Europe
Boris Johnson drops out of next UK prime minister race
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Sunday he will not run to lead the Conservative Party, ending a short-lived, high-profile attempt to return to the prime minister's job he was ousted from little more than three months ago.
His withdrawal leaves former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak the strong favorite to become Britain's next prime minister — the third this year — at a time of political turmoil and severe economic challenges. He could win the contest as soon as Monday.
Johnson, who was ousted in July amid ethics scandals, had been widely expected to run to replace Liz Truss, who quit last week after her tax-cutting economic package caused turmoil in financial markets, was rapidly abandoned and and obliterated her authority inside the governing party.
Johnson spent the weekend trying to gain support from fellow Conservative lawmakers after flying back from a Caribbean vacation and held talks with the two other contenders, Sunak and House of Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt.
Late Sunday he said he had amassed the backing of 102 colleagues, more than the threshold of 100 needed to make a ballot of lawmakers on Monday.
But he was far behind Sunak in support, and said he had concluded that “you can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in Parliament.”
The prospect of a return by Johnson had thrown the already divided Conservative Party into further turmoil. He led the party to a thumping election victory in 2019, but his premiership was clouded by scandals over money and ethics that eventually became too much for the party to bear.
In his Sunday statement, Johnson insisted he was “well placed to deliver a Conservative victory" in the next national election, due by 2024. And he said that he likely would have won a ballot of Conservative Party members against either of his rivals.
“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do,” he said. “Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds.”
But he hinted he might be back, saying: “I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.”
After Truss quit on Thursday, the Conservative Party hastily ordered a contest that aims to finalize nominations Monday and install a new prime minister — its third this year — within a week.
The clear favorite now is Sunak, who has support from more than 140 lawmakers, according to unofficial tallies. Mordaunt is backed by fewer than 30.
If both make the ballot, the 357 Conservative lawmakers will hold an indicative vote on Monday to show their preference before the choice goes to the 172,000 party members around the country. If Mordaunt does not reach 100 nominations, Sunak will win by acclamation.
Sunak, 42, was runner-up after Truss in this summer's Tory leadership race to replace Johnson. On Sunday, he confirmed he was running again in the latest leadership contest.
“There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done," Sunak said in a statement.
Johnson's exit came only hours after allies insisted he would run. Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC on Sunday that he spoke with Johnson and “clearly he's going to stand" after flying back to London Saturday from a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
But Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker, a former backer of Johnson and an influential politician within the Conservative Party, warned a Johnson comeback would be a “guaranteed disaster.” Baker noted that Johnson still faces an investigation into whether he lied to Parliament while in office about breaking his government's own coronavirus restrictions during parties at Downing Street.
If found guilty, Johnson could be suspended as a lawmaker.
“This isn’t the time for Boris and his style,” Baker told Sky News on Sunday. “What we can’t do is have him as prime minister in circumstances where he’s bound to implode, taking down the whole government ... and we just can’t do that again.”
Truss quit Thursday after a turbulent 45 days, conceding that she could not deliver on her botched tax-cutting economic package, which she was forced to abandon after it sparked fury within her party and weeks of turmoil in financial markets.
Sunak, who was Treasury chief from 2020 until this summer, steered Britain's slumping economy through the coronavirus pandemic. He quit in July in protest at Johnson's leadership.
In the summer contest to replace Johnson, Sunak called promises by Truss and other rivals to immediately slash taxes reckless “fairy tales” and argued that soaring inflation must be controlled first.
Tory voters backed Truss over Sunak, but he was proved right when Truss' unfunded tax-cutting package triggered chaos in the markets in September. Now the task of stabilizing Britain's wobbling economy is likely to fall to him.
Russian authorities advise Kherson residents to leave Ukraine region
Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.
In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration strongly urged civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged plans for “terror attacks” by Kyiv.
Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.
On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces' resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city.
The Ukrainian military has reclaimed broad areas in the north of the region since launching a counteroffensive in late August. It reported new successes Saturday, saying that Russian troops were forced to retreat from the villages of Charivne and Chkalove in the Beryslav district.
Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.
The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army's general staff.
The wide Dnieper River figures as a major factor in the fighting, making it hard for Russia to supply its troops defending the city of Kherson and nearby areas on the west bank after relentless Ukrainian strikes rendered the main crossings unusable.
