic U-turn on his “mini” Budget, according to government insiders. Two senior government figures said Kwarteng would be sacked on Friday. Downing Street declined to confirm that the chancellor would remain in his post, refusing to

A rally in UK government bonds gathered momentum on Thursday, as yields continued to drop following signs that the Bank of England’s bond-buying intervention is ramping up in its final days. The 30-year gilt yield fell by 0.32 percentage points to 4.57 per cent, signalling a strong rise in prices. It had soared above 5

A sell-off in UK government bonds accelerated on Wednesday, sending long-term borrowing costs higher after the Bank of England reiterated its plans to halt its emergency gilt buying scheme as scheduled on Friday. The central bank said on Wednesday morning that it “has made clear from the outset, its temporary and targeted purchases of gilts

The Bank of England has widened its emergency bond-buying programme to include inflation-linked gilts in its latest attempt to stem “fire sales” by pension funds that have created a “material risk to UK financial stability”. The central bank said on Tuesday it was prepared to buy up to £5bn a day in index-linked UK government

Vladimir Putin has said Russia hit targets in air strikes across Ukraine in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge linking Russia to the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. Speaking at a meeting of his security council on Monday, the Russian president accused Kyiv of a “terrorist attack” at the Kerch bridge, damaged by an explosion

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the move by Opec+ to cut oil production was “unhelpful and unwise” for the global economy, particularly emerging markets already struggling with high energy prices. The Biden administration has been loudly critical of the decision by the oil cartel backed by Saudi Arabia and Russia this week, which took

An explosion tore through Russia’s bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea early on Saturday, severely damaging it in a major blow to Vladimir Putin more than seven months into his invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s anti-terrorist committee said a truck exploded on the bridge’s roadside in the early hours of Saturday morning and caused seven

UK regulators on Friday began a new round of licences to enable companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea, as climate campaigners signalled they would aim to mount a legal challenge. The North Sea Transition Authority is expected to award more than 100 permits to companies by the end of June,

The UK’s largest private-sector pension scheme increased its exposure to debt-fuelled investment strategies earlier this year in spite of warnings the move would bring “significant risks”. The £90bn Universities Superannuation Scheme ploughed more of its members’ assets into leveraged hedging, the strategy that was engulfed by crisis last week after a surge in government bond

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for the initially agreed price of $44bn, in a move that could put an end to one of the highest-profile corporate legal battles in decades. The Tesla chief sent a letter to Twitter on Monday night offering to go ahead with the deal, less than two weeks before