With Hunt’s announcement, Truss’s supply-side plan for growth — which once drew broad support from her Conservative Party — has been gutted.
LONDON — Britain’s brand new finance minister scrapped the remaining elements of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s signature taxation policy on Monday, a move that seemed to successfully reassure markets but left many wondering who is now in charge of the government.Truss stayed on the sidelines while Jeremy Hunt — a political rival who was tapped on Friday for the top cabinet post — announced that the government would not slash taxes, but instead allow them to rise.
“Where is the prime minister?” Starmer asked rhetorically. “Hiding away, dodging questions, scared of her own shadow.” Hunt is a moderate Conservative who is considered to be a safe pair of hands, though he has twice lost contests to lead his party. He assured the country that Truss was “in charge.”“It is the most challenging form of leadership to accept the decision you have made has to be changed,” he told Parliament. “And the prime minister has done that, and she has done so willing because she understands the importance of economic stability, and I respect her for it.
Hunt also announced that the government’s popular plan to help with energy bills for households — a “landmark policy supporting millions of people through a difficult winter” — will not continue for two years but last only until April. The government will then move to a “new approach” that will “cost the taxpayer significantly less.”The markets have been receptive to the government’s backtracking. The falling British pound has stabilized. The country’s leading stock index, the FTSE 100, was up.
People would look “pretty askance” if the party staged another leadership contest so soon, Damian Green, a prominent Conservative, acknowledged on BBC Radio 4. But asked if he wanted Truss to be leading the party when the next general election happens, Green offered only backhanded support. “If she leads us into the next election, that will mean that the next two years have been a lot more successful than the past four weeks have been.
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