Kwasi Kwarteng blames budget errors on ‘high pressure’ surrounding queen’s death

Kwasi Kwarteng delivers a speech on the second day of the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Birmingham. (Photo: Ian Forsyth via Getty Images)

Kwasi Kwarteng appeared to blame the “high pressure” surrounding the Queen’s death for a series of errors in her mini-budget.

The chancellor’s plan collapsed the pound and sent mortgage rates soaring, forcing the Bank of England to intervene to calm the markets. Amid the chaos, the Labor Party reached a 30-point lead in the polls.

On Monday, he made a humiliating U-turn by scrapping the 45p tax rate, but only referred to the collapse in markets as “a little turbulence”.

Kwarteng, in an interview with GB News, said it was important to place the mini-budget in the “context” of the Queen’s death and funeral.

He spoke of the frantic days leading up to the mini-budget when asked if he would have done anything differently.

“We achieved it in a very short time. And you have to remember the context.

“The extraordinary thing about that month was that we had a new government and we also had the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, so we had a nation in mourning and then literally four days after the funeral, I think, we had the mini -budget.

“It was a high-speed, high-pressure environment and we could, as (former Prime Minister) David Cameron used to say, have prepared the playing field a little better.”

But Kwarteng also sought to downplay concerns, suggesting stability could return to the UK economy in the coming weeks.

He denied that the policies contained in the £45bn tax cut budget were “extreme”, instead calling it a “bold” package that has helped “change” the political debate.

“No one is arguing that we should increase corporation tax, no one is arguing that we shouldn’t have reversed the increase in national insurance.

“I think we’ve changed the debate and I’m hopeful that in the next few weeks things will stabilize.”

But the chaos continues.

Amid bitter infighting at the Conservative Party conference, Kwarteng appeared to give up considering another U-turn and has now ruled out presenting his medium-term fiscal plan.

The chancellor had said at the conference that he would publish his fiscal plan and the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts “shortly”.

His allies had been hinting that this meant moving up the November 23 releases to this month.

But Liz Truss told GB News that the originally planned date is “when we are going to set out the OBR forecasts but also our medium-term fiscal plan”.

Downing Street advisers said only that the prime minister could consider bringing forward the date, reducing the likelihood of the move.

Elsewhere, Cabinet members were publicly urging the Prime Minister to increase benefits in line with inflation and questioning her reduction of the 45% rate for incomes over £150,000.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she was “disappointed” by Kwarteng and Truss’s fiscal U-turn mid-conference, and accused Tory rebels like Michael Gove of staging a “coup”.

Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, another former leadership contender, said it “makes sense” to increase benefits in line with rising inflation rather than taking a real-terms cut.

The Prime Minister on Monday scrapped her plans for a tax cut for the richest, saying it had become a “distraction” as senior Conservatives threatened to vote against it in the House of Commons.

However, he revealed in an interview at the Birmingham conference on Tuesday that he harbors possible ambitions to bring back the controversial tax cut in the future.

“I would like to see the highest rate go down. “I want us to be a competitive country, but I have heard the comments and I want to take the people with me,” he told the BBC.

“I’m not contemplating that now, I’m very, very clear that we’ve listened to people about what their priorities are.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.

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