Since taking office on September 6, British Prime Minister Liz Truss has been in a period of chaos that ended with her resignation announced this Thursday.
Key developments since she was elected to replace Boris Johnson with Conservative Party militants with 57% of the vote, beating former finance minister Rishi Sunak.
September 6
Liz Truss, 47, has been officially named Prime Minister after meeting Queen Elizabeth II, who asks her to form a new government.
September 8
Faced with rising energy costs, Liz Truss announces a price freeze in parliament for families and businesses. The announcement has been overshadowed by the death of Elizabeth II, and political life in the UK has come to a standstill during the ten days of national mourning.
September 23
Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng presents a “mini-budget” to boost economic growth, supported by tens of thousands of pounds of tax cuts funded by government debt.
Financial markets reacted in the following days with the pound devaluing to an all-time low and government bond yields rising.
September 28
Financial volatility is prompting the Bank of England to undertake an emergency intervention in the bond market in response to a “significant risk to the UK’s financial stability”.
September 29
A poll by the company YouGov points to a 33-point lead for the Labor opposition, the first since the late 1990s, about two years before the general election.
October 3
The tense and disparate atmosphere at the Conservative Party congress leads Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to reverse and abandon plans to abolish the top-tier income tax.
5th of October
“I saw it, I heard it,” Liz Truss told Congress, promising “grow, grow, grow.”
12 October
The prime minister says in parliament that she does not intend to pool government spending and promises to implement tax cuts, raising uncertainty about economic policy.
October 13
Rumors are starting to circulate about steps to replace Liz Truss in Downing Street. While visiting Washington to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, Kwasi Kwarteng is confident that both will remain in office next month.
14 October
Kwasi Kwarteng is removed and replaced by Jeremy Hunt, a losing candidate in the race for Conservative leadership, and thus for Downing Street, who was a supporter of Rishi Sunak.
Liz Truss calls a press conference where she announces another turnaround, abandoning the idea of keeping the corporate tax rate at 19%, which will be increased to 25% by 2023, as planned by the previous government.
The conference ends abruptly after eight minutes and four questions are answered.
October 17
Jeremy Hunt, the fourth Secretary of the Treasury since the beginning of the year, announces the cancellation of most of Liz Truss’ economic program.
In an interview with the BBC, the prime minister admits “mistakes” and apologizes but rules out the resignation, citing the “national interest” and the need for stability.
19 October
“I’m a fighter, not a quitter,” Liz Truss responds to the opposition’s outgoing appeals in the weekly debate in parliament.
Hours later, Suella Braverman resigns as Home Secretary over a security violation by sending an official document on migration policy in a personal “email” to a colleague in Parliament. “I made a mistake. I accept, I resign,” he wrote in his resignation letter, a clear message to Truss.
At night there is chaos in parliament over a poorly explained vote on shale gas exploration, which the government wanted to use as a confidence vote. An investigation was launched into allegations of physical coercion by undecided Conservative MPs.
October 20
Growing discontent in the parliamentary faction of the Conservative Party forces the announcement of Liz Truss’ resignation after six weeks in office. A successor will be found in the coming days, but Truss will be known as the shortest prime minister in British history.
Source: DN
