Apparently he is going to go back to where we were before on the tax rates. Will it be accompanied by a resignation? Will Truss take this opportunity to throw him under the bus? She has already said that it wasn’t positioned well in a detached way, as if she is observing.
The Kwasi IS for turning
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What a lovely day. On Holiday, planning where to go for breakfast and the Tories in turmoil. Lovely.
He’s done a U-turn but the champagne’s already been opened and the markets have moved, enriching a few at the expense of many.
Presumably his City mates were given the tip to go long on the pound, and make another fortune
Can I have that missing 40% back on my pension fund, then?
What do you mean, “no”?
The economy has gone down the Kwasi.
Been dumped, effectively
What utter arrogance and incompetence to think they could push that through without any consultation within the party, never mind more widely. Naturally, no apology, no self reflection, no acknowledgement it was a colossal mistake. What a shower.
I’m calling it now; next Prime Minister, Michael Gove
I called it an hour ago Chiz, over on the Steve Baker thread. Come on man, do keep up.
Well, if he does eventually become PM it would be one of the most serpentine routes to power.
Well, he is famously serpentine.
Well you can use that to get paint off your leather trousers.
…. sorry, I’m not wearing me appliance
Not so much a U-Turn as a Handbrake Turn.
Kwasi’s song for later.
Not because the policy was wrong, but because it had become a distraction.
The reversal was inevitable and has been for the best part of a week.
The cut to the 45p rate wasn’t a spectacularly harmful policy idea (we lived with a 40p rate for many years without riots in the streets), but it was understandably politically toxic in this climate, and had become emblematic of the overall budget fiasco.
What remains in place is £18bn in cuts to public services, a removal of caps on bankers’ bonuses, the markets having already been spooked by a Tory government doling out wild uncosted tax cuts, and the public realisation that this is a government that will rule on the basis of ideology rather than reality.
A bad idea, incompetently handled. The u-turn is one of the few smart things Kwarteng and Truss have done since coming to office, and even this was forced on them.