Andrew Marr says Liz Truss is in ‘real trouble’ as she’s under huge pressure to make ‘undeliverable’ spending cuts
12 October 2022, 18:23 | Updated: 12 October 2022, 18:52
Andrew Marr said Liz Truss is in ‘real trouble’ as she’s under huge pressure to make ‘eye-watering’ and ‘undeliverable’ spending cuts.
Opening LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr, the presenter said Andrew Marr said the Prime Minister is ‘desperately’ trying to cover up another U-turn and is questions how she will make the money work to stop the economy ‘going down the toilet’
He said: “Prime Minister's Questions: that still bravely throbbing ventricle at the heart of British democracy. October 12th 2022. What did we learn? First, that lacking a real Commons majority, the Truss government, for all its defiant words comma is still in headlong retreat on different fronts.
“Yesterday I Began to list a couple of u-turns. Today's total began within a minute and a half of PMQs beginning, when she was asked about the plan to get rid of a ban on no-fault eviction people renting private flats dash something that has given them some protection.
“Wonder why the Prime Minister suddenly wants to help people facing eviction? Can't think. Anyway,. but later she was asked about a public information campaign to help people save energy - something the business department wanted but which number 10 had been against for interfering in people's lives..
“Government are desperately trying to complicate this in order to disguise the fact that it's another U-turn. but another U-turn is exactly what it is.
“Yet the really big question is how Liz Truss’s government makes its sums add up in a way that reassures the markets and stops our economy going down the toilet. Many Tory MPs think she will have to reverse ferret on all of the tax cuts announced last month – through a Treasury minister, pursued by, you guessed it, Mel stride, absolutely denied this would happen. If so, as I explained yesterday, she will be under huge pressure to make eye-watering and by the way undeliverable spending cuts. So, was there a third U-turn on that this afternoon?"
Speaking about her replying to Keir Starmer in the Common's today, Andrew said: “Wowseroonie. That seems pretty unequivocal. No public spending cuts. But we're talking politics here friends - language as slippery as a conger eel with ADHD in bucket of marg. If she doesn't increase budgets in line with inflation, the cash would go up and that wouldn't be a cash cut - but it In the real world it would be, and feel like, quite a cut. But there's another point. If Truss is including in her spending commitment the huge amount of money for the energy bills support scheme - and why not, it's public money ? - Then she could slash spending everywhere else and still say there had no been, overall, no public spending cut.
Andrew Marr says Liz Truss is in 'real trouble'
“She's in real trouble. I mentioned the real world. This is about all of us. Keir Starmer quoted two people from Wolverhampton trying to buy a house - Zac and Rebecca, whose mortgage offer had just been withdrawn. He said they were furious with her. She replied again and again by accusing Labour of not backing her energy support scheme. The Labour scheme, announced long before hers, is different. It only goes on for 6 months. And it is paid for in part, by windfall tax on energy companies (sorry did I forget to mention that there has been yet another you turn on that subject today). But her scheme was announced during the mini budget and is therefore part of it and if Labour says it wants to scrap the mini budget, she has – well, not a point but a debating point, which is a smaller and less impressive beastie altogether. So how in the end can Liz Truss really unite the Conservative Party?
“With the Tories still 20 to 30 points behind in the opinion polls they can probably all drink to that. Here's what I learnt from prime Minister's Questions today day9 the government has not yet decided what to do do – 2 give up on some of its tax cuts comma to make deep spending cuts, or just to sit on its hands and hope something turns up. when Liz Trust said twice “I'm genuinely unclear”, everybody laughed. But you know, it was probably the truest, most revealing thing she's said all day.
“So that was Commons. But beyond the chamber, bigger forces were still in play today. The Treasury’s been trying to calm the markets by repeatedly pumping more money into the system but it can't go on forever and there is a cliff edge on Friday. Or is there? Overnight there was a story in the Financial Times suggesting - after the bank governor had sent the pound plunging by telling the battered pension funds, “you’ve got three days left” it would be less of a cliff edge and more like one of those gentle looping water slides you get in children's swimming pools.
"Anyway, it seems to be back to the belly-flop onto concrete now. We my be still quite close to some kind of market collapse. Meanwhile, to cheer us up, there's an argument going on between the government and the bank about who’s more responsible. The bank says, in effect, that the real trouble is confidence in the government and its fiscal plans – not the bank’s issue, thank you very much. The government says keeping the financial system working smoothly is the bank’s job. It's almost funny. It's not funny. It's actually quite scary.”
