Rishi Sunak is facing a fresh attack from his predecessor Liz Truss today as he dismissed calls for an early tax cut.
The former Prime Minister is set to make another public intervention in an interview with Spectator after breaking his silence to defend his growth agenda.
Ms Truss sparked the Conservatives’ simmering civil war yesterday by complaining she was never given a ‘realistic chance’ to deliver on her radical tax cut program due to a lack of public awareness. political support and a ‘strong economic base’.
But allies of Mr Sunak and Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt have made it clear that there is no prospect of easing the burden – which is at a post-war high – in next month’s Budget. Instead, they insist action must wait until rampant inflation is brought under control.
Rishi Sunak is facing a fresh attack from predecessor Liz Truss today as he dismisses calls for an early tax cut
Ms Truss used a 4,000-word article yesterday to admit she was not ‘innocent’ about how her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng catastrophically unraveled the notorious Small Budget.
A series of unfunded tax cuts and a lack of oversight from the Office of Budgetary Affairs heralded a crisis in the bond market and the pound plunged against the dollar and dong. euro.
Still, Ms. Truss said she still believes her growth-promoting approach is right.
She points to leftist bias in the economic ‘base’ and says she was not warned about the risk of pension fund collapse due to complicated investment strategies.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps – who served as home secretary for six days when Ms Truss’ 49-day term as prime minister fell apart – has steered Ms Sunak’s government away from the idea of an immediate tax break.
When asked by the BBC if her approach was correct, he said: ‘Well, obviously not.’
Earlier, he told Sky News’ Ridge on Sunday: ‘You have to deal with the fundamentals first. You have to reduce inflation, which is the biggest tax cut anyone can get.
‘I noticed her saying they didn’t prepare the basis for these big tax changes. What you have to do is solve the big structural problems first, tackle inflation first, deal with debt, then work towards tax cuts.
‘I totally agree with Liz’s instinct to have a lower tax economy. We also know that if you do it before dealing with inflation and dealing with debt, you will end up in trouble. You cannot get growth out of nowhere.
‘Rishi Sunak got in, he got rid of that premium because the market didn’t like what was going on after that. So we’re back where we should be.’
Alicia Kearns, Tory chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Sky: ‘I think the best and polite way to say that the recollections are different, however fundamentally the market is not left behind, they are not. be woke up.
‘Unfulfilled promises are unfulfilled and really what ultimately ended Liz Truss’ role as prime minister was the inability to manage the party, Number 10 told the minister at the dispatch box one thing in when telling others about a rather important vote. It’s the mismanagement of the party that’s why MPs don’t trust Liz Truss anymore and that’s why her term as prime minister is over.’
Jake Berry, Tory party chairman under Ms Truss, defended her former boss, saying her article ‘accepts responsibility’ and her diagnosis of the problems the UK has to face – high taxes – is right. However, he admitted her ‘wrong prescription’.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Truss said: ‘I do not claim to be innocent in what happened, but fundamentally I have not been given a realistic opportunity by a very strong economic base to give a ban. implementation of its policies, coupled with a lack of political support.
Business Secretary Grant Shapps blocks Mr. Sunak’s government from calling for immediate tax relief
Jake Berry, who served as Tory party chairman under Ms Truss, defended her former boss, saying her article contained ‘acceptance of responsibility’
‘I assumed upon entering Downing Street that my duties would be respected and accepted. How was I wrong. While I expected the system to oppose my program, I underestimated its magnitude.
‘Similarly, I underestimated the resistance within the Conservative parliamentary party to transition to a lower-tax, less regulated economy.’
Ms. Truss’ short term as prime minister lasted only 49 days. She was forced to quit her job after Mr Kwarteng’s £45 billion tax cut package sent markets into panic and the pound plummeted.
She said her experience last fall was ‘brutal for me personally’, arguing that she was not warned about the risks to the bond market from investments based on on liability (LDIs) used by pension funds.
The threat of a collapsing investment strategy when a slump in sow prices forced the Bank of England to intervene.
Source: | This article originally belonged to Dailymail.co.uk