Taking control of Kherson has allowed Russia to resume fresh water supplies from the Dnieper to Crimea, which were cut by Ukraine after Moscow's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. A big hydroelectric power plant upstream from Kherson city is a key source of energy for the southern region. Ukraine and Russia accused each other of trying to blow it up to flood the mostly flat region.
Kherson's Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Vladimir Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”
Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that around 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.
“People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said, adding that some residents could be waiting for the Ukrainian army to reclaim the city.
Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.
Ukrainian officials urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.
Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.
Ukraine's air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack" targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russian launched 36 missiles, most of which were shot down.
“Those treacherous blows on critically important facilities are characteristic tactics of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can and must stop this terror.”
Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.
“Several rockets” targeting Ukraine's capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.
The president's office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv. Similar reports came from the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.
Ukraine's top diplomat said the day's attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”
“Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.
Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.
In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”
The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal, saying that power in the city was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities and damaged one power plant beyond repair.
The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power plant.
Ukraine's state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine." It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow's first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.
Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.
Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.
In a separate development, Russian officials said two people were killed and 12 others were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region near the border.
Soaring inflation threatens to unleash political turmoil across Europe
In Romania, protesters blew horns and banged drums to voice their dismay over the rising cost of living. People across France took to the streets to demand pay increases that keep pace with inflation. Czech demonstrators rallied against government handling of the energy crisis. British railway staff and German pilots held strikes to push for better pay as prices rise.
Across Europe, soaring inflation is behind a wave of protests and strikes that underscores growing discontent with the spiraling cost of living and threatens to unleash political turmoil. With British Prime Minister Liz Truss forced to resign less than two months into the job after her economic plans sparked chaos in financial markets and further bruised an ailing economy, the risk to political leaders became clearer as people demand action.
Europeans have seen their energy bills and food prices soar because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Despite natural gas prices falling from record summer highs and governments allocating a whopping 576 billion euros (over $566 billion) in energy relief to households and businesses since September 2021, according to the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, it’s not enough for some protesters.
Energy prices have driven inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency to a record 9.9%, making it harder for people to buy what they need. Some see little choice but to hit the streets.
“Today, people are obliged to use pressure tactics in order to get an increase” in pay, said Rachid Ouchem, a medic who was among more than 100,000 people that joined protest marches this week in multiple French cities.
The fallout from the war in Ukraine has sharply raised the risk of civil unrest in Europe, according to risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. European leaders have strongly supported Ukraine, sending the country weapons and pledging or being forced to wean their economies off cheap Russian oil and natural gas, but the transition hasn’t been easy and threatens to erode public support.
“There’s no quick fix to the energy crisis,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at Verisk Maplecroft. “And if anything, inflation looks like it might be worse next year than it has been this year.”
That means the link between economic pressure and popular opinion on the war in Ukraine “will really be tested,” he said.
Giorgia Meloni: Italy’s first far-right PM since the end of World War 2
Giorgia Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots emerged victorious in recent elections, was sworn in on Saturday as Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. She is also the first woman to be premier.
Meloni, 45, recited the oath of office before President Sergio Mattarella, who formally asked her to form a government a day earlier.
Her Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012, will rule in coalition with the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini and the conservative Forza Italia party headed by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. Those two parties’ popularity has sagged with voters in recent years.
Meloni recited the ritual oath of office, pledging to be faithful to Italy’s post-war republic and to act “in the exclusive interests of the nation.” The pledge was signed by her and counter-signed by Mattarella, who, in his role as head of state, serves as guarantor of the Constitution, drafted in the years immediately after the end of war, which saw the demise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Meloni’s 24 ministers followed, similarly swearing in. Five of the ministers are technocrats, not representing any party. Six of them are women.
In her campaign for the Sept. 25 election, Meloni insisted that national interests prevail over European Union policies should there be conflict. She often railed against EU bureaucracy.
Salvini’s right-wing League party has at times leaned euroskeptic. An admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Salvini has also questioned the wisdom of EU sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that they hurt Italian business interests more than Russian ones.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sounded an upbeat note in her congratulations tweet to Meloni right after she was sworn in and noted that the Italian was the first woman to hold the premiership.
“I count on and look forward to constructive cooperation with the new government on the challenges we face together,” the EU chief said.
One immediate challenge for Meloni will be ensuring that her country stays solidly aligned with other major nations in the West in helping that country fight off the Russian invaders.
