Here is a round-up of today’s headlines from Westminster: France and Britain would be facing “serious problems” if they could not say whether they were friends or enemies, Emmanuel Macron has said, insisting that for Paris the UK would always be an ally no matter who was running it. The comments came after Liz Truss, the clear favourite to become Britain’s next prime minister, told the penultimate Conservative leadership hustings on Thursday that “the jury is still out” on whether the French president was “friend or foe”. Asked for his response, Macron, on an official visit to Algeria, said it was “not good to lose your bearings too much”. If he was asked the same question, he said: “I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. France is a friend of the British people.” As a significant rise in the price of energy looms this winter, complicating the cost of living crisis, Nadhim Zahawi has acknowledged that the government needs to do more to support vulnerable families. “What I’m looking at is how I can target that help for those people, not just to January, but we need to make sure we’re resilient through next year,” said the chancellor. Labour is at odds with Full Fact, the independent factchecking charity, after it claimed the party’s energy price cap freeze was underfunded by at least £5bn. The party said Full Fact had got its sums wrong, saying the charity did not understand how direct debit works. However, Full Fact was standing by its analysis on Friday, which said the party had not taken into account that people use more energy in the winter, causing Labour to underestimate the cost of freezing bills by at least £5bn, or £340 a household. Liz Truss may trigger article 16 proceedings against the European Union within days of becoming prime minister, as a legal war with Brussels looms over the Northern Ireland protocol. The foreign secretary and Tory leadership frontrunner is understood to have received fresh advice from trade and legal experts about invoking the emergency clause contained in the post-Brexit deal. The UK Tory leadership contenders are “playing to their own grassroots” and have “no regard for the damage” that possible unilateral action to suspend the Northern Ireland protocol is causing, says a Sinn Féin minister. Finance minister Conor Murphy said triggering the article 16 mechanism to suspend elements of the post-Brexit protocol would only further complicate the job of resolving issues with the Irish Sea trading agreements, PA Media reports. It is a move the EU has said would breach international law. Boris Johnson has said the next prime minister will “plainly” have to give people extra cash for their energy bills but the wealthiest should not see their bills capped. The prime minister put pressure on his successor, who is likely to be Liz Truss, saying the cash handouts are “clearly going to be augmented, increased, by extra cash that the government is plainly going to be announcing in September”. Downing Street has faced widespread disbelief at the refusal of ministers to appear on TV and radio to answer questions about the increase in energy price cap. Broadcasters and opposition parties criticised the TV and radio silence of ministers after it was confirmed at 7am on Friday that the price cap was increasing in line with predictions to £3,549. Environmental protesters have taken action at petrol stations in central London, vandalising pumps, blockading entrances and spraypainting “no new oil” across signs. The Just Stop Oil campaign said 51 of its supporters took part in the protests at seven petrol stations on Friday morning. Some groups staged sit-down protests at entrances or glued themselves to pumps, while others moved from station to station damaging pumps. Covid infections in the UK are continuing to fall and are now at their lowest level for more than two months, figures show. A total of 1.4 million people in private households are estimated to have had the coronavirus in the week to 16 August, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is a drop of 16% from 1.7 million the previous week, the Press Association reported. Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of favouring appearances at the Edinburgh festival over resolving an ongoing industrial dispute that is causing rubbish to be piled high on the streets of Scotland’s major cities, and early closures of schools and nurseries being announced. Talks are resuming on Friday to resolve the strikes, as overflowing bins and piles of food waste accumulate in Scotland’s capital, where crowds have gathered for the Edinburgh festivals. Boris Johnson has condemned Russia’s “cultural vandalism” in Ukraine, saying invading forces are trying to erase Ukrainian culture in areas they have taken over. The prime minister said the UK would fund “cultural protection measures” in Ukraine as well as continuing to donate civil and military aid, the Press Association reported. That’s it from the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along. I’ll be back on Monday but, for now, you can continue to get all the latest news from Westminster here. Goodnight.