British Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng has ruled out any change of course in the plan for massive tax cuts, the announcement of which has had disastrous repercussions, according to excerpts from his planned speech to the Conservative Party Congress on Monday. Defended by Prime Minister LIz Truss, who nevertheless acknowledged that the government should have “prepared the ground better”, the plan presented on September 23 by Kwasi Kwarteng caused the fall of the pound and misunderstanding of the financial markets that fear a debt explosion.
Aimed at tackling the cost-of-living crisis, this “mini-budget” calls for a freeze on energy bills and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, with the stated goal of spurring growth. “We must stay the course,” the finance minister said, according to excerpts from his speech broadcast on Sunday night, showing his confidence that the government’s project is “the right one.”
Citing exploding energy bills, tax pressure at an all-time high “for 70 years”, Kwasi Kwarteng believes a “new approach”, “based on growth”, was needed. “We will show that this plan is solid, credible and will increase growth”, “that is my promise for this country”, he must declare from the podium of the Conservative congress in Birmingham (central England).
Liz Truss weakened in her own field
In power for just a month, Liz Truss has seen the disastrous polls pile up two years before the 2014 general election: a recent YouGov study gives the opposition Labor party 33 points and according to another, one in two Britons (51% ) wants me to resign . The mistrust that this “mini-budget” arouses is such that it even predicts a possible rebellion within the conservative party itself when the text is put to a vote in Parliament.
Heavyweight of the majority, former minister Michael Gove judged Sunday on the BBC that “having the reduction of taxes for the richest as the main fiscal measure is proposing bad values.” At the time of the opening of the congress on Sunday at midday, several hundred people demonstrated chanting “Tories out”, or “say it loud and clear, the Tories are not welcome here”. From the podium, influential railway unionist Mick Lynch called the current situation in the UK a “class struggle”, calling on the “working class to take action to ‘change the country’ and ‘change society’.
Source: BFM TV