In the days before she became premier, Meloni resorted to giving an an ultimatum to her other main coalition partner, Berlusconi, over his professed sympathy for Putin.
Read: Italians vote as far-right Meloni eyes historic victory
Berlusconi in remarks to his center-right Forza Italia party lawmakers, delivered what was tantamount to justification for the Russian invasion in February to install what he called a “decent” government in the Ukrainian capital.
After making clear she’d rather not govern than lead a coalition with any partner wavering over continued Italian support for Ukraine, aligned with Europe and NATO — “Italy with us in government will never be the weak link of the West” — Meloni tapped as her foreign minister a longtime Berlusconi stalwart with solid pro-Europe credentials. Antonio Tajani formerly was president of the European Parliament.
With potential wavering in Parliament by her Russian-sympathizing allies, as well as from former Premier Giuseppe Conte, a populist opposition leader, over continued arms supplies to Ukraine, Meloni appointed one of her party co-founders, Guido Crosetto, as defense minister.
Meloni will lay out her priorities when she pitches for support in Parliament ahead of confidence votes required of new governments. Voting is expected within a few days.
While her government holds a comfortable majority in the legislature, the vote could indicate any cracks in her coalition if any of her partners’ lawmakers, perhaps disgruntled by not getting ministries they wanted for their parties, don’t rally behind her.
Meloni’s government replaces that led by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief who was appointed by Mattarella in 2021 to lead a pandemic national unity coalition. Meloni was the only major party leader to refuse to join that coalition, insisting governments must be decided by the voters.
In any unusual touch for a country used to male-dominated politics and power, attending the swearing-in ceremony in a sumptuous room of the Quirinal Palace was Meloni’s companion, who is a journalist in Berlusconi’s media empire, and their 6-year-old daughter, Ginevra.
While Meloni didn’t campaign openly to be Italy’s first woman premier, she has said there would be no doubt that her victory would be clearly breaking through the “glass ceiling” that discourages women’s progress.
Putin turns to general who led Syrian bombing to turn the tide
The general carrying out President Vladimir Putin’s new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia’s campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.
Bald and fierce-looking, Gen. Sergei Surovikin was put in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine on Oct. 8 after what has so far been a faltering invasion that has seen a number of chaotic retreats and other setbacks over the nearly eight months of war.
Putin put the 56-year-old career military man in command following an apparent truck bombing of the strategic bridge to the Crimean Peninsula that embarrassed the Kremlin and created logistical problems for the Russian forces.
Russia responded with a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, which Putin said were aimed at knocking down energy infrastructure and Ukrainian military command centers. Such attacks have continued on a daily basis, pummeling power plants and other facilities with cruise missiles and waves of Iranian-made drones.
Surovikin also retains his job of air force chief, a position that could help coordinate the airstrikes with other operations.
During the most recent bombardments, some Russian war bloggers carried a statement attributed to Surovikin that signaled his intention to pursue the attacks with unrelenting vigor in an attempt to pound the Kyiv government into submission.
“I don’t want to sacrifice Russian soldiers’ lives in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO,” the bloggers quoted his statement as saying. “We have enough technical means to force Ukraine to surrender.”
While the veracity of the statement couldn’t be confirmed, it appears to reflect the same heavy-handed approach that Surovikin took in Syria where he oversaw the destruction of entire cities to flush out rebel resistance without paying much attention to the civilian population. That indiscriminate bombing drew condemnation from international human rights groups, and some media reports have dubbed him “General Armageddon.”
Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest award, in 2017 and promoted him to full general.
Kremlin hawks lauded Surovikin’s appointment in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef” who owns a prominent military contractor that plays a key role in the fighting in Ukraine, praised him as “the best commander in the Russian army.”
But even as hard-liners expected Surovikin to ramp up strikes on Ukraine, his first public statements after his appointment sounded more like a recognition of the Russian military’s vulnerabilities than blustery threats.
In remarks on Russian state television, Surovikin acknowledged that Russian forces in southern Ukraine were in a “quite difficult position” in the face of Ukrainian counteroffensive.
In carefully scripted comments that Surovikin appeared to read from a teleprompter, he said that further action in the region will depend on the evolving combat situation. Observers interpreted his statement as an attempt to prepare the public for a possible Russian pullback from the strategic southern city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.
