Dame Emma Thompson has revealed that her friends had to sell their homes in the wake of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mind boggling” mini-Budget last year.
The Hollywood actress told LBC’s Andrew Marr on Friday that the market turmoil that followed was “an extraordinary experience to look at”.
Ms Truss’s mini-Budget spooked markets and caused mortgage rates to go up after the announced unfunded tax cuts tanked the pound.
Dame Emma said she “couldn’t believe” the economic impact of the mini-Budget during Ms Truss’s 44 days in office, calling it “a new form of fiscal drama”.
Last week the former prime minister admitted her plan to abolish the 45p top rate of income tax was a “bridge too far”, but she otherwise dug in in her defence of her failed bid to boost growth.
“It was an extraordinary experience to look at that,” Dame Emma told Andrew Marr.
“What was so dreadful, one worries so much about the country at the moment, and people’s situation and the money.
“I had friends who literally had to sell their houses because they couldn’t afford their mortgages anymore.
“They had to sell their houses. People’s lives, in the sort of, middle…middle resourced folk, were suffering dreadfully, it was mind boggling.”
She said she’s “absolutely sure” that Labour will win the next general election.
Dame Emma explained that she wanted to see “more and more women getting into politics and into decision making processes”.
“That’s essential,” she added. “For 2023, really, really essential.”
Dame Emma, whose net worth is said to be as much as £37 million, owns a £3 million home in London, a Scottish holiday home and another property in Venice, the Mail Online reports.
During the same interview, the Oscar-winning actress hailed intimacy co-ordinators as “absolutely essential” after fellow actor Sir Ian McKellen said they can ruin the “purity” of theatre.
Sir Ian, 83, recently said that in the earlier stages of his career, matters requiring intimacy co-ordinators would have “taken care of themselves”.
Dame Emma dismissed Sir Ian’s remarks, saying: “It’s all very well, if you’re a bloke it’s a different kind of thing.”
“I think if you’re a young woman on a set, which is largely peopled by men, the crew will be 90% men and the women won’t be on the set with you, because generally speaking we do not have parity on any level on film sets, it’s all men,” she told Marr.
“And that’s a very uncomfortable position for a young woman who’s starting in the industry, but it is absolutely essential that there is someone there to protect them. Absolutely essential.”
