Opposition leaders plan to keep up the pressure on new Prime Minister Liz Truss by forcing her to publicly confirm whether she is about to honour a pledge made by her predecessor Boris Johnson, to increase benefit payments in line with inflation or if she intends to save five billion pounds by going for the cheaper alternative of raising them in line with average wages.

There seems to be little alternative for Truss other than to come clean on what she is thinking as until the decision is made public, she will be hounded from all sides. Backbench Conservative Members of Parliament will find it difficult to commit their full support if they still feel that Truss will renege a pledge made only last Spring, while Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer will keep up the pressure in the House of Commons if he gets even a sniff of a feeling that he has Truss on the run.

Ofgem, the Energy regulator, revealed in a document that was leaked to the press yesterday, that the country faces the possibility of rolling power cuts if it is a particularly harsh winter.

Britain gets ninety per cent of its energy from secure supplies either domestic or from Norway, while the balance is bought on the open market.

In normal times and even in the current climate, that ten percent should be secure, but if Europe runs into supply issues in the peak period of January and February, contingency plans are being looked at to have a series of rolling blackouts lasting three hours at a time in periods of peak daily usage.