Six weeks are plenty of chaos at 10 Downing Street. Since Liz Truss was appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the country has gone through one of its most convulsive moments in economic terms. The pound crashed and the Bank of England had to buy bonds to save it. The tax cuts and other measures included in his economic strategy, presented last month by the then finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng (now replaced by Jeremy Hunt), were very poorly received. And the premier, who is facing pressure to resign, apologized for all this last night in an interview with the BBC.
“I want to accept responsibility and apologize for the mistakes I have made,” the prime minister said in an attempt to fight to stay in office. Truss pointed out that with the massive tax cuts he promised when he took office he intended to help people pay their energy bills, but that he went “too far and too fast”, so he replaced his Chancellor of the Exchequer with Jeremy Hunt, ” with a new strategy to restore economic stability.
In addition, in the face of the voices that demand that he leave -five of his own deputies have already done so publicly-, he ruled out the possibility that he will resign voluntarily. “The important thing is that I have been elected to achieve results for this country. We are facing very difficult times. We simply cannot afford to spend time talking about the Conservative Party instead of what we need to achieve. That is my message to my colleagues.” , he added.
After insisting that he has acted “quickly” to correct his mistakes, he bluntly affirmed that he will continue to lead the Executive until the end of the legislature. “I will lead the Conservatives in the next general election,” he assured. The next general elections are scheduled for two years from now.
Truss’s interview was released on the same day that her new finance minister, appointed on Friday, reversed almost all of the fiscal measures that the prime minister had adopted and that formed the backbone of her government program. Hunt announced that he cancels the planned reduction from 20 to 19% from April of the basic band of the income tax and that the aid to limit the energy bill for companies and homes, which was to last two years, will end in April.
Hunt took over from Kwasi Kwarteng, who was sacked by Truss after his Sept. 23 unveiling of a fiscal plan without details of how it would reduce debt sowed chaos in financial markets.
The new minister declared on Monday that the drastic changes to that plan, worth about 32,000 million pounds (37,000 million euros) a year, aim to “guarantee financial stability and give confidence in the Government’s commitment to fiscal discipline “.
