Jeremy Hunt: New British Treasury Secretary warns that taxes will rise and there will be cuts | international

Britain's new Economy Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, knows he faces a race against time and a practically impossible task: saving the tenure of Prime Minister Liz Truss…

The new British Economy Minister, Jeremy Hunt, realizes that he faces a race against time, a practically impossible task: saving the mandate of Prime Minister Liz Truss, who is practically being abandoned by the majority of Conservative MPs. dead. On Saturday, at seven-thirty in the morning (eight-thirty in the Spanish peninsula), Hunt began a round of interviews on various television stations, with the aim of doing what neither his boss nor his predecessor in office, Kwasi Kwarteng, had so far refused. This Friday in a surprising way – he knew how to do it. He admitted his mistakes, explained how the course would be corrected, and announced to the British people that difficult times were coming, when taxes would rise and some public services would suffer cuts.

“There were mistakes. It was a mistake, when we were ready to make complex decisions regarding taxes and cuts in public spending, to abolish the maximum personal income tax rate for the highest incomes. It was a mistake to act blindly and introduce these “The measures were not supported by a report from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which showed that the calculations were successful.”

When the new government presented its landmark tax cut proposal, worth around €60 billion, on September 23, the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer refused to use the usual procedure to unveil what was, for all intents and purposes, a “mini-budget,” because of its implications for… Public debt. Along with the tax break, the government launched a direct aid scheme for households and businesses to cover gas and electricity bills, worth about an additional $200,000. Kwarteng was unwilling to attach these measures to a report from the Budget Control Office, because he knew that the independent body “You will object to what might constitute a noticeable hole in the budget. Given the anxiety of the markets, and the collapse in the value of sterling and Treasuries, he was forced to promise to formally submit his financial plan, accompanied by the mandatory reporting, sooner than expected. He spoke of November 23. He did not convince anyone He brought it forward to October 31. That was not enough either. By then, investor confidence in Truss and his minister was already at its lowest point.

On Saturday, Hunt tried to begin to put the pieces of that trust back together, something the Prime Minister's appearance on Friday only exacerbated. Tense, evasive, with robot-like answers, in which she limited herself to repeating that her main mission was to restore the economic stability of the country – which she had destroyed with her measures -, Truss conveyed to the conservative MPs the feeling that his days at the head of the government were numbered, which worried the markets even more. The pound fell again, after 24 hours that witnessed a certain euphoria regarding the change in direction announced by the Prime Minister, as well as the value of 30-year public debt bonds.

“Taxes will not go down as much as some citizens would like. Some will rise, Hunt warned. “But when we make these decisions, we are making a double commitment: we will help all businesses, families and vulnerable people who are struggling to move forward in a very difficult situation. We will always keep them in mind as our priority, because we are a government that practices compassionate conservatism.”

In this way, any politician on the ideological opposite side of the gears will try to save her disastrous mandate. Although some are skeptical that Hunt, by passing, is also setting himself up for a seemingly inevitable replacement. With his reputation as a moderate, conciliatory and centrist, the new minister seeks to bring calm to the markets – stormy sessions are expected to begin starting Monday -; The image of seriousness and rigor among citizens, and the possibilities of getting out of the quagmire, with the message of “compassionate conservatism,” to their fellow conservative representatives, who see how the ballot boxes predict a historic electoral disaster.

This has been the main blame for Conservatives To gears. Not only has it destroyed the UK's reputation and economic prestige around the world, through obsessive and intolerant management, it has once again conveyed to citizens the image of an obscene party, more interested in cutting taxes for the rich. The majority of the population emerges from the swamp.

Minister Kwarteng, who only found out about his shock dismissal on Friday when he stepped off the plane on which he was returning to London from Washington and began reading the headlines, attempted to bid an elegant farewell to his friend and ally until now, Liz Truss. But for a small circle of friends, according to media like times also Daily MailHe has already expressed his conviction that the Prime Minister “gained only a few weeks” by throwing him into the sea.

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