Liz Truss faces fresh demands from angry MPs to explain how she plans to stop Government debt from spiralling out of control without raising taxes or cutting spending.
Conservative backbenchers openly criticised her at a bruising meeting of the 1922 Committee, which came at the end of another day of economic turbulence.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Ms Truss ruled out a U-turn on her plan to cut income and corporation tax, saying she “absolutely” stood by a promise to protect current levels of public spending.
Ministers are apparently relying on hitting their goal of raising annual economic growth to 2.5 per cent, which would allow them to reduce debt as a proportion of GDP without changing their tax or spending plans.
But multiple Tory MPs have called on the Prime Minister to reverse some of her planned tax cuts in order to reassure the markets that she is capable of balancing the books.
Speaking to the 1922 Committee of MPs on Wednesday night, Ms Truss “called for the party to highlight the devastation that would have been caused to small business had we not acted” by capping energy bills, according to a No 10 source. She added that “Labour had no plan to avert this”.
But in response, critics including Robert Halfon, the chairman of the Commons education committee, accused her to her face of abandoning Conservative values and questioned her decision-making ability – prompting rounds of applause from colleagues.
One MP told i: “That was a worse 1922 meeting than any under Theresa May. Brutal.” MPs are “openly plotting how to put this Government out of its misery,” they said.
Ms Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will hold talks with rebel MPs from next week onwards to convince them that the “medium-term fiscal plan” on 31 October will address their concerns, according to Thérèse Coffey, the Deputy Prime Minister. She added: “It’s all about engagement.”
Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury committee, warned that the Chancellor had to show “a clear change in tack”. He tweeted: “Given the clear Government position expressed today on protecting public spending there is an emerging question. Whether any plan that does not now include at least some element of further row back on the tax package can actually satisfy the markets.”
Damian Green, Theresa May’s former deputy, said the idea of reversing last month’s mini-Budget was “a topic of conversation around the tea rooms of the House of Commons”. He told the BBC: “There are various things you could do and one of the obvious ways – because you do need some big numbers to change – one of the obvious ways would be possibly to defer some of the tax cuts or the failure to put taxes up.”
And multiple backbenchers stood up in the Commons to call for the Government to reconsider its tax policies. Robert Largan, the MP for High Peak, said: “The Conservative Party stands for low taxes but also for fiscal responsibility and sound money. Given that the Prime Minister has just said that there will not be public-sector spending cuts, can I ask if the Government are considering deferring any of the tax measures recently announced by the Chancellor?”
She keeps repeating the line about energy bills as if she genuinely believes that is the thing that spooked the markets and nobody, not even at PMQs, seems to be pointing out that she is either deluded or lying.
I actually have retrospective fondness for TM considering the shower who came after her 😀
Genuine ask- aside from brexit stuff how was May as PM?
So… they didn’t know who were they voting for? What the fuck?
This is better than a Netflix show.
They’re like a pack of rabid badgers.
Glorious to see, let it divide the Tories for generations to come.
Anyone with any sense could see she wasn’t PM material (neither was Johnson). However our standards have slipped so much that we have got to a position where someone like Truss and Johnson are even considered governmental material is stupid
She is worse than Johnson, that was the bottom. May was relatively normal.
Yet another headline revealing that they still don’t think Boris was a problem.
There was literally a scandal every week under Boris but Theresa May is somehow their benchmark for failure.
Boris makes May look semi competent by comparison and May was an evil authoritarian who laughed while cutting disabled benefits…
Every prime minister will be worse than the last since they very clearly don’t care about actually running the country anymore, what’s left is a brexit party more closely resembling UKIP.
Is it pitchfork time yet or do we have to wait until November 5th?
I thought many things about politicians over the last few years, but her performance in PMQ’s made me say out aloud “She’s just terrible at her job”. I didn’t think about the lying or incompetency like I did with Boris. Simply. She’s just bad at her job. I found that actually quite shocking. I have no energy to analyse her performance, dig deeper into her foibles, no attempt to understand or rationalise it. She just quite simply, she’s very bad at her job.
Genuinely didn’t think we’d get anyone worse than Boris
Having a rudderless imbecile as PM might actually work out better in the end because we are more likely to have government by consensus and the collective wisdom of the Conservatives is probably slightly greater than any of their individual MPs.
This woman is an utter moron.
Example, PMQs – accuses Labour of wanting to raise National Insurance, after they voted against a raise and she voted for it mere months ago. Shes an imbecile.
She is my MP and I’m very surprised there has been no media in town interviewing people.
Well at least she’s consistent in that she’s just as useless being a PM as she is being an MP.
Worse than Theresa May? She’s the best the tories had the past 5 years. (I am talking about Theresa – they should be saying worse than Boris lmfao shows how out of touch these people are)
MAYBE…. She’s actually still a LibDem and has been working undercover to destroy the Tories from within all those years.
