UK's U-turn

Jeremy Hunt, the new UK finance minister, took a wrecking ball to Liz Truss’s economic policy yesterday that reassured markets but left the prime minister’s future hanging by a thread. While Hunt was rewriting Truss’s financial strategy, the prime minister was in meetings with senior MPs in her Conservative party to save her job, as colleagues lined up to tell her she could not survive the debacle. In a sign that power is flowing away from the premier, Hunt said he would consider scrapping even more of Truss’s policies,

telling the House of Commons that «economic stability» was now the priority. Hunt’s reversal of most of Kwarteng’s September 23 «mini» Budget saved £32bn. Still, the chancellor will have to make further significant savings and raise taxes to fill a fiscal hole estimated at £70bn.

Hunt will set out more tax rises and spending cuts in a medium-term fiscal plan on October 31, accompanied by the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts.

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