Ten Years to Save the West
Liz Truss
The scene is Birmingham, 30 September 2022, just before the self-described Brian Clough of prime ministers gave her keynote address to what turned out to be a divertingly catastrophic Conservative party conference.
The then prime minister is livid about how a cabal of blob-adjacent political invertebrates were trying to nobble the week-old minibudget that she had devised with her chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng .
By means of this budget, a new globally competitive postBrexit Britain would emerge. This “unchained Britannia ” would be unconstrained by planning regulations, free to frack as never before and able to explore the North Sea for oil despite the ululations of the anti-growth wokerati. This would be a Britain where the super-rich were less hamstrung by corporation or inheritance taxes, and in which the 45p income tax rate (what she calls here the “ anti-success tax ”) would be little more than a bad memory.
What Truss didn’t seem to understand, now as then, is the handbrake had long ago come off and that both she and Kwarteng, like some latter-day approximations of Thelma and Louise , were barrelling towards oblivion. At Birmingham, in the face of objections from fellow Tories and serious market jitters , Kwarteng U-turned on that tax break for the rich. Later, the pair’s whole plan for growth was junked.
Bu hikaye The Guardian dergisinin April 18, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye The Guardian dergisinin April 18, 2024 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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