Or MAYBE she’s just an awful opportunist with zero understanding of anything.
Even if she gets booted. Its the same party.
The same party that chose her and every piece of shit Tory that came before her.
Like that’s all 3 female PM’s regarded as awful Prime Ministers like why what is our problem with women in power being shit when other countries have had female leaders that were really popular even Nicola Sturgeon isn’t that good considering her government’s limp wristed response to Scotland’s drug epidemic why the fuck can’t we have good leaders like I dont even think Kier Starmer would be any better I think it’s time we think about voting for parties other than the Tories and Labour
I swear she is Boris Johnson’s plant to create a second even more chaotic leadership contest and he thinks that joe he can come back.
She’s just so indescribably inept.
Why is May used as the benchmark here for bad PM’s when Boris was clearly worse?
Oh wait, he’s exactly what these cunts want
Someone made a comparison of her with Chucky and it kinda helps accepting reality, this some shit Chucky would do
Listening to radio 4 this morning I was very smug listening to how badly she was received by almost ALL Tory MPs. Joe Lycett nailed it with the “Backwash of the dregs available” comment.
Banks control the world, they control governments who then control the people for them
Boris was worse than Theresa May, I wish more people could see that
The Tories all just need to go and get voted out (which with her in charge I don’t see how they won’t… if they ever allow a vote).
Basically since the Brexit vote I think almost every leader has been unelected by the public. Was there just one actual election? And Johnson I think only won so people could ‘get brexit over with’ (which it never will be…).
Maybe the tories have always been like this (I didn’t follow anything about politics until after the Brexit vote and it actually fucking up my life). But now they just seem overtly corrupt – filling their and their friends pockets while hurting everyone else. They lie and steal and basically nothing happens to them.
Since the Brexit vote (which was not a legally binding vote remember!), they’ve been flushing the country down the toilet. Literally everything has got worse (obviously Covid and Russia play their part, but everything is just made that much worse because of Brexit and letting these morons in charge do what they want with no repurcussions).
Remember when the political genius, David Cameron, cleverly snookered UKIP by calling a Brexit referendum ?
Looks like the chips are still falling on that one
And you wonder why the Scottish hate fuckin Westminster and the tories. What a cunting disaster. I’m no fan of the snp but it’s the best of an absolute piss bunch right now.
28 comments
Liz Truss faces fresh demands from angry MPs to explain how she plans to stop Government debt from spiralling out of control without raising taxes or cutting spending.
Conservative backbenchers openly criticised her at a bruising meeting of the 1922 Committee, which came at the end of another day of economic turbulence.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Ms Truss ruled out a U-turn on her plan to cut income and corporation tax, saying she “absolutely” stood by a promise to protect current levels of public spending.
Ministers are apparently relying on hitting their goal of raising annual economic growth to 2.5 per cent, which would allow them to reduce debt as a proportion of GDP without changing their tax or spending plans.
But multiple Tory MPs have called on the Prime Minister to reverse some of her planned tax cuts in order to reassure the markets that she is capable of balancing the books.
Speaking to the 1922 Committee of MPs on Wednesday night, Ms Truss “called for the party to highlight the devastation that would have been caused to small business had we not acted” by capping energy bills, according to a No 10 source. She added that “Labour had no plan to avert this”.
But in response, critics including Robert Halfon, the chairman of the Commons education committee, accused her to her face of abandoning Conservative values and questioned her decision-making ability – prompting rounds of applause from colleagues.
One MP told i: “That was a worse 1922 meeting than any under Theresa May. Brutal.” MPs are “openly plotting how to put this Government out of its misery,” they said.
Ms Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will hold talks with rebel MPs from next week onwards to convince them that the “medium-term fiscal plan” on 31 October will address their concerns, according to Thérèse Coffey, the Deputy Prime Minister. She added: “It’s all about engagement.”
Mel Stride, chair of the Treasury committee, warned that the Chancellor had to show “a clear change in tack”. He tweeted: “Given the clear Government position expressed today on protecting public spending there is an emerging question. Whether any plan that does not now include at least some element of further row back on the tax package can actually satisfy the markets.”
Damian Green, Theresa May’s former deputy, said the idea of reversing last month’s mini-Budget was “a topic of conversation around the tea rooms of the House of Commons”. He told the BBC: “There are various things you could do and one of the obvious ways – because you do need some big numbers to change – one of the obvious ways would be possibly to defer some of the tax cuts or the failure to put taxes up.”
And multiple backbenchers stood up in the Commons to call for the Government to reconsider its tax policies. Robert Largan, the MP for High Peak, said: “The Conservative Party stands for low taxes but also for fiscal responsibility and sound money. Given that the Prime Minister has just said that there will not be public-sector spending cuts, can I ask if the Government are considering deferring any of the tax measures recently announced by the Chancellor?”