Surovikin began his military career with the Soviet army in 1980s and, as a young lieutenant, was named an infantry platoon commander. When he later rose to air force chief, it drew a mixed reaction in the ranks because it marked the first time when the job was given to an infantry officer.
He found himself in the center of a political storm in 1991.
When members of the Communist Party’s old guard staged a hard-line coup in August of that year, briefly ousting Gorbachev and sending troops into Moscow to impose a state of emergency, Surovikin commanded one of the mechanized infantry battalions that rolled into the capital.
Popular resistance mounted quickly, and in the final hours of the three-day coup, protesters blocked an armored convoy led by Surovikin and tried to set some of the vehicles ablaze. In a chaotic melee, two protesters were shot and a third was crushed to death by an armored vehicle.
The coup collapsed later that day, and Surovikin was quickly arrested. He spent seven months behind bars pending an inquiry but was eventually acquitted and even promoted to major as investigators concluded that he was only fulfilling his duties.
Another rocky moment in his career came in 1995, when Surovikin was convicted of illegal possession and trafficking of firearms while studying at a military academy. He was sentenced to a year in prison but the conviction was reversed quickly.
He rose steadily through the ranks, commanding units deployed to the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, leading troops sent to Chechnya and serving at other posts across Russia.
He was appointed commander of Russian forces in Syria in 2017 and served a second stint there in 2019 as Moscow sought to prop up President Bashar Assad’s regime and help it regain ground amid a devastating civil war.
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin, along with Putin, Assad and other figures as bearing command responsibility for violations during the 2019-20 Syrian offensive in Idlib province.
He apparently has a temper that has not endeared him to subordinates, according to Russian media. One officer under Surovikin complained to prosecutors that the general had beaten him after becoming angry over how he voted in parliamentary elections; another subordinate reportedly shot himself. Investigators found no wrongdoing in either case.
His track record in Syria could have been a factor behind his appointment in Ukraine, as Putin has moved to raise the stakes and reverse a series of humiliating defeats.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has repeatedly called for ramping up strikes in Ukraine, praised Surovikin as “a real general and a warrior, well-experienced, farsighted and forceful who places patriotism, honor and dignity above all.
“The united group of forces is now in safe hands,” the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov said, voicing confidence that he will “improve the situation.”
Boris Johnson in the running for return to 'Number Ten'
Several British lawmakers, including scandal-tarnished former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, jockeyed for support Friday to become the country’s next leader following the implosion of Liz Truss’ historically short-lived government.
The governing Conservative Party has ordered a lightning-fast race that aims to have a new prime minister in place within a week at a time when Britain can ill afford uncertainty at the top. Millions are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of groceries, fuel and other basics soars and record inflation pushes up mortgage rates. Rolling strikes have revealed the scale of discontent. And a recession is looming.
Though no politician has officially declared, bookmakers have made Johnson one of the favorites to win the contest — reflecting the scale of division and disarray in the party as it picks its third prime minister of the year. It would be an astonishing comeback for a polarizing figure forced out just over three months ago amid a welter of ethics scandals.
Truss quit on Thursday after a turbulent 45-day term, conceding that she could not deliver on her tax-cutting economic package, which she had to abandon after it cause turmoil in financial markets.
In the race to replace her, former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt are among the favorites — along with Johnson, who still faces an inquiry into whether he lied to Parliament while in office that could lead to his suspension as a lawmaker.
Despite his troubles, Johnson is still adored by some Conservatives as a vote winner with a rare common touch who led the party to a big election victory in 2019. He is more popular with the party’s grassroots than with lawmakers — and he is reviled by some for the chaos and scandal that marred his term in office.
“Having a winner in place is what the party needs to survive,” Johnson ally Nadine Dorries told Sky News.
But former Conservative leader Michael Howard implored the party not to return to the “psychodrama” of the Johnson era.
“He’s had his chance, and it didn’t work,” Howard said. Some Conservative legislators have even threatened to leave the party if Johnson returns as leader.
Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said Conservatives who thought Johnson could solve their problems “don’t live in a reality-based community.”
He warned that the electorate at large has not forgotten Johnson’s many scandals — and he no longer has the appeal he once did.
“We know the public don’t like him, he can’t govern, he definitely can’t unify his party. It will be a disaster. It will fail,” Ford said.
Johnson, who remained a lawmaker after stepping down as prime minister, has not said whether he will run, but his allies in Parliament are working to gather support for an “I’m Backing Boris” campaign. Johnson is expected to return shortly from a Caribbean vacation.
