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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Samantha Lock

‘The ghost PM’: what the papers say about Liz Truss’s hold on power

Liz Truss Jeremy Hunt United Kingdom Daily Star Daily Express Sun
The UK newspaper front pages for 18 October question Prime Minister Liz Truss’s hold on power
The UK newspaper front pages for 18 October question Prime Minister Liz Truss’s hold on power Composite: The Independent, The Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The Metro, The Times, i, Daily Star, Daily Express/The Guardian

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s reversal of tax cuts and prime minister Liz Truss’s fight for survival dominated the UK front pages on Tuesday.

The Guardian describes Jeremy Hunt’s tax cut reversal as “one of the most astonishing U-turns in modern political history” after the chancellor “shredded” Liz Truss’s economic plans.

“Astounding U-turn on tax,” the headline reads, outlining how tax rises and spending cuts will be on the agenda including a new deadline to the energy price freeze.

Downing Street sources told the paper that prime minister Liz Truss met chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, to discuss the scale of MPs’ anger.

“Humiliated” the Mirror says. The paper writes that the mini-Budget has been “dumped in a catastrophic humiliation” to the PM as one Tory says Truss has “poured petrol over everything”.

The chancellor will confront the cabinet on Tuesday with a demand to find spending cuts to restore the UK’s economic credibility, says the Telegraph. “We must take decisions of eye-watering difficulty,” the paper quotes Hunt’s warning to MPs.

The PM’s hold on power is “precarious” as Tory rebels plot to oust her, it adds.

The Mail leads on Truss’s perilous position in parliament and her “grovelling apology” for economy blunders. “Truss was warned on Monday night that she was ‘in office but not in power’”, the paper reads.

The PM acknowledged that she had gone “too far and too fast” with her economic strategy and has been trying to rally support from her MP.

The Financial Times also centres its coverage on Truss’s tenure as PM, speculating her future is “on a knife-edge”, as her economic policy was ripped up in a bid to calm markets.

The Express leads with the apology Truss gave to the BBC’s Chris Mason on Monday night.

“I’m sorry....we went too far and too fast,” the headline quotes Truss as saying. “I do want to accept responsibility and say sorry, for the mistakes that have been made.”

The Sun opts for a particularly evocative description of Truss as “the ghost PM” alongside an image of the embattled Tory leader.

Truss sat “ghostlike” as Hunt shredded her tax cuts but vowed she would not quit, the paper reports.

The Times highlights the £5,000 in energy bills British families could face after Truss was “forced to rip up her economic plans” after Hunt’s announcement on Monday that the energy price guarantee will come to an end in April.

Taking a decidedly lighter tone, the Star draws a tongue-in-cheek reference to its ‘lettuce-cam’: a live feed of a 60p Tesco lettuce that asks the question ‘Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?’

“Lettuce Liz on Leaf Support” the paper’s headline reads alongside an iceberg lettuce donning a wig on a hospital bed.

“With her ailing premiership on leaf support, wet lettuce Liz Truss has apologised for her kamikaze mini-budget but pledged to beat the odds and outlast the Daily Star lettuce,” the paper adds.

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