Keir Starmer’s first question was the obvious one that has puzzled anyone watching the anonymous updates about Liz Truss’s plan to help people with their energy bills. After a perfunctory welcome – “I can congratulate the prime minister on her appointment” – he asked: “When she said in her leadership campaign that she was against windfall taxes, did she mean it?” That is indeed the question. Truss not only said she tended to be a bit reluctant about windfall taxes, but said she would not increase the windfall tax already imposed by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. To the last tourists, just a week ago, she agreed to read her lips: “No new taxes.”
