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Liz Truss (on October 14)
Photo: DANIEL LEAL / AFP
Liz Truss has been in office for less than six weeks.
Nevertheless, it is already counted as massive.
Her new Treasury Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has just quashed “almost all” of the fiscal promises that Truss had been so confident and victorious in the last few weeks.
Their Tories are plummeting in the polls, if there were elections tomorrow, Labor would be on the verge of a clear victory.
In this climate of crisis, Truss has now apologized for the first time for the turbulence caused by its economic policy.
"I want to take responsibility and apologize for the mistakes that have been made," she said in a BBC interview on Monday night.
Huge tax cuts announced by her government, the financing of which remained unclear, had caused the British pound to plummet and interest rates to skyrocket.
The 47-year-old admitted that the government went “too far too quickly”.
Truss was forced to sack her ally and Treasury Minister Kwasi Kwarteng and replace her with veteran pragmatist Hunt.
On Monday, he announced a 180-degree turnaround in economic policy – almost nothing remains of Truss' core promise.
In the interview, she emphasized that economic stability had been restored.
In London, it is no longer ruled out that Hunt could raise taxes in the foreseeable future - which would finally expose the market-radical low-tax fetishist Truss to ridicule.
Despite open revolt – Truss wants to remain in office
With a view to her political future, however, the head of government was persistently optimistic: "I will lead the conservative party in the next election," said Truss.
"I'm staying here because I was elected to do something for this country," she said, "and I'm committed to doing that."
In truth, the politician is already under enormous pressure within her own ranks just a few weeks after taking office.
First party colleagues are publicly calling for her resignation.
The discussion about possible successors or new elections is ongoing.
Quite a few see Hunt, who tried in vain for prime minister twice in the past three years, as a possible new prime minister.
The Tories' internal party rules provide that a new leader is protected from a vote of no confidence from within their own ranks for a year.
The rules could be changed by the responsible backbench body, the 1922 Committee, but should enough Tory MPs demand it.
According to various estimates, more than 100 conservatives have already done so.
jok/dpa