Liz Truss’s new Chancellor signalled on Saturday his plan to up-end the Prime Minister’s entire economic strategy, in an extraordinary rebuke of the pledges that brought her into office.
Jeremy Hunt, widely seen now as the most powerful figure in Government, used a series of broadcast interviews on Saturday morning to signal that Ms Truss’s immediate economic plan is now defunct as he suggested that tax rises could form part of a painful fiscal package designed to restore market confidence in the UK.
Mr Hunt, a former foreign secretary, was parachuted into Number 11 to replace Kwasi Kwarteng in a bid to restore order to Ms Truss’s ailing administration.
In his first full day in office, he warned of “difficult decisions” to come as he suggested that taxes could rise and budgets – including on health and defence – would likely be squeezed further in the coming months.
Ms Truss on Friday sacked her friend and chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and ditched her commitment to drop the planned rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent, after three weeks of turmoil on the financial markets in the wake of Mr Kwarteng’s £43 billion mini-budget tax giveaway.
Reaction to the announcement was quick to flood in on social media.
Here’s a pick of what people had to say:
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