“In these difficult times, we must act. I am determined to take the UK forward to weather the storm,” he said during a speech lasting more than 30 minutes that was interrupted by two activists from the NGO Greenpeace with a banner reading “In these difficult times, we must act.” Who voted for this? “.
A month after succeeding Boris Johnson, Truss has pitted herself against financial markets, voters and leading figures in her party with a program of massive tax cuts that will add to the UK’s already bloated public debt.
But at the end of the Birmingham Conference, Truss once again defended his ultra-liberal plan to revive the British economy threatened by recession and plunge into hyperinflation that is putting many families in limbo.
“The scale of the challenge is enormous,” he said. “That’s why in the UK we have to do things differently,” he insisted. He admitted that “whenever there is change, there is turmoil. And not everyone will be in his favour.” “But the whole world will benefit from the result: a growing economy and a better future,” Truss said.
In an illustration of Truss’s rapid loss of credibility, former minister Grant Shapps said the prime minister could face a retaliatory vote from her deputies if her rhetoric does not begin to improve her poor standing in the polls.
Johnson was hailed as an electoral hero after achieving his largest conservative majority in 40 years in 2019, and was pressured to resign in July, when a build-up of scandals showed he could not continue to successfully lead his party until the next legislative elections, scheduled for January 2025 at the latest.
However, a YouGov poll, published Wednesday before Truss’ speech, showed that the prime minister, who took office on September 6, is already less popular than Johnson at her worst.
“I don’t think Tory lawmakers, if they saw the polls stay that way, they would just sit idly by,” Shapps told Radio Times. Markets immediately reacted to a sharp drop in the pound, as it lost nearly 2% against the dollar.
Lacking Johnson’s charisma or oratory skills, Truss has focused in recent days, in numerous interviews with media large and small, advocating the dramatic shift she has been forced to make in her economic plan.
His finance minister, Kwasi Quarting, announced on Monday that he would drop the highly controversial abolition of the 45% maximum tax on income over 150,000 pounds (170,000 euros) a year.
Embedded in a broader tax package – dubbed a “small budget” – the measure has drawn harsh accusations of favoring the rich at a time when many Britons are plunged into poverty with the rising cost of living.
Although she is a member of her cabinet, the Secretary of State for Parliamentary Relations, Penny Mordaunt, has abandoned the text and publicly endorsed the need to modernize welfare in line with inflation, which Truss and Kwarting are currently reluctant to do.
Truss denies that he has lost control of the executive branch and the party. But the highly conservative and controversial Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused her critics within the party of wanting to carry out a “coup” against the prime minister.
Opinion polls show Labor, the main opposition force, up to 33 points ahead of the right that has been in power for 12 years.
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