Jeremy Hunt said Liz Truss’s economic ambitions were a “good thing to aim for” and her disastrous mini-budget hadn’t left an impact on the economy, according to two leaked recordings obtained by the Guardian.
In a sign of desperation the chancellor, who is fighting to hold on to his Surrey seat, separately told a local hustings event: “I speak tonight as Jeremy Hunt”, adding: “I’m not always going to take the government line.”
He reversed a number of the key measures in the budget in order to stabilise the markets, leading to him being described as the country’s de facto prime minister, and Truss was forced out 10 days later on 20 October 2022.
Speaking at a meeting of the Oxford University Conservatives on 9 May, Hunt was asked about his own pledges on low tax made in his leadership campaign and Truss’s claims to have been blocked by the civil service and other economic institutions, and whether he faced “the same kind of opposition”.
The recordings emerged as the chancellor came under fire for comments in a newsletter to constituents in which he wrote that tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto would be funded by savings from “an enormous back-to-work programme (which I announced in the autumn statement last year)”.
“The measures to achieve £12bn in welfare savings had not been announced at the time of the last OBR forecast so the entire premise of his [Starmer’s] latest press conference is redundant,” a spokesperson said.
The original article contains 934 words, the summary contains 246 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Jeremy Hunt said Liz Truss’s economic ambitions were a “good thing to aim for” and her disastrous mini-budget hadn’t left an impact on the economy, according to two leaked recordings obtained by the Guardian.
In a sign of desperation the chancellor, who is fighting to hold on to his Surrey seat, separately told a local hustings event: “I speak tonight as Jeremy Hunt”, adding: “I’m not always going to take the government line.”
He reversed a number of the key measures in the budget in order to stabilise the markets, leading to him being described as the country’s de facto prime minister, and Truss was forced out 10 days later on 20 October 2022.
Speaking at a meeting of the Oxford University Conservatives on 9 May, Hunt was asked about his own pledges on low tax made in his leadership campaign and Truss’s claims to have been blocked by the civil service and other economic institutions, and whether he faced “the same kind of opposition”.
The recordings emerged as the chancellor came under fire for comments in a newsletter to constituents in which he wrote that tax cuts in the Conservative manifesto would be funded by savings from “an enormous back-to-work programme (which I announced in the autumn statement last year)”.
“The measures to achieve £12bn in welfare savings had not been announced at the time of the last OBR forecast so the entire premise of his [Starmer’s] latest press conference is redundant,” a spokesperson said.
The original article contains 934 words, the summary contains 246 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!