‘Empty’: media view on Kwarteng’s conference speech following U-turn

Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his address to the Tory conference after a bruising day in which he U-turned on his plan to cut tax for high earners. He admitted his economic plan had caused “a little turbulence” and that it had been a “tough day”.

While much of the response inside the hall where the chancellor was delivering his speech appeared muted – with one of the loudest cheers reserved for repealing EU laws – media commentators were left underwhelmed by one of the shortest conference speeches delivered by a chancellor in modern times.

The Guardian’s Rafael Behr says Kwarteng should have kept the speech to under five minutes.

<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>The glaring problem with this speech is its presumption that no-one — not even Boris Johnson's government — had ever thought of growing the economy before.<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>It's also *very* repetitive. Cut some of the multiple references to inherited tax burden, Putin, Covid legacy, how important growth is, and you could easily get it down to <5 mins<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>He delivered that like it was a panel event on the fringe. All that was missing was the preamble where he says he's very sorry but he'll have to dash off a bit early to get to his next session.

James Forsyth from the Spectator says not announcing new policy was sensible.

<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>No announcements in Kwasi Kwarteng speech. But given any would have been drowned out by the drama of the u turn, think that was sensible. It was a speech to get through for him

George Eaton from the New Statesman says the speech was empty.

<p lang=«en» dir=«ltr» xml:lang=«en»>Remarkable how little there was in Kwarteng's speech on productivity and infrastructure Read more on theguardian.com