She keeps repeating the line about energy bills as if she genuinely believes that is the thing that spooked the markets and nobody, not even at PMQs, seems to be pointing out that she is either deluded or lying.
I actually have retrospective fondness for TM considering the shower who came after her 😀
Genuine ask- aside from brexit stuff how was May as PM?
So… they didn’t know who were they voting for? What the fuck?
This is better than a Netflix show.
They’re like a pack of rabid badgers.
Glorious to see, let it divide the Tories for generations to come.
Anyone with any sense could see she wasn’t PM material (neither was Johnson). However our standards have slipped so much that we have got to a position where someone like Truss and Johnson are even considered governmental material is stupid
She is worse than Johnson, that was the bottom. May was relatively normal.
Yet another headline revealing that they still don’t think Boris was a problem.
There was literally a scandal every week under Boris but Theresa May is somehow their benchmark for failure.
Boris makes May look semi competent by comparison and May was an evil authoritarian who laughed while cutting disabled benefits…
Every prime minister will be worse than the last since they very clearly don’t care about actually running the country anymore, what’s left is a brexit party more closely resembling UKIP.
Is it pitchfork time yet or do we have to wait until November 5th?
I thought many things about politicians over the last few years, but her performance in PMQ’s made me say out aloud “She’s just terrible at her job”. I didn’t think about the lying or incompetency like I did with Boris. Simply. She’s just bad at her job. I found that actually quite shocking. I have no energy to analyse her performance, dig deeper into her foibles, no attempt to understand or rationalise it. She just quite simply, she’s very bad at her job.
Genuinely didn’t think we’d get anyone worse than Boris
Having a rudderless imbecile as PM might actually work out better in the end because we are more likely to have government by consensus and the collective wisdom of the Conservatives is probably slightly greater than any of their individual MPs.
This woman is an utter moron.
Example, PMQs – accuses Labour of wanting to raise National Insurance, after they voted against a raise and she voted for it mere months ago. Shes an imbecile.
She is my MP and I’m very surprised there has been no media in town interviewing people.
Well at least she’s consistent in that she’s just as useless being a PM as she is being an MP.
Worse than Theresa May? She’s the best the tories had the past 5 years. (I am talking about Theresa – they should be saying worse than Boris lmfao shows how out of touch these people are)
MAYBE…. She’s actually still a LibDem and has been working undercover to destroy the Tories from within all those years.
Or MAYBE she’s just an awful opportunist with zero understanding of anything.
Even if she gets booted. Its the same party.
The same party that chose her and every piece of shit Tory that came before her.
Like that’s all 3 female PM’s regarded as awful Prime Ministers like why what is our problem with women in power being shit when other countries have had female leaders that were really popular even Nicola Sturgeon isn’t that good considering her government’s limp wristed response to Scotland’s drug epidemic why the fuck can’t we have good leaders like I dont even think Kier Starmer would be any better I think it’s time we think about voting for parties other than the Tories and Labour
I swear she is Boris Johnson’s plant to create a second even more chaotic leadership contest and he thinks that joe he can come back.
She’s just so indescribably inept.
Why is May used as the benchmark here for bad PM’s when Boris was clearly worse?
Oh wait, he’s exactly what these cunts want
Someone made a comparison of her with Chucky and it kinda helps accepting reality, this some shit Chucky would do
Listening to radio 4 this morning I was very smug listening to how badly she was received by almost ALL Tory MPs. Joe Lycett nailed it with the “Backwash of the dregs available” comment.
Banks control the world, they control governments who then control the people for them
Boris was worse than Theresa May, I wish more people could see that
The Tories all just need to go and get voted out (which with her in charge I don’t see how they won’t… if they ever allow a vote).
Basically since the Brexit vote I think almost every leader has been unelected by the public. Was there just one actual election? And Johnson I think only won so people could ‘get brexit over with’ (which it never will be…).
Maybe the tories have always been like this (I didn’t follow anything about politics until after the Brexit vote and it actually fucking up my life). But now they just seem overtly corrupt – filling their and their friends pockets while hurting everyone else. They lie and steal and basically nothing happens to them.
Since the Brexit vote (which was not a legally binding vote remember!), they’ve been flushing the country down the toilet. Literally everything has got worse (obviously Covid and Russia play their part, but everything is just made that much worse because of Brexit and letting these morons in charge do what they want with no repurcussions).
Remember when the political genius, David Cameron, cleverly snookered UKIP by calling a Brexit referendum ?
Looks like the chips are still falling on that one
And you wonder why the Scottish hate fuckin Westminster and the tories. What a cunting disaster. I’m no fan of the snp but it’s the best of an absolute piss bunch right now.