Nominations for a new leader will close on Monday afternoon, and candidates need the signatures of 100 of the 357 Conservative lawmakers, meaning a maximum field of three. Lawmakers will vote to knock out one of those, and will hold an indicative vote on the final two. The party’s 172,000 members will then get to decide between the two finalists in an online vote. The new leader is due to be selected by Oct. 28.
Sunak, who came second to Truss in a summertime leadership contest, is favored by some as a safe pair of hands to steady the struggling economy. Mordaunt, who came third, is popular with the party’s grassroots.
Popular Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who was touted as a possible contender, ruled himself out of the race on Friday.
But the wild card is Johnson.
He was able to shrug off lapses that would have sunk many politicians, surviving even after he was fined by police for attending one of a series of illegal parties in government buildings while the U.K. was under lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic.
He finally resigned after one scandal too far — this one involving his appointment of a politician who had been accused of sexual misconduct — sparked an exodus of dozens of members of his government.
He left reluctantly, calling the decision to oust him “eccentric” and ending his final appearance in Parliament with the words: “Hasta la vista, baby.”
Truss was chosen by the party early last month to replace him, but quit after her brief, disastrous experiment in libertarian economics pummeled the value of the pound and caused further pain for people and businesses already struggling in an economy still reeling from Britain’s exit from the European Union, the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Her package of unfunded tax cuts roiled financial markets, drove up the cost of government borrowing and home mortgages, and forced emergency Bank of England intervention. Truss executed a series of U-turns and replaced her Treasury chief but faced rebellion from lawmakers in her party that obliterated her authority.
Truss admitted Thursday that “I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
Whoever replaces her will have to make tough economic decisions, with government debt rising, the economy stuttering and inflation at a 40-year-high.
The Conservative turmoil at a time of such high stakes is fueling demands for a national election. Under Britain’s parliamentary system, there does not need to be one until the end of 2024, though the government has the power to call one sooner.
Currently that looks unlikely. Opinion polls say an election would spell disaster for the Conservatives, with the left-of-center Labour Party winning a large majority.
Still, opposition politicians say the recent tumult — and the decision by Truss to rip up many of the policies on which Johnson was elected — means the government lacks democratic legitimacy.
Labour leader Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives of presiding over a “revolving door of chaos.”
“This is doing huge damage to our economy and the reputation of our country,” he said. “We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election — now.”
Truss destined for shortest stint ever as UK prime minister
Liz Truss will go down in history as Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, a leader whose grasp on power was so tenuous in recent days it spawned a jokey online contest to see whether she would outlast a head of lettuce. The lettuce won.
Some other prime ministers also had very short tenures — but mostly they served some time ago.
Liz Truss: 45 days, Conservative; Took office Sept. 6, 2022 and resigned Oct. 20, 2022 with plans to stay in office until a replacement is named.
George Canning: 121 days; Tory; April 10, 1827-Aug. 8, 1827; died.
Frederick John Robinson, Viscount Goderich: 144 days; Tory; Aug 31, 1827-Jan.21, 1828; replaced.
Bonar Law: 210 days, Conservative; Oct. 23, 1922- May 20, 1923; resigned due to ill health.
William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Whig; 236 days, Nov. 6, 1756-June 29, 1757; replaced.
William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne: 267 days; Whig; July 13, 1782-April 5, 1783; replaced.
Russian threats revive old nuclear fears in central Europe
Two stories beneath a modern steel production plant on Warsaw's northern edge lies an untouched Cold War relic: a shelter containing gas masks, stretchers, first aid kits and other items meant to help civil defense leaders survive and guide rescue operations in case of nuclear attack or other disasters.
A map of Europe on a wall still shows the Soviet Union — and no independent Ukraine. Old boots and jackets give off a musty odor. A military field switchboard warns: “Attention, your enemy is listening.”
Until now, nobody had seriously considered that the rooms built in the 1950s — and now maintained as a “historical curiosity” by the ArcelorMittal Warszawa plant, according to spokeswoman Ewa Karpinska — might one day be used as a shelter again. But as Russia pounds Ukraine, with shelling around a nuclear power plant and repeated Russian threats to use a nuclear weapon, the Polish government ordered an inventory this month of the 62,000 air raid shelters in the country.
