Liz Truss latest news: New PM branded ‘imbecile’ after cabinet reshuffle as she prepares to face first PMQs

Therese Coffey has refused to comment on whether the UK will borrow to fund energy help for consumers.

Asked whether the package to support households will be funded through general taxation or borrowing, the newly-appointed deputy PM told Sky News: “Ultimately, we receive money through taxation from people and businesses and then redistribute that accordingly to the priorities set out in our manifesto and the needs of the country. So more will be said about that, aspects of that in during this week”.

She added: “People, including you, will just have to wait for the detail of that.”

Ms Coffey, who is viewed as Ms Truss’s closest friend in Westminster, said the new Cabinet “will continue to make sure that we do strain every sinew put everything that we can in order to get our economy growing again”.

The wife of sacked minister Johnny Mercer – who branded Liz Truss an “imbecile” during her Cabinet reshuffle yesterday – has accused the new PM of having “lied” during her leadership campaign.

Reacting to James Heappey’s appointment to her husband’s former role as minister for the armed forces and veterans, Felicity Cornelius-Mercer alleged that she heard Ms Truss “on speakerphone” pledging to “keep veterans affairs where they are” while asking for her husband’s support in the leaderhip race.

“Reversing the seven years of work my husband did getting veterans away from the MoD where it failed him and so many others, and showing she lied in the leadership election to ‘keep veterans affairs where they are’ (yes I heard her on speakerphone to him asking for his vote). Nice,” Ms Cornelius-Mercer tweeted.

The new deputy PM and health secretary Therese Coffey has insisted that Liz Truss’s cost of living support – expected on Thursday – will “assure people”.

“Clearly we’ve just been through a significant leadership campaign but I know that Liz, being the serious person that she is and recognising that we need to hit the ground running, we have been working on plans as potential [for] what we could do,” Ms Coffey told Sky News.

She added: “We’re still certainly working to make sure we finalise the details of plans on each of the points that we’ve set out, and I know that this week – as the prime minister’s said yesterday – there will be a further announcement, and I’m sure that that will assure people, indeed when they hear what is going to be offered.”

Tory former leader Iain Duncan Smith has confirmed that he turned down Liz Truss’s offer of a position in his Cabinet as the leader of the House of Commons.

“I’m a great believer that, frankly, if i go to a new job, I need to add value to it, I need to add something else. Being leader of the House is not something I think that I would any particular value,” he told LBC.

Asked whether he would like to be chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Sir Iain replied: “I am actually seriously thinking about standing for that.”

Liz Truss’s energy plan could ultimately be “too little, too late”, a union has warned, describing the new prime minister’s speech upon entering No 10 as “totally underwhelming”.

Ahead of an expected announcement of her plan to help households survive the cost of living crisis, the shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, urged Ms Truss to freeze the price cap as an “immediate measure”.

But the union warned that the government must not pass the costs of its potential support on to consumers in the longer term.

“After twelve years of Conservative rule and a summer of zombie government, we are totally underwhelmed by what we heard from Liz Truss today,” said Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis.

“Our members were desperate to hear the new prime minister lay out a substantial and urgent plan to tackle the cost of living crisis, which would stem rocketing energy prices and bring inflation under control.

“They wanted to see a commitment to bring forward an employment bill that will end poverty pay and insecure work. However, instead we heard little to help the lives of working people struggling to make ends meet and her number one priority is tax cuts for the rich.”

The wife of a minister fired by Liz Truss has called the new prime minister an “imbecile” in a social media post about her husband’s sacking (Kate Devlin writes).

Felicity Cornelius-Mercer, wife of dismissed veterans minister Johnny Mercer, hit out at the new prime minister saying the “system stinks” just hours after Ms Truss began her reshuffle.

She also said her husband had questioned Ms Truss: “Why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?”

And she claimed the new Conservative leader replied: “I can’t answer that, Johnny.”

Liz Truss rewarded close allies with top cabinet jobs while removing most supporters of Rishi Sunak from government in a major reshuffle as she took over from Boris Johnson as prime minister.

lk of Ms Truss’s appointments are on the Conservative party’s right-wing, dampening hopes that she would try to unite the party after an extremely divisive leadership contest.

Ms Truss also sent former deputy PM Dominic Raab and cabinet colleagues Grant Shapps, George Eustice and Steve Barclay to the backbenches after they supported Mr Sunak, her rival in the Tory leadership contest who was more popular among MPs.

Her appointments mean that for the first time in UK history, none of the four great offices of state were held by a white man, in a move welcomed by Tories as a win for “meritocracy”.

Liam James tells you the full list of ministers who made it to the new prime minister’s top team:

Rents will be frozen in Scotland under emergency plans to tackle the cost of living crisis announced by the first minister Nicola Sturgeon (Kate Devlin writes).

Legislation presented to parliament will also introduce a moratorium on evictions, the SNP leader said.

The freeze will affect tenants in the private and social renting sectors. Ms Sturgeon said the measures were part of a package to tackle the “humanitarian emergency” sparked by skyrocketing prices.

The move comes as new prime minister Liz Truss prepares to unveil plans to help households with soaring energy bills.

The Scottish government will also double its fuel insecurity fund this year, from £10m to £20m.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister who will oversee the UK’s energy and climate strategy in Liz Truss’s cabinet, has long been dismissive of the looming catastrophe of global warming, writes Joe Middleton.

The controversial minister, who has been appointed to the role of secretary of statement for business, energy and industrial strategy, has dismissed climate science as “alarmism” and criticised the closure of coal-fired power stations.

The former Boris Johnson-loyalist has reportedly already met with major oil and gas companies in anticipation of taking up the role amid fears over the UK’s energy supply this winter.

The nation’s papers are wholly led by Liz Truss officially taking the helm at No 10.

The Independent leads with Ms Truss appointing the members of her cabinet, with a former MP telling revealing their fears it was amounting to a “cabinet of cronies”.

“We can ride out the storm” is the headline on The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, Daily Expressand The Timesas Ms Truss made her first speech as prime minister.

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