LONDON
\nBritain\u2019s Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday vied to reboot her economic programme, but Conservative critics warned the party faces electoral oblivion under her crippled leadership.
\nWith even US President Joe Biden joining in attacks on her libertarian platform, Truss admitted it had been a \u201cwrench\u201d to fire her friend Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor of the exchequer on Friday.
\nBut writing in the Sun newspaper on Sunday, she said: \u201cWe cannot pave the way to a low-tax, high-growth economy without maintaining the confidence of the markets in our commitment to sound money.\u201d
\nThat confidence was jeopardised on September 23 when Kwarteng and Truss unveiled a right-wing programme, inspired by 1980s US president Ronald Reagan, of 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts financed exclusively by higher debt.
\nMarkets tanked in response, driving up borrowing costs for millions of Britons, and the Conservatives\u2019 poll ratings have similarly slumped, leading to open warfare in the governing party mere weeks after Truss succeeded Boris Johnson.
\n\u201cI think the game is up, and it\u2019s now a question as to how the succession is managed,\u201d senior Tory MP Crispin Blunt said on Channel 4.
\nTruss has been forced into a screeching policy U-turn which cost Kwarteng his job. But she depressed the bond markets even more with a painful press conference on Friday and the government was nervously awaiting the resumption of trading on Monday.
\nBidding to placate investors, Kwarteng\u2019s replacement Jeremy Hunt is now warning that taxes may in fact have to rise and is pressing for spending restraint by his cabinet colleagues even as Britons endure a cost-of-living crisis.
\nThe new chancellor met the prime minister at her country retreat on Sunday to thrash out a new budget plan which he is due to deliver on October 31, effectively demolishing the \u201cTrussonomics\u201d programme that brought her to power.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to be very, very difficult, and I think we have to be honest with people about that,\u201d Hunt told the BBC prompting a warning from trade unions of concerted strike action if he enforces painful cuts.
\nHunt said he was \u201cnot taking anything off the table\u201d, but also defended Truss.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s been willing to do that most difficult of things in politics, and that is to change tack,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cThe prime minister\u2019s in charge.\u201d
\nBut many questioned that verdict.
\n\u201cTruss has become a pointless prime minister, an empty vessel with no policies or power,\u201d the Sunday Times editorialised.
\nThe Treasury declined to confirm reports that Hunt plans to delay a planned cut to the basic rate of income tax, removing yet another headline measure announced by the new government last month.
\nUp to 100 letters expressing no confidence in Truss have been submitted by Tory MPs, the Sunday Times and Sunday Express said.
\nOpponents were said to be coalescing around Truss\u2019s defeated leadership rival Rishi Sunak and another one-time foe, Penny Mordaunt, for a possible \u201cunity ticket\u201d to rebuild the stricken Tories.
\nDefence Secretary Ben Wallace could be another compromise candidate for leader, the Sunday Mirror reported.
\n\u201cI worry that over the past few weeks, the government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice in which to carry out ultra, ultra free-market experiments,\u201d Tory MP Robert Halfon, who supported Sunak, told Sky News.
\n\u201cOf course, colleagues are unhappy with what is going on, with haemorrhaging in the opinion polls,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s inevitable that colleagues are, talking to see what can be done about it.\u201d
\nFellow Tory Alicia Kearns, newly elected as chair of the powerful foreign affairs committee in the House of Commons, also questioned Truss\u2019s prospects for survival.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult one,\u201d she told Times Radio. \u201cWe\u2019ve had questions around our moral competency [under Johnson]. We\u2019ve now got questions around our fiscal competency.\u201d
\nBut Johnson loyalists \u2014 still seething at Sunak\u2019s perceived disloyalty towards the scandal-tainted former leader \u2014 warned against a coronation that cuts out Tory grassroots members.
\nAny new leader would face strong pressure to call an early general election, and the opposition Labour party has streaked far ahead in the polls.
\nHunt at least has won an important endorsement from Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, who had to rescue UK pension funds from the dismal market consequences of the Truss-Kwarteng plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sunday vied to reboot her economic programme, but Conservative critics warned the party faces electoral oblivion under her crippled leadership. With even US President Joe Biden joining in attacks on her libertarian platform, Truss admitted it had been a \u201cwrench\u201d to fire her friend Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-289688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n