Will Liz Truss sack Kwasi Kwarteng to save herself?
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
What was left of Liz Truss’s authority visibly dissipated in Prime Minister’s Questions this week. As Freddie Hayward reports, the atmosphere was “funereal”, with the Prime Minister repeating “I’m genuinely unclear” and refusing to talk about market turmoil or tax cuts, only the government’s energy package.
Anoosh Chakelian, Rachel Cunliffe, Rachel Wearmouth and Freddie Hayward discuss the criticism of the mini-Budget and what Truss’s options are, whether Kwasi Kwarteng will survive as Chancellor and who would replace him, and Labour’s plans for a future without Truss.
Then in You Ask Us, a listener asks what on earth the government’s much-touted “supply-side reform” is.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Anouche. I'm Freddie. And we're at Shell. And on today's episode of the New |
| 0:14.4 | Statesman podcast, we discuss more of the fallout from the budget, and you ask us, |
| 0:18.9 | what on earth is supply side reform? The budget has been under even more scrutiny this |
| 0:28.4 | week with MPs back in the chamber. The Chancellor quasi-quarting faced treasury questions earlier |
| 0:33.3 | this week, and we saw the Prime Minister Liz Truss fielding questions about it at PMQs |
| 0:37.5 | as well. Freddie, you've been on the ground in the House of Commons, so to speak. What's |
| 0:41.6 | the atmosphere been like, because there's been a lot of pushback from Tory backbentures? |
| 0:45.6 | Yeah, I think it was a torrid afternoon for Liz Truss yesterday. You could feel her authority |
| 0:50.8 | disintegrate hour by hour, and it started at PMQs where the faces of her backbentures |
| 0:57.0 | were grim. When they weren't looking grim, they were suppressing laughter, which is never |
| 1:02.6 | a good sign. And that went on throughout the afternoon, you had MPs talking about who |
| 1:07.9 | should replace the Chancellor, who should replace the Prime Minister. And then she addressed |
| 1:12.8 | the 1922 committee of backbentures at around 5pm. And the atmosphere as one MP put it to |
| 1:19.4 | me was funerial, which isn't a good look or a good word to describe a Prime Minister |
| 1:26.5 | five weeks into a job. Yeah, so are you making a nuisance of yourself |
| 1:30.4 | standing outside the room? Down the corridor. That's a journalist |
| 1:33.6 | all like, get around the door, I thought I would try and do something different and |
| 1:37.1 | wait, 50 metres down the corridor, which didn't work. It's what's that still, King? |
| 1:42.4 | Well, it's definitely still worth reading your piece on it today, in which went out in |
| 1:46.8 | this morning's morning call newsletter and is on the website. So any listeners who want |
| 1:50.7 | to read more about that funereal atmosphere can do so there. What is the basis of the |
| 1:56.2 | pushback at the moment? Obviously the markets haven't been reassured so far about the budget |
... |
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