UK in Shambles

Date: 21 October 2022 - 21:49

News ID: ۱۰۸۰۶۴

LONDON (Dispatches) —
British Prime Minister Liz Truss quit Thursday after a tumultuous and historically brief term marred by economic policies that roiled financial markets and a rebellion in her political party that obliterated her authority.
After just 45 days in office, Truss became the third Conservative prime minister to be toppled in as many years, and she will go down as the shortest-serving leader in British history. Her resignation extends the instability that has shaken Britain since it broke off from the European Union and leaves its leadership in limbo as the country faces a cost-of-living crisis and looming recession.
“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” Truss, 47, said outside her 10 Downing Street office.
Financial markets breathed a sigh of relief, but now a divided ruling party must quickly find a leader who can unify its warring factions. Truss said she will remain in office until a replacement is chosen, which the Conservative Party said it would do by the end of next week, an extremely fast timeline for choosing the next leader of one of the world’s largest economies.
Potential contenders include: former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss in the last leadership contest; House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt; Defense Secretary Ben Wallace; and Boris Johnson, the former prime minister ousted in July over a series of ethics scandals.
The low-tax, low-regulation economic policies that got Truss elected by her party proved disastrous in the real world at a time of soaring inflation and weak growth.
Truss resigned just a day after vowing to stay in power, saying she was “a fighter and not a quitter.” But she couldn’t hold on any longer after a senior minister quit her government amid a barrage of criticism and a vote in the House of Commons Wednesday descended into chaos and acrimony.
Where the Conservative Party goes from here is not clear. Its myriad factions — from hard-right Brexiteers to centrist “One Nation” Tories — are at each other’s throats.
“Nobody has a route plan. It’s all sort of hand-to-hand fighting on a day-to-day basis,” Conservative lawmaker Simon Hoare told the BBC on Thursday before Truss resigned.
Newspapers that usually support the Conservatives were vitriolic. An editorial in the Daily Mail on Thursday was headlined: “The wheels have come off the Tory clown car.”
Bronwyn Maddox, director of international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said “there is no question that the UK’s standing in the

world has been severely battered by this episode and by the revolving door of prime ministers.”
Truss’ resignation is the culmination of months of simmering discontent inside the Conservative Party, whose poll ratings have plunged.
British government debt rose to the highest level in almost 60 years last month and retail sales slumped, underscoring the scale of the economic challenges facing whoever replaces Truss after her administration imploded under the weight of its failed financial plan.
Public borrowing rose to 98% of economic output in September as rampant inflation increased interest payments on what the government owed, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. That’s higher than at any point since 1963, when Britain was still paying off debts accumulated during World War II.
Deepening the sense of gloom were figures showing that retail sales fell for a second straight month and are now 1.3% below pre-pandemic levels.
Rising prices are squeezing consumers, with sales of food, motor fuels, furniture and other non-food data-x-items all falling in September, the Office for National Statistics said. The overall decline was driven by a 1.8% drop in grocery store sales.
“In recent months, supermarkets have highlighted that they are seeing a decline in volumes sold because of increased food prices and cost of living impacts,” the ONS reported.
The rising cost of living also is squeezing government finances by increasing the cost of servicing the nation’s debts.
All of this comes against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, which has driven up prices for food and energy and fueled demands for an increase in defense spending.
Government borrowing increased to 20 billion pounds in September, 2.2 billion pounds more than in September 2021 and 5.2 billion pounds more than forecast in March by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, the ONS said.

Millions Skipping Meals

Millions of Britons are skipping meals in the current cost-of-living crisis, a consumer group warned Thursday, having already forecast that many risk fuel poverty after the UK curbed its energy price freeze.
The news came after data showed UK inflation jumped back above 10 percent in September on rampant food prices.
Half of UK households are cutting back on the number of meals, consumer group ‘Which?’ said citing a survey of 3,000 people.
A similar proportion is finding it harder to eat healthily compared with before the crisis, while almost 80 percent are finding it difficult financially.
“The devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis is, worryingly, leading to millions of people skipping meals or struggling to put healthy meals on the table,” said Sue Davies, head of food policy at Which?.
Britain has meanwhile been blighted by strikes this year, as workers protest over wages that has failed to keep pace with runaway inflation.