Liz Truss under English fire over ‘mistakes’, ‘chaos’

• 

Britain's new Finance Minister, Jeremy Hunt, warned on Saturday of looming tax hikes as he admitted to "mistakes" made in a disastrous budget that still threatens to bring down Prime Minister Liz Truss.

On Friday, the Prime Minister dismissed Kwasi Kwarteng as Finance Minister following the government's massive tax cuts that ignited financial market turmoil.

The Times, Telegraph, and other newspapers reported that senior Conservative members of parliament were still plotting to unseat Truss, possibly within days, dismayed at the party's collapse in opinion polls since she replaced Boris Johnson on September 6.

New Chancellor Jeremy Hunt indicated he would be tearing up the strategy that brought Truss to 10 Downing Street.

"There were mistakes," acknowledged Hunt, a former foreign secretary who is seen as a Tory centrist. He said Kwarteng and Truss had erred in trying to cut taxes for the highest earners and in presenting their budget without independent forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

"The prime minister recognised that, that's why I'm here," Hunt told Sky News.

In one of his first acts on taking office late Friday, the new minister spoke to Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey.

"They discussed the importance of tackling global inflation, and their commitment to economic growth and fiscal discipline," the Treasury tweeted.

The Chancellor @Jeremy_Hunt has spoken to the Governor of the @bankofengland Andrew Bailey this evening.

They discussed the importance of tackling global inflation, and their commitment to economic growth and fiscal discipline. pic.twitter.com/5d5Awuvq6K

— HM Treasury (@hmtreasury) October 14, 2022

Tax cuts were the centerpiece of the budget announced by Kwarteng and Truss. But they were financed through billions in more borrowing, causing panic in financial markets, which has fed into higher costs for British households in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.

"We will have some very difficult decisions ahead," Hunt said, warning that "all government departments" face spending restraint.

"And some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want. Some taxes will go up."

Hunt confirmed that he would deliver a new fiscal statement on October 31, telling BBC radio that he had a "clean slate" to start afresh -- underlining that Truss has considerably weakened her own position after coming to power on a hard-charging platform of reform.

Truss said she acted "decisively" in firing Kwarteng

Truss dismissed Kwarteng hours after he had rushed home early from international finance meetings in Washington.

At a subsequent Downing Street news conference, her first since succeeding Johnson, the Prime Minister gave a widely panned performance that did nothing to calm market nerves.

Truss insisted that she had acted "decisively" in firing Kwarteng to bring about "economic stability".

Asked why she herself should not resign, Truss said she was "absolutely determined to see through what I have promised."

But having abandoned the right-wing economic promises that won her the Conservative leadership election against rival Rishi Sunak, Truss faced mounting criticism that her political credibility was in tatters.

"I feel let down, very badly let down," Christopher Chope, a Tory parliamentarian and Truss loyalist, told BBC television.

Truss' actions Friday were "totally inconsistent with everything that the prime minister stood for when she was elected," he considered.

"Grotesque chaos"

On his part, Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, slammed the "grotesque chaos" of recent weeks and considered that the government "no longer has a mandate from the British people."

Speaking at Labour’s Yorkshire and the Humber regional conference in Barnsley, Starmer said there were no historical precedents for the ongoing economic turmoil, pointing out that Truss would not be able to "fix the mess she has created."

"This lot [Truss and Kwarteng], they didn’t just tank the British economy, they also clung on as they made the pound sink," Starmer said.

“Clung on as they took our pensions to the brink of collapse. Clung on as they pushed the mortgages and bills of the British public through the roof."

The Labour leader considered that "all the pain our country faces now is down to them," highlighting that Britain was "crying out for clear leadership."

"I would love to stand here and say Labour will fix everything," Starmer said. "But the damage they’ve done to our finances and public services means things are going to be really tough," he added.

It is noteworthy that a recent survey published Thursday by YouGov found that 51% of people indicated that they would vote for the Labour party in a general election, while only 23% said they would vote Conservative.

A second survey found that 59% of voters believed that Truss should resign as Prime Minister, while only 19% said she should remain in office.

Read more: Liz Truss has 17 days to save her job