Jacob Rees-Mogg was rolled out to do the media rounds this morning ahead of what promises to be a bruising PMQs for the prime minister.
Liz Truss faces MPs for the first time today since Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s £43 billion mini-budget tax giveaway unleashed chaos in the financial markets.
Tories have returned to Westminster in a restive mood following the break for the party conferences, with their ratings tanking in opinion polls and economists questioning whether Mr Kwarteng’s plans are sustainable.
There was further turmoil on Tuesday after the Bank of England announced that its emergency support operation to protect pension funds would end this week.
Earlier, the Bank intervened for the second time in as many days to buy up Government bonds, warning of a “material risk to UK financial stability” with “fire sales” of assets if did not act.
Market turmoil
But speaking in Washington, the Bank Governor Andrew Bailey said there could be no further support beyond Friday and it was up to the funds concerned to rebalance their holdings.
“My message to the funds involved – you’ve got three days left now. You have got to get this done,” he said.
His comments saw sterling fall back again against the dollar.
Not that Rees-Mogg is overly worried about the intervention.
He said that the Bank intervenes in the markets “from time to time”, seemingly overlooking the fact that they have intervened three times in the past two weeks alone.
He then proceeded to tell LBC that August GDP figures have nothing to do with this administration- despite him being a member of the previous government.
Radio 4
The business secretary’s interview on Radio 4 was a particular highlight this morning.
After claiming the government’s windfall tax is not a windfall tax, he preceded to accuse the station of breaching the BBC’s impartiality guidelines in what has been described as the “best possible political broadcast for the Labour Party”.
Listen to the clip in full below:
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