When Liz Truss ran for prime minister of Britain this summer, one ally predicted her first weeks in office would be turbulent.
However, few were prepared for this scale of noise and fury - least of all Liz Trass. In just six weeks, the Prime Minister's libertarian economic policies caused a financial crisis, the urgent intervention of the central bank, numerous upheavals and the dismissal of her finance minister, the Associated Press agency points out.
Now Trasova is facing a rebellion within the ruling Conservative Party that seriously threatens her stay in office.
Conservative MP Robert Halfon angrily said on Sunday that in the past few weeks "horror stories have followed each other". "The government looks like libertarian jihadists and is treating the whole country like some kind of laboratory mouse on which to conduct ultra, ultra free market experiments," he told Sky News.
However, it cannot be said that the conservatives were not warned, points out AP and adds that this summer, before the vote for party leader, Trasova called herself a troublemaker who would call into question the economic "orthodoxy". She promised to cut taxes and red tape and boost growth in Britain's sluggish economy.
Her rival, former finance minister Rishi Sunak, argued that it would be reckless to cut taxes immediately because of the economic shocks caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Still, the Conservative Party's 172 members - who are mostly older and more affluent - preferred the growth vision put forward by Liz Truss. She won 000 percent of the vote and became the leader of the ruling party on September 57. The following day, she was appointed Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II in one of her last duties before she passed away on 5 September.
Liz Truss's first days as prime minister were overshadowed by national mourning over the Queen's death. Then on September 23, Finance Minister Kvasi Kvarteng announced the economic plan that he and Trasova had drawn up. It included £45bn of tax cuts - including tax cuts for the highest earners - with no accompanying assessment of how the government would pay for it.
Trasova actually did what she and her allies announced. The head of the Libertarian Research Center, Mark Littlewood, predicted that there would be a "spark" this summer as the new prime minister insists on economic reforms at "absolutely breakneck speed." However, the scale of the announcement surprised financial markets and political experts.
"Many of us wrongly expected her to slow down after victory, as many presidents do," Tim Bale, a professor of political science in London, told AP. “However, she did not do that. She actually meant everything she said."
The pound has fallen to a record low against the US dollar and government borrowing costs have soared. The Bank of England was forced to step in to buy government bonds and prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the wider economy. The central bank also warned that interest rates would have to rise even faster than expected to curb inflation, which is running at around 10 percent, leaving millions of property owners facing rising mortgage debt.
Jill Rutter of the Institute for Government said that Trasova and Kvarteng made a series of "unprovoked mistakes" in their economic package. "They should not have shown their contempt for financial institutions so clearly," she said. "I think they could have followed the advice. I also think that one of the things where they made a mistake is that they announced one part of the package, tax reduction - without spending, which would be the other side of the equation".
As the backlash grew more violent, Trasova began to drop parts of the package in an effort to appease the party and the markets. Tax cuts for the highest earners were abandoned during the Conservative Party's annual conference when the party rebelled.
That was not enough. On Friday, Trasova ousted Kvarteng, her longtime friend and ally, and appointed Jeremy Hunt, who served as health secretary and foreign minister in the Conservative governments of David Cameron and Theresa May.
At a short press conference, the Prime Minister admitted that the actions of "our mini-budget went further and faster than the markets expected". She changed the planned corporate tax reduction, in order to "bring the markets into our fiscal discipline".
Trasova remains ex-officio prime minister, but government power has shifted to Hunt, who has hinted he plans to scrap much of her remaining economic plan when he delivers his budget statement on October 31. He said that tax increases and reductions in public spending will be necessary to restore the government's fiscal credibility. Nevertheless, Hunt insisted yesterday: "The premiere is still the main one".
"She listened. She changed. She is willing to do the hardest thing in politics, which is to change direction," Hunt told the BBC.
The Conservative Party has a large majority in parliament and, in theory, has two years until parliamentary elections. Public opinion polls indicate that the Conservatives would be wiped out in the election and that the Labor Party would win a large majority.
Conservative MPs are struggling to decide whether to try to replace the leader for the second time in a year. In July, the party dismissed Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who led them to an election victory in 2019.
Now many of them are regretting the choice of his replacement. The AP agency reminds that according to party rules, Trasova is safe from being removed from the party for a year, but some conservative MPs believe that she may be forced to resign if the party agrees on a successor. Defeated rival Sunak, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and popular defense secretary Ben Wallace are among the candidates mentioned as potential replacements. Johnson, who remained an MP, also has his supporters.
Deputy Finance Minister Andrew Griffith said yesterday that Trasova should be given a chance to try to restore order.
"This is the time when we need stability," he told Sky News. "People at home are pulling their hair out because of the uncertainty. They want a competent government that does its job".
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