Liz Truss faces a humiliating clash with Sir Keir Starmer today (October 19), having been forced to junk her entire economic strategy and with her leadership in peril. She will square off against the Labour leader in Prime Minister’s Questions for the first time since her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ripped up her plan for tax cuts and increased public borrowing in a bid to reassure markets in the wake of the mini-budget turmoil.
It could come amid more gloomy economic news, with economists predicting that Office for National Statistics data will reveal inflation returned to double figures in September.
The Prime Minister faces disquiet from Tory MPs over plans for public spending cuts across all departments, after Mr Hunt warned of decisions of “eye-watering difficulty” to plug the Government’s multibillion-pound financial black hole. He is considering postponing by a year the cap on the sum people pay for care in old age, The Times reported. Treasury sources did not deny the policy could be delayed, pointing to the Chancellor’s statement that “nothing is off the table”.
