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British Prime Minister Liz Truss during a press conference at Downing Street on Friday. PA

UK's embattled PM Liz Truss told: 'The game is up'

‘I think the game is up, and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed,’ said a senior Tory MP.

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER Liz Truss today vowed 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 platform, Truss admitted it had been a “wrench” to fire her friend Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor of the exchequer on Friday.

But writing in the Sun on Sunday newspaper, she said: “We cannot pave the way to a low-tax, high-growth economy without maintaining the confidence of the markets in our commitment to sound money.”

That confidence was jeopardised on 23 September when Kwarteng and Truss unveiled a right-wing programme of £45 billion (€52 billion) in tax cuts financed exclusively by higher debt.

Markets tanked in response, driving up borrowing costs for millions of Britons, and the Conservatives’ poll ratings have similarly slumped, leading to open warfare in the governing party mere weeks after Truss succeeded Boris Johnson.

“I think the game is up, and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed,” senior Tory MP Crispin Blunt said on Channel 4.

Truss 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.

Bidding to placate investors, Kwarteng’s 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.

Hunt met the prime minister at her country retreat today to thrash out a new budget plan which he is due to deliver on 31 October, effectively demolishing the “Trussonomics” programme that brought her to power.

Who’s in charge?

“It’s going to be very, very difficult, and I think we have to be honest with people about that,” Hunt told the BBC – prompting a warning from trade unions of concerted strike action if he enforces painful cuts.

Hunt said he was “not taking anything off the table”, but also defended Truss.

“She’s been willing to do that most difficult of things in politics, and that is to change tack,” he said, adding: “The prime minister’s in charge.”

But many questioned that verdict. “Truss has become a pointless prime minister – an empty vessel with no policies or power,” the Sunday Times editorialised.

The 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.

Up to 100 letters expressing no confidence in Truss have been submitted by Tory MPs, the Sunday Times and Sunday Express said.

Opponents were said to be coalescing around Truss’s defeated leadership rival Rishi Sunak and another one-time foe, Penny Mordaunt, for a possible “unity ticket” to rebuild the stricken Tories.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace could be another compromise candidate for leader, the Sunday Mirror reported.

‘Libertarian jihadists’

Tory MP Robert Halfon, who supported Sunak, likened Truss and Kwarteng to “libertarian jihadists” who had indulged in “ultra free-market experiments”.

“Of course, colleagues are unhappy with what is going on, with haemorrhaging in the opinion polls,” he told Sky News. “It’s inevitable that colleagues are… talking to see what can be done about it.”

Fellow Tory Alicia Kearns, newly elected as chair of the powerful foreign affairs committee in the House of Commons, also questioned Truss’s prospects for survival.

“We’ve had questions around our moral competency (under Johnson),” she told Times Radio. “We’ve now got questions around our fiscal competency.”

But Johnson loyalists — still seething at Sunak’s perceived disloyalty towards the scandal-tainted former leader — warned against a coronation that cuts out Tory grassroots members.

Any new leader would face strong pressure to call an early general election, and the opposition Labour party has streaked far ahead in the polls.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, echoed Biden’s critique of Truss’s “trickle-down” economics.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church said he was “deeply sceptical” that tax cuts for the rich would benefit anyone else.

© AFP 2022 

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    Mute Jim Buckley Barrett
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:29 PM

    It’s like watching a train crash in slow motion

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    Mute James Lough
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:15 PM

    @Jim Buckley Barrett: that is a disgrace !

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    Mute Frank Cauldhame
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:31 PM

    @Jim Buckley Barrett: Same will happen to FFG, electoral oblivion is on the horizon and hasn’t it been a very slow ride to get us here. Nowhere.

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    Mute Daniel Roche
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:48 PM

    @Frank Cauldhame: Really and thought I said stupid things.

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    Mute Ray Dunne
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:51 PM

    @Jim Buckley Barrett: it’s not slow motion though it’s top speed.

    15
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    Mute Bri Lyons
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    Oct 16th 2022, 8:49 PM

    @Frank Cauldhame: the SF economics will be seen to be like the Tories .. pie in the sky magic money tree stuff

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    Mute alan
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    Oct 16th 2022, 9:47 PM

    @Bri Lyons: sf economics is just a bidding war. They give you one drink, we’ll give you two. Are you paying? Yes. But how? Don’t worry about it. Just imagine that drink floating in front of you.

