LONDON: Britain’s new finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, said on Saturday some taxes would rise and tough spending decisions were needed, the prime minister said Liz Truss had made mistakes as she fought to keep her job just over a month into her term.
In an attempt to appease the financial markets, which have been boiling for three weeks, Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday and dropped parts of their controversial economic package.
With disastrous opinion polls for the ruling Conservative Party and the Prime Minister personally, and many of her own lawmakers asking, not if, but how Truss should be removed, she turned to Hunt to help her. save his post as Prime Minister less than 40 days after taking office.
“We will have some very difficult decisions to make,” Hunt said as he toured TV and radio studios to give a direct assessment of the situation facing the country, saying Truss and Kwarteng had made mistakes .
“What people want, markets want, the country needs right now is stability,” Hunt said. “No Chancellor can control the markets. But what I can do is show that we can afford our tax and spending plans and that will require some very tough spending and tax decisions.”
Truss won the leadership race to replace Boris Johnson on a platform of deep tax cuts to boost growth, announced by Kwarteng last month. But the absence of any details on how the cuts would be financed sent markets crashing.
In an attempt to appease the financial markets, which have been boiling for three weeks, Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday and dropped parts of their controversial economic package.
With disastrous opinion polls for the ruling Conservative Party and the Prime Minister personally, and many of her own lawmakers asking, not if, but how Truss should be removed, she turned to Hunt to help her. save his post as Prime Minister less than 40 days after taking office.
“We will have some very difficult decisions to make,” Hunt said as he toured TV and radio studios to give a direct assessment of the situation facing the country, saying Truss and Kwarteng had made mistakes .
“What people want, markets want, the country needs right now is stability,” Hunt said. “No Chancellor can control the markets. But what I can do is show that we can afford our tax and spending plans and that will require some very tough spending and tax decisions.”
Truss won the leadership race to replace Boris Johnson on a platform of deep tax cuts to boost growth, announced by Kwarteng last month. But the absence of any details on how the cuts would be financed sent markets crashing.
