Starmer urges Truss to rethink budget as IMF criticises tax plans
Liz Truss needs to review the budget urgently after “very serious” criticism from the International Monetary Fund and with the UK economy out of control, Keir Starmer has said.
The Labour leader said November would be too late for the government to revisit its plans, as people were “very, very worried” about the possibility of rising mortgage rates and inflation.
While no government minister was available to defend the budget on the airwaves, Starmer gave a round of broadcast interviews accusing the Truss administration of losing control.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said Truss needed to explain: “How are you going to fix the problems that you caused the problem on Friday? The government caused this on the theory, the ideology that the way we fix our country is to make the rich richer.”
After the IMF urged the government to reconsider the scale of tax cuts funded by borrowing, Starmer branded the budget set out last Friday by Kwasi Kwarteng a “self-inflicted” problem.
He told LBC: “The IMF statement is very serious and it shows just what a mess the government have made of the economy. And it is self-inflicted. This was a step they didn’t have to take … This government has got to respond to this. They’ve got to set out, in terms, how are they going to fix the problems that they have made.
“At the moment they are saying they might be doing something in November. That’s far too long. They’ve got to review the plans they put out on Friday. They’ve got to do it urgently, in my view.”
Starmer gave a round of broadcast interviews after his Labour party conference speech in Liverpool on Tuesday, in which he urged people not to forget or forgive the Conservatives for losing control of the British economy.
“They’ve
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