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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Lizzy Buchan & Ashley Cowburn

No10 refuses to deny Kwasi Kwarteng will be SACKED as PM prepares press conference

Downing Street has refused to comment on speculation that Liz Truss is due to sack Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.

The Prime Minister will do an unscheduled press conference at 2pm as rumours swirl she is about to axe her Chancellor after only 38 days.

A No10 source refused to comment on speculation about Mr Kwarteng when contacted by the Mirror.

The Chancellor touched down in the UK at 10.45am after cutting short a trip to Washington for talks at the International Monetary Fund annual meeting.

He was spotted entering Downing Street by photographers just before midday.

Mr Kwarteng's sacking and a widely expected U-turn on scrapping the corporation tax rise would be part of a desperate scramble by the PM to restore confidence in her crisis-hit administration.

Kwasi Kwarteng faces being sacked for implementing Liz Truss's economic policies (Getty Images)

Only hours earlier, Trade Minister Greg Hands insisted his position was "totally safe".

"I know the Prime Minister has got total confidence in Kwasi Kwarteng," he told Sky News, calling the Chancellor "an incredibly capable person, a very, very bright person who makes good judgment calls".

Mr Kwarteng himself said he "wasn't going anywhere" yesterday when asked if he'd still be in post next month.

Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid - both former Chancellors - are said to be in the frame to succeed him.

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng arrives in Downing Street (PA)

If he is sacked today, Mr Kwarteng would be the second shortest serving Chancellor in history after only 38 days in the job.

Tory Iain Macleod was made Chancellor in 1970 by Edward Heath but died in office a month later.

Even Mr Zahawi served for 63 days in Boris Johnson's zombie Government over the summer while the Tory leadership race took place.

Ms Truss is expected to make another massive U-turn on her disastrous mini-Budget by reversing her plans to axe a planned corporation tax rise.

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "A humiliating U-turn is necessary - but the real damage has already been done to millions of ordinary people now paying much higher mortgages and struggling to make ends meet.

"This is a Tory crisis made in Downing Street. They have plunged our economy into chaos and crisis with Truss's discredited trickle down approach.

"It won't be forgiven or forgotten."

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