Most Voters Say Tories Still Haven’t Fixed Truss Budget Fallout

Julian Harris, Bloomberg News

Liz Truss, outgoing UK prime minister, delivers her leaving speech outside 10 Downing Street in London, UK, on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Rishi Sunak, whose first name means a sage in Hindi, will become the UK’s youngest prime minister in more than two centuries and its first from an ethnic minority and also be the first former hedge funder to hold the post. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- More than half of Britons believe the Conservative government has failed to fix problems created by former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s so-called mini-budget, which resulted in a drop in the pound and higher mortgage rates.

A poll conducted after Jeremy Hunt’s annual budget last week found that 54% of respondents thought the chancellor of the Exchequer hadn’t overcome the issues he inherited from predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng. Fewer than a quarter — 22% — said the new chancellor had fixed the problems.

In ‘red wall’ seats — previous Labour party heartlands that voted Conservative at the last election — 55% of respondents said the problems hadn’t been fixed. The survey was conducted by Deltapoll for Bloomberg News.

Still, there was better news for the ruling party as the poll showed a 13-point weekly swing when people were asked their overall voting intention, narrowing Labour’s lead to 10 points.

Hunt replaced Kwarteng in October, days before Truss was forced out of Downing Street. She had been elected Tory leader in September after promising sweeping tax cuts and a smaller state, but the administration’s first fiscal statement triggered fears of rising government debt. Gilts plunged and the Bank of England intervened to prevent a crisis in the market for liability-driven investments.

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Hunt and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have sought to reassure markets by insisting they will abide by self-imposed fiscal rules. Last week, Hunt reiterated his commitment to halve inflation this year and reduce the national debt ratio on a five-year horizon.