Britain's prime minister has U-turned on plans to reverse her predecessor's rise in Corporation Tax — just an hour after her chancellor of the exchequer fell on his sword.
Liz Truss announced the latest reversal of Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget, delivered just three weeks earlier, at a brief Downing Street press conference on Friday afternoon.
Cancelling the rise in the levy on business profits from 19 to 25 per cent, due to come in next years, was at the centre of Kwarteng's autumn budget review — and a key pledge in Truss' summer campaign to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and PM.
"It is clear that parts of our mini-budget went further and faster than markets were expecting," truss conceded. "We need to act now to reassure the markets of our fiscal discipline."
Coupled with the government's Energy Price Guarantee scheme to help households and businesses afford soaring gas and electricity bills, the cuts to Corporation Tax, Income Tax and National Insurance triggered a run on the pound sterling and government bonds known as 'gilts'.
It also drew criticism from the White House, while the Bank of England raised interest rates by half a per cent — prompting mortgage lenders to withdraw fixed-rate mortgages for fear of further hikes.
Truss and Kwarteng had already abandoned their move to abolish the 45 per cent additional rate of Income tax, payable on earnings over £150,000, after a threatened rebellion by backbench Tory MPs.
Truss continued to blame the economic crisis rocking the West on Russian President Vladimir Putin and what she called the "appalling war in Ukraine" — rather than the sanctions on Russia and embargoes on its energy exports by the collective west in support of the Kiev regime.
And she evaded journalists questions about her joint responsibility for the mini-budget and the ensuing market turmoil, and whether she should also resign.
Truss also confirmed that she had appointed former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt as Kwarteng's successor. Like the PM, Hunt campaigned in 2016 for the UK to remain in the European Union (EU), now also stricken by the energy crisis.
The London stock market's FTSE 100 index, which had rallied in anticipation of Truss' announcement, fell by nearly 100 points to around 6,865 in the following hour. The pound, which had already regained its pre-mini budget US-dollar exchange rate of $1.13 by Thursday evening, stayed roughly level.