The war has triggered fears across Europe, and these are especially felt in countries like Poland and Romania that border Ukraine and would be highly vulnerable in case of a radiological disaster.
After the Polish government order, firefighters visited the steel plant's shelter last week and listed it in their registry. Warsaw’s leaders said the city's subway and other underground shelters could hold all its 1.8 million residents and more in the case of an attack with conventional weapons.
The ArcelorMittal Warszawa plant's Karpinska is suddenly receiving inquiries about the shelter. Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to carry out a tactical nuclear attack, “everyone is worried,” she said. “I believe that he will not (stage a nuclear attack), that it would be completely crazy, but nobody really believed he would start this war.”
Amid fighting around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Poland also drew up a plan to give potassium iodide tablets to local fire stations, which would distribute them to the population if needed. There has been a rush elsewhere in Europe on potassium iodide — which protects the thyroid gland in the neck in case of radiation exposure — including in Finland where the government urged the population to buy them.
During the Cold War there were hundreds of thousands of shelters in Europe. Some dated from the buildup to World War II, while communist-era authorities also ordered that new residential and production facilities include underground shelters.
Finland, which borders Russia, along with Sweden and Denmark, have maintained their shelters in order. Finland, for instance, maintains shelters in cities and other densely populated areas capable of accommodating around two-thirds of population. A few of them are designed to withstand detonation of a 100-kiloton nuclear bomb.
While some countries still maintain their Cold War underground shelters, after the collapse of the Soviet Union some were transformed into museums — relics of an earlier age of nuclear fears that would offer no real protection today.
Bomb shelters were a key element in the former Yugoslavia’s preparedness doctrine against a nuclear attack.
The most famous of all, in a mountainous area 60 kilometers (35 miles) from Sarajevo in Bosnia, is a vast underground fortress built to protect military and political leaders. Known then only to the Yugoslav president, four generals and a handful of soldiers who guarded it, the Konjic site was turned in 2010 into a modern art gallery.
“From the military-political and geopolitical standpoint, the global environment right now is unfortunately very similar to what it was like (during the Cold War), burdened by a very heavy sense of a looming war,” said Selma Hadzihuseinovic, the representative of a government agency that manages the site.
She said the bunker could be returned to service in a new war, but with nuclear weapons having become far more powerful it would not be “as useful as it was meant to be when it was built.”
In Romania, an enormous former salt mine, Salina Turda, now a tourist attraction, is on a government list of potential shelters.
Many urban dwellers also go past shelters every day without realizing it while riding subways in cities like Warsaw, Prague and Budapest.
“We measured how many people could fit in trains along the entire length of the metro, in metro stations and other underground spaces,” said Michal Domaradzki, director of the security and crisis management for the city of Warsaw. “There is enough space for the entire population.”
Attila Gulyas, president of the Hungarian capital’s Urban Transport Workers’ Union, has been involved in regular drills of the city’s metro lines. He was trained to shelter thousands of people as chief of the Astoria station at Budapest’s metro line 2.
“The system is still in place today, it works perfectly, it can be deployed in any emergency” Gulyas said. “Up to 220,000 people can be protected by the shelter system in the tunnels of metro lines 2 and 3.”
But with Russia waging an energy war against Europe and power costs soaring, for many the chief worry is how to get through the winter.
Sorin Ionita, a commentator with the Expert Forum in Bucharest, Romania, said many consider a Russian nuclear strike improbable as it would not “bring a big military advantage to the Russians."
Still, Putin’s threats add to a general sense of anxiety in a world in tumult.
Just days after the Russian invasion began, Czechs bought potassium iodide pills as a precaution of sorts against a nuclear attack. Experts say these might help in a nuclear plant disaster but not against a nuclear weapon.
Dana Drabova, the head of the State Office for Nuclear Safety said that in such a case, the anti-radiation pills would be “useless.”
Contenders who could replace resigned UK PM Truss
Liz Truss' resignation as British Prime Minister on Thursday triggered another leadership race — the second in just four months — for the U.K.'s fractured and demoralized Conservative Party.
Truss, who quit after just 45 days in office, said her successor will be chosen in a leadership contest to be completed by the end of next week. Graham Brady, a senior Conservative lawmaker who oversees the party’s leadership challenges, said each candidate must secure 100 nominations from legislators to run and that the race will conclude by next Friday.
