Liz Truss appointed the Tory centrist Jeremy Hunt as finance minister. Photo: ISABEL INFANTES / AFP Source: AFP PAY ATTENTION: Сheck out news that is picked exactly for YOU ➡️ find “Recommended for you” block on the home page and enjoy! Britain’s new finance minister Saturday warned of looming tax hikes as he admitted to “mistakes” made in a disastrous budget that still threatens to bring down Prime Minister Liz Truss. “Truss fights for survival,” The Times newspaper headlined a day after she forced chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng to carry the can for market turmoil sparked by their budget on September 23.
Home World WORLD UK’s new finance minister admits taxes to rise as PM reels Saturday, October 15, 2022 at 9:40 AM by © AFP 2022 Liz Truss appointed the Tory centrist Jeremy Hunt as finance minister. Photo: ISABEL INFANTES / AFP Source: AFP PAY ATTENTION: Сheck out news that is picked exactly for YOU ➡️ find “Recommended for you” block on the home page and enjoy! Britain’s new finance minister Saturday warned of looming tax hikes as he admitted to “mistakes” made in a disastrous budget that still threatens to bring down Prime Minister Liz Truss. “Truss fights for survival,” The Times newspaper headlined a day after she forced chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng to carry the can for market turmoil sparked by their budget on September 23. The Times, Telegraph and other newspapers reported that senior Conservative members of parliament were still plotting to unseat Truss, possibly within days, aghast at the party’s collapse in opinion polls since she replaced Boris Johnson on September 6. New chancellor Jeremy Hunt indicated he would be tearing up the strategy that brought Truss to 10 Downing Street. READ ALSO ‘Shelf-life of a lettuce’: Truss’s nightmare on Downing Street “There were mistakes,” acknowledged Hunt, a former foreign secretary who is seen as a Tory centrist. He said Kwarteng and Truss had erred in trying to cut taxes for the highest earners, and in presenting their budget without independent forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility. PAY ATTENTION: Enjoy reading our stories? “The prime minister’s recognised that, that’s why I’m here,” Hunt told Sky News. In one of his first acts on taking office late Friday, the new minister spoke to Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, who has had to stage costly interventions to calm febrile bond markets. “They discussed the importance of tackling global inflation, and their commitment to economic growth and fiscal discipline,” the Treasury tweeted. Liz Truss sacked her finance minister and did another U-turn on her key economic plan. Photo: Daniel LEAL / POOL/AFP Source: AFP Tax cuts were the centrepiece of the ill-starred budget announced by Kwarteng and Truss. But they were financed through billions in more borrowing, causing panic on financial markets, which has fed into higher costs for British households in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.