Liz Truss sticks by plan but admits mistakes, and says top-rate tax cut was chancellor’s idea

Published

3 years ago

October 2, 2022

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Liz Truss has admitted that she “should have laid the ground better” for the government’s tax-cutting mini-budget after the pound slumped to a record low.

The prime minister said she has “learnt from that” and “will make sure in future we will do a better job of laying the ground”.

Ms Truss also doubled down on the decision to remove the top rate of income tax (45%) as “it’s part of an overall package of making our tax system simpler and lower” – but admitted the policy was not discussed with the cabinet.

“It was a decision that the chancellor made,” she said.

Liz Truss stands by mini-budget – Politics latest

Ms Truss told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I do stand by the package we announced and I stand by the fact that we announced it quickly.”

It comes after the cost of government borrowing spiked following the fiscal event last month.

Stressing that her government has “a very clear plan”, Ms Truss said she understands “how worried people are” as the country faces a “turbulent and stormy time”.

The PM later repeatedly refused to answer whether there will be spending cuts to public services under her government and declined to commit to rising benefits in line with inflation.

“This is something the work and pensions secretary is looking at,” she said.

Meanwhile, Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry said “markets can overreact” to new economic policy.

“Let’s see where the markets are in six months’ time,” he told Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday programme.

Mr Berry also confirmed that Conservative MPs who vote against the government’s plan for tax cuts will lose the whip.

It has been reported that some Tory MPs are preparing to vote with Labour to prevent measures announced by the chancellor on 23 September, including abolishing the top rate of income tax.

In a sign that the leadership is now indeed on a collision course with many of its own MPs over the mini-budget, former cabinet minister Julian Smith posted on social media: “The first job of an MP is to act in the interest of their constituents and in the national interest. We cannot clap for carers one month and cut tax for millionaires months later.”

Mr Berry also urged Tory MPs to unite behind Ms Truss and her programme, saying she had “a mandate both from colleagues and our membership”.

“I’m sure that if we do that it will lead ultimately to long-term electoral success,” he said.

Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, added that the government’s mini-budget showed “good leadership”.

“You can’t go on year after year without reviewing your core. That is good business. It’s good leadership,” he told Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday programme.

He continued: “So a different way of thinking was required. And the huge majority of investment in the financial statement was about that different way of thinking.”

But former cabinet minister Michael Gove accused Ms Truss’s plans of having the “wrong values” and hinted that he could vote against the tax-cutting measures in the Commons.

Mr Gove told the BBC Ms Truss was right to acknowledge that “there needs to be a recognition of mistakes”, adding: “But it is still the case that there is an inadequate realisation at the top of government about the scale of change required.

“Yes, the energy package was the most important thing in the fiscal event, but broadly 35% of the additional money that we are borrowing is not to cut energy costs, it is for unfunded tax cuts.”

But the PM vowed to “win the hearts and minds” of Tory MPs over her growth plan.

Ms Truss also ruled out publishing forecasts from the independent Office of Budget Responsibility ahead of the chancellor’s mid-term plan on 23 November.

While she argued that the government “simply didn’t have time” to publish OBR data alongside Mr Kwarteng’s mini-budget.

It comes as Ms Truss and the Tories’ approval ratings again plummeted in a fresh poll – as Labour jumped to a 19-point lead.

The Opinium poll showed 55% of voters disapprove of the new prime minister and just 18% approve, which is worse than Boris Johnson’s final days in office.

Mr Kwarteng is no more popular after the pair doubled down on economic policies announced last week, with 55% also disapproving of him and 27% approving.

Mr Berry shrugged off the significant Labour leads in recent polls, telling Sky News they would look “very different” closer to the election.

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.