Hunt tries to steady the ship as Tory MPs plot Truss’ downfall
Jeremy Hunt yesterday urged Tory MPs to get behind Liz Truss to save her premiership as he warned of impending spending cuts and tax rises.
The new chancellor said Truss had “listened” and “changed” since last month’s catastrophic mini-budget, while warning of the “difficult decisions” he would make to restore market confidence in the government.
Hunt was appointed as chancellor on Friday, after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked just 39 days into the job.
Truss has been forced to scrap most of her £45bn debt-funded tax cuts in a bid to calm financial markets, with Hunt now set to delay a 1p cut to the 20p basic rate of Income Tax.
The chancellor was forced to insist “the Prime Minister’s in charge” yesterday as pundits dubbed him the de facto leader of the country, after reversing the course of economic policy.
“Spending is not going to increase by as much as people hoped and indeed we’re going to ask for government departments to find more efficiencies than they’d planned,” he told the BBC.
“We are going to have to take some very difficult decisions, both on spending and on tax. I’m not taking anything off the table.”
The Prime Minister’s position is now under serious threat from within her own party, with rumours abound of plots to oust her.
Crispin Blunt became the first Tory MP to publicly call for Truss to go yesterday, telling Channel 4: “I think the game’s up and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed.”
Late last night, Tory MPs Andrew Bridgen and Jamie Wallis also publicly called for her to step down.
“I would be very, very surprised if there are people dying in a ditch to keep Liz Truss as our prime minister,” Blunt said.
“What we need to effect is a transition to some kind of transition to a combination of the talents of Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Jeremy Hunt in the top leadership positions in the party.”
Tory MP Robert Halfon told Sky News that Truss and Kwarteng “looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice in which to carry out kind of ultra-ultra-free market experiments and this is not where the country is”.
Media reports over the past week have suggested Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Ben Wallace are all being considered as possible replacements for Truss by Tory MPs without the need for another wider leadership contest.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock said Truss must conduct a cabinet reshuffle and stop “slagging off” respected institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save her premiership
The Tories have trailed Labour in every poll since the mini-budget by between 21 and 33 points.
Liz Truss is now 4/5 to leave office in 2022, according to Betfair, which would make her the shortest ever serving Prime Minister.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer last night called on Truss to make a statement to the House of Commons today about her new economic plans.
“The Prime Minister says she is in charge but the evidence this weekend suggests she is in office but not in power,” he said.