Former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, ex-Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace are among those considered credible contenders for the top job. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson may also return. Jeremy Hunt, who has been brought in as new Treasury chief to steer the economy, has ruled out running.
Whoever wins will become the fifth British prime minister in six years.
Here's a look at the potential runners and riders:
RISHI SUNAK, FORMER TREASURY CHIEF
Sunak, 42, came second to Truss in the last Conservative leadership race, gathering 60,399 votes compared to her 81,326.
He quit as Treasury chief in July, in protest against then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership. In the contest to replace Johnson, Sunak positioned himself as the candidate who tells hard truths about Britain's public finances. He argued that climbing inflation must be controlled first, and called promises by Truss and other rivals to immediately slash taxes reckless “fairy tales.”
Sunak was proved right when Truss' unfunded tax-cutting economic stimulus package tanked the British pound and triggered chaos in the markets in September.
Sunak became Treasury chief in 2020 and steered Britain's slumping economy through the coronavirus pandemic. He oversaw billions of pounds in government handouts to help businesses and workers hard hit by COVID-19.
Sunak was regarded by many as the Conservatives' brightest rising star. Born to Indian parents who moved to Britain from East Africa, Sunak attended the exclusive Winchester College private school and studied at Oxford. Some see his elite education and work for the investment bank Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund as a liability because it makes him seem out of touch with ordinary voters.
In the past year he faced heavy criticism for being slow to respond to Britain's cost-of-living crisis. His reputation also took a hit after he was fined by police for attending a lockdown-flouting birthday party at Downing Street in June 2020.
Some also criticized him following revelations that his wife, Akshata Murthy, avoided paying taxes on her overseas income.
PENNY MORDAUNT, HOUSE OF COMMONS LEADER
Mordaunt, 49, came third after Sunak and Truss in the last Tory leadership race, when she ran with a campaign named “PM 4 PM.” Mordaunt did not hold a senior post in Johnson’s Cabinet, and she positioned herself as offering a clean break from his scandal-tainted government.
A former international trade minister, Mordaunt is popular among Conservative lawmakers. Some believe she could be the right candidate to help heal the party's divisions. But she is largely an unknown figure to most Britons, and outside Conservative circles she remains best known for appearing on the 2014 reality TV show “Splash!”
Mordaunt played a prominent role in the pro-Brexit campaign. She was the first woman to become British defense secretary in 2019 -- though she was removed by Johnson after just three months in the post because she had backed another candidate for party leader, Jeremy Hunt.
SUELLA BRAVERMAN, EX-HOME SECRETARY
Braverman, 42, resigned as Home Secretary late Wednesday, with a scathing letter criticizing Truss' “tumultuous” premiership. Her move kicked off a chaotic night in British politics that ended in Truss' resignation hours later.
A former barrister who became England’s attorney general in 2020, Braverman was the first to put her hat in the ring during this summer's leadership race to replace Johnson.
During her short tenure as Home Secretary, a top government post overseeing immigration and counterterrorism, Braverman vowed to crack down hard on asylum seekers, saying it was her “dream” to see a flight deporting those seeking refuge in Britain to Rwanda. She also wanted to pull the U.K. out of the European Convention on Human rights.
She made headlines — and was mocked by opponents — when she complained recently in Parliament that travel disruptions caused by trade union strikes were to be blamed on left-wing, “tofu-eating wokerati."
BEN WALLACE, DEFENSE SECRETARY
Wallace, a 52-year-old army veteran, is popular within the Conservative Party. He has won admirers for his straight talk, particularly among Conservative lawmakers who pressed for the U.K. to increase its defense spending.
Wallace has raised his profile as a key government voice in Britain’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. But he recently said he wanted to remain in his current job. Earlier this week, he reportedly said “I want to be the Secretary of State for Defense until I finish” when asked if he wanted the top job.
BORIS JOHNSON, FORMER PRIME MINISTER
There was intense speculation Thursday that Johnson, 58, may return and put himself forward as prime minister again — just weeks after he was forced out of office by a series of ethics scandals.
Within hours of Truss' resignation, several Conservative allies of Johnson's voiced their support for him to return.
“The only person who has a mandate from the general public is Boris Johnson," said one lawmaker, Marco Longhi. “He is the only person who can discharge the mandate from the people."
Johnson led the Conservatives to their biggest win in decades in the 2019 general election, largely on the back of his promise to “get Brexit done.”