    39
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    Mute Nick
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    Oct 17th 2022, 9:26 AM

    @alan: who actually bankrupted our country? was it SF? No twas ff… And be reminded that in the last budget before we were bankrupted fg said there was enough spending….. But SF are the bad ones… Get over yourself

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    Mute Dave Ryan
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:30 PM

    Hole thing smells of an ambush from the day she decided to run …the old British boys club close rank’s again…. even tho Maggie hated us Irish and went out of her way to cause us problems….she was well able to deal with the old boy club

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    Mute Rob Goodbody
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:13 PM

    @Dave Ryan: What ambush? The damage was self-inflicted. Also, Kwarteng went to Eton, so he was part of the boys’ club.

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    Mute Dave Ryan
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:40 PM

    @Rob Goodbody: maybe so maybe im totally off the mark….it just seems like they sat back and gave her enough rope

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    Mute G Bot
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:54 PM

    @Dave Ryan: When your policies are that poorly thought out and damaging to the economy you don’t need much rope!

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    Mute Dave Ryan
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:40 PM

    @G Bot: yeah maybe so …probably just shocked at actually how bad she is …even as an adult ya kind of expect that someone that has the power to get elected might have some idea how to do the job ..but this really just looks like someone blindly walking into a hail of bullets…that the only reason it comes across as an assassination to me

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    Mute Gerard
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    Oct 16th 2022, 9:33 PM

    @Dave Ryan: You could make this argument about May – Johnson & co. were undermining her authority from day 1, voting against their own government, but when Johnson got into power, removed the whip from anyone who did precisely what he himself had done only months before, on the very same topic (Brexit)

    I still don’t think that was sexism specifically, but you could make a reasonable argument it might have been a factor.

    Truss is just a basketcase. She has absolutely no idea what she’s doing. By all accounts the governments own advisors told her the plan was unworkable, as her opponents did in the leadership contest, and she just steamrolled over them.

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    Mute Mick Tobin
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:40 PM

    - “Truss admitted it had been a wrench to fire her friend Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor”

    If you’re in politics and you want a friend, get a dog.

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    Mute Gerard Kinsella
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:31 PM

    At this stage the Downing Street cat will have a longer term residential status than the British Premier.

    125
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    Mute Alan Kelly
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:57 PM

    It’s time for her to go She has been there to long give someone else a shot I say Change is good

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    Mute John Barry
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:32 PM

    And so it begins….. (again!)

    67
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    Mute Garreth Byrne
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    Oct 16th 2022, 5:50 PM

    The Archbishop of Canterbury, with a background in the City, expresses reservations about tax cuts for the rich. Liz Truss and her mini budget strategy are being croziered. Repent, the end is nigh.

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    Mute John O'Brien
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    Oct 16th 2022, 6:35 PM

    They’ll try to bring Boris back lol

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    Mute Jonathan Kennedy
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    Oct 16th 2022, 8:48 PM

    I just hope that all the ppl who are so hell bent on getting ffg out and other in to power take a close look at what’s happening in the UK. Maybe the alternative will do the same as Truss to deliver on all their opposition promises. Now, that is the elephant in the room.

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    Mute Brian Corr
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:00 PM

    Writing in the Sun on Sunday does that not say enough Me Hole Martin will be writing in the Sunday World next. C^*ts the lot of them.

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    Mute Buzz Killington
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:44 PM

    @Brian Corr: Me hole? C’mon, man; it’s boring, and such a worn-out and unfunny pejorative already.

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    Mute Daniel Roche
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:51 PM

    @Brian Corr:Are you under ten,tell your mam take the phone off you.

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    Mute Appaddy
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    Oct 16th 2022, 8:42 PM

    @Brian Corr: right bright comment? Well done for exposing yourself for what you are.

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    Mute UK Hurling Bloke
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    Oct 16th 2022, 8:51 PM

    @Brian Corr: nobody wants to know about your pet name for your hole mate. Stay on topic

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    Mute Anna Carr
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    Oct 16th 2022, 9:23 PM

    Changing the Prime Minister constantly is a waste of time if they don’t change the approach and the policies

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    Mute Seamus Quaide
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    Oct 16th 2022, 11:57 PM

    In fairness the game was up as soon as the Tories got full power.

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    Mute M
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    Oct 17th 2022, 7:46 AM

    With no solid thinking ability its amazing she made an mp never mind pm. But its entertaining to read and watch what gaffs are next.

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    Mute Seán Ó Tarpaigh
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    Oct 16th 2022, 7:59 PM
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