UK’s Truss admits tax cuts misstep at start of tense Tory conference

AFP - UK Prime Minister Liz Truss yesterday conceded she should have better prepared Britain for her recent debt-fuelled mini-budget slashing taxes, which sparked market turmoil, dismal headlines and disastrous polls.
Less than a month into the job but already mired in a deep crisis, the new Tory leader insisted the controversial plans would return Britain to economic growth, as it grapples with decades-high inflation and imminent recession.

As her restive ruling Conservative party’s annual conference gets underway in Birmingham, Truss also sought to reassure critics she will reduce the extra government borrowing earmarked to fund the tax cuts for the wealthiest.
“I do stand by the package we announced... but I do accept we should have laid the ground better there,” Truss told the BBC in her first live TV appearance since the contentious proposals were unveiled on September 23. 

“We have a clear plan moving forward both to deal with the energy crisis and to deal with inflation, but also to get the economy growing,” she added, while also vowing to curb government borrowing “over the medium term”.
Opposition parties, much of the public and even Conservative MPs - notably backers of her defeated leadership rival Rishi Sunak - are aghast at the mini-budget announced by finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng.

It went further than many had expected, abolishing the top rate of income tax and lifting a cap on bankers’ bonuses.
Markets tanked in response, and the Bank of England staged an emergency intervention to bail out embattled pension funds, setting the stage for a difficult four-day gathering in Birmingham.

Truss revealed she had not discussed axing high-earners’ 45 percent tax rate with her cabinet, and appeared to distance herself from the politically toxic move by claiming “it was a decision that the chancellor made”.
That prompted an immediate rebuke from erstwhile Tory MP ally Nadine Dorries, who accused her of “throwing (Kwarteng) under a bus on the first day of conference”.

Meanwhile, appearing on the BBC immediately after Truss, senior Conservative lawmaker Michael Gove branded the plans “profoundly” problematic and said there would need to be “a course correction”.
Reports suggest some Tory MPs could join opposition parties’ attempts to block the most controversial aspects of the mini-budget in parliament.
They emerge as a raft of polls showed a dramatic slump in the standing of the party as well as Truss and Kwarteng.
One Yougov survey Friday found 51 percent of Britons think that she should resign and 54 percent want the finance minister to go.