But his time in office was overshadowed by scandals over alcohol-fueled parties held at his official residence while national COVID-19 restrictions were in place. He still faces an ongoing investigation by Parliament's privileges committee into whether he lied to lawmakers about COVID-rule breaking at Downing Street.
He was forced to announce his resignation on July 7 after former allies in his Cabinet joined a mass exodus of government officials protesting his leadership.
EU leaders avoid deep rift on gas price cap at energy summit
European Union leaders struggled to find immediate practical solutions on how to deal with the energy crisis but avoided an open rift between Germany and France on Friday that would have exposed a divided bloc as it confronts Russian President Vladimir Putin over his war in Ukraine.
After daylong talks in Brussels dragged well into the night, the 27 EU leaders papered over divisions between some of the biggest member states and at least agreed to continue working on ways to impose a gas price cap in case of big price increases.
French President Emmanuel Macron highlighted his work with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to create a veneer of unity after talks that started early Thursday. He said that together with close technical advisers, “I will see Chancellor Scholz in Paris next week so that we can move forward, with our teams, on all the issues.”
Scholz said the main issue was curbing “spikes” in gas trading that may last only a few hours but still send prices excessively upward. He said measures to counter that should be further examined.
“How can we avoid these spikes? There is still a lot of concrete work to be done. But we must look at ways to contain it, which certainly makes sense,” Scholz said.
When the axis between Paris and Berlin is aligned, usually the rest of the EU follows.
“There is a strong and unanimously shared determination to act together, as Europeans, to achieve three goals: lowering prices, ensuring security of supply and continuing to work to reduce demand," said summit host Charles Michel, the EU Council president.
Diplomats said the execution of the proposals, including the possibility of a price cap, should be first properly assessed by energy ministers next Tuesday and might even need a new summit of leaders in the coming weeks.
“There is a lot of work ahead," said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. “We are pushing ourselves into unchartered territory, where we don’t have experience yet."
To make sure the runaway cost of gas doesn’t further tank struggling EU economies, the Commission has proposed a system to pool buying of gas and offered a compromise that would allow for a correction mechanism to kick in in exceptional circumstances.
Countries like the Netherlands and Germany were loathe to start such market intervention, but agreed to study a system that would be failproof and not allow suppliers to stop delivering and go to more lucrative markets.
“It is incredibly complex but you see that everyone wants to get the gas prize further down, but in a way that we continue to get gas deliveries and that it doesn't move to Asia or Latin America. We need it here, too,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
In addition, the leaders are also pushing for the creation of a new LNG gas index better reflecting the market following the drastic reduction of imports of pipeline gas from Russia.
Divisions were so big at the start of the summit that agreeing on further exploration of the plan proposed by the Commission was seen as almost an achievement in itself.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said a price cap would send suppliers away. The “gas price cap is like going to a bar and telling the bartender you want to pay half price for your beer. Not going to happen,” he said on Twitter.
The traditional driving duo of the EU — Germany and France — were in opposing camps, with Germany expressing doubts and holding off plans for the price cap, while most others want to push on.
Scholz said any dispute was on the method, not the goal. “Prices for gas, for oil, for coal, must sink; electricity prices must sink, and this is something that calls for a joint effort by all of us in Europe,” he said.
Natural gas prices spiraled out of control over the summer as EU nations sought to outbid one another to fill up their reserves for winter. The member states have already agreed to cut demand for gas by 15% over the winter. They have also committed to filling gas-storage facilities to at least 80% of capacity by November and — as a way of reducing gas-fired power generation — to reducing peak demand for electricity by at least 5%.
The question of possible EU gas-price caps has moved steadily up the political agenda for months as the energy squeeze tightened, with 15 countries such as France and Italy pushing for such blunt intervention.
At the opening of the summit, the need for rock-solid EU unity in confronting Russia was highlighted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who addressed the 27 national leaders by video conference from Kyiv, asking for continued help to get his nation through the winter.
Russia is increasingly relying on drone strikes against Ukraine’s energy grid and civilian infrastructure and sowing panic with hits on Ukrainian cities, tactics that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called “war crimes” and “pure terror” on Wednesday.
Diplomats are already assessing more sanctions to come. But Orban’s perceived friendliness toward the Kremlin makes life tougher. Even though the previous EU sanctions targeting Russia have been approved unanimously, it has increasingly become difficult to keep Orban on board by agreeing to exemptions.