London, Sept 30 (AFP/APP): Less than a month into the job, British Prime Minister Liz Truss is already deep in a financial crisis that has left some Conservatives in mutinous mood heading into the party’s annual conference.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng is due to address the four-day conference on Monday, following his dramatic announcement of debt-fuelled tax cuts on September 23.
Truss then closes it with the leader’s keynote speech on Wednesday.
With markets and voters on edge, her team will be hoping for a better performance than she gave as environment minister to the 2014 Tory conference — when she made a bizarre rant in praise of British food.
The party was forced to alter this year’s programme at the last minute following the death on September 8 of Queen Elizabeth II — who appointed Truss to succeed Boris Johnson as her 15th prime minister only two days before she died.
The Conservatives convene in Birmingham just after the opposition Labour party, at its own annual conference, self-confidently declared it was ready for power at a gathering that was unusually free of infighting.
Labour leader Keir Starmer contrasted the mood of national unity engendered by the queen’s death to the acrimony surrounding what media are calling the “KamiKwasi” budget.
The plan for top-to-bottom tax cuts, financed by a borrowing spree, have unnerved financial markets, alienated the International Monetary Fund and caused tensions with the Bank of England (BoE).
Most immediately for UK voters, it is driving up costs including for home mortgages, as market interest rates surge in the middle of the worst cost-of-living crisis in generations.
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