Stop her... now!
IN a humiliating round of local radio interviews, Liz Truss was at times lost for words to defend the mini-Budget that sent the pound plummeting, wiped billions from shares and trashed the mortgage market.
The PM finally spoke a week after her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s taxcutting plans sent the economy into meltdown but her bid to address the chaos spectacularly backfired.
The FTSE 100 share index slumped 123.8 points at 6881.6, the lowest since July last year. Government borrowing costs which fell on Wednesday after the Bank of England launched a £65billion bond-buying spree to stop pension funds going bust then rose yesterday.
The pound fell again before recovering just 1.7 per cent to $1.10.
In a nightmare day for Truss, and the Conservative Party, four major polling companies also recorded the highestever Labour leads. A Deltapoll gave
Keir Starmer’s party a 19-point lead, while a YouGov poll showed an incredible 33-point lead, Labour’s highest since the 90s.
Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “Tory MPs must join Labour in calling for Parliament to be recalled so this Kamikaze Budget can be reversed.”
The Bank of England’s chief economist Huw Pill warned interest rates would have to go up, noting there was “undoubtedly a UK-specific component” to recent market movements.
His comments contrasted with Truss who, in her interviews, blamed it all on “Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine”.
In the US, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo said: “Businesspeople want to see world leaders taking inflation very seriously. And it’s hard to see that out of this new government.”
Former Bank of England chief Mark Carney also rejected claims the current turmoil was a global phenomenon. And he said the Budget should have been “subject to independent and, dare I say, expert scrutiny.”
But on her BBC local radio chats, the Prime Minister insisted cutting taxes for the richest one per cent was the “right plan” for growth.
Her first interview began at 8am, when she was asked by BBC Radio Leeds: “Where’ve you been?”
Sidestepping the question, she delivered pre-prepared lines, hailing her
“decisive” action on energy bills. Later, BBC Radio Bristol presenter James Hanson told her: “It’s hard to know what has fallen more since you entered Downing Street, the value of the pound or the Tory poll rating.”
On BBC Radio Stoke, the presenter told the PM mortgage fees were rising by more than homeowners would save from the energy support, leaving Truss lost for words – and an awkward silence. On BBC Radio Kent, she falsely claimed “nobody is paying fuel bills of more than £2500”, when that is actually just the average annual bill under her cap on unit prices, which kicks in tomorrow. Uswitch found 38 per cent of households wrongly believe bills can’t go any higher than £2500, when people who use more will pay more.
In TV interviews last night, Truss said her growth plan would “take time”.
But ex-Tory minister George Freeman claimed the country was in “a serious crisis” and said she must come up with a “plan B which can hold”.
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