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Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is preparing to raid the profits of banks and energy companies in an attempt to fill a £40bn fiscal hole through a mix of tax rises and public spending cuts. Hunt’s Budget on October 31 is due to include big tax rises, with allies of the chancellor saying they expect him to

Liz Truss has apologised to the nation for the economic chaos that has engulfed Britain following last month’s “mini” Budget, but her premiership was hanging by a thread as Tory pressure mounted on her to quit. Truss sat expressionless on Monday in the House of Commons as she watched her new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, rip

Liz Truss is battling for her political survival as leading business figures and Conservative MPs pile pressure on the UK prime minister to resign after a series of damaging U-turns that have shredded her credibility. Truss’s decision to appoint Jeremy Hunt as chancellor and scrap key parts of her economic platform have failed to reassure

The UK’s new chancellor Jeremy Hunt has admitted that Liz Truss’s government went “too far, too fast” in last month’s “mini” Budget and that in the near future taxes will have to rise and spending will have to be cut in order to regain economic credibility. In a statement on Saturday evening Hunt said the

Liz Truss sacked her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and shredded her economic strategy on Friday, but her effort to salvage her premiership failed to win over financial markets and left Conservative MPs in a state of mutiny. In a Downing Street press conference lasting less than 10 minutes, Truss named Jeremy Hunt, former foreign secretary, as

Liz Truss, UK prime minister, is preparing to rip up the government’s “mini” Budget in a desperate attempt to rebuild market confidence and save her embryonic premiership. Kwasi Kwarteng left Washington, where he was attending IMF meetings, a day earlier than planned, he confirmed late on Thursday night, dashing to the airport to catch the

The Bank of England battled a renewed sell-off in UK government bonds on Wednesday after its vow to end its emergency gilt-buying programme unsettled markets already unnerved by the fiscal plans of prime minister Liz Truss. The central bank bought £4.4bn of gilts from investors, its biggest intervention since it entered the market last month

Andrew Bailey dashed the hopes of pension funds on Tuesday, ruling out continuing the Bank of England’s £65bn bond-buying intervention into next week. The BoE governor said that although strains had been felt, market conditions in the government bonds “seemed calmer” on Tuesday after it had staged its second emergency intervention in two days. “We’ve

Kwasi Kwarteng will need to announce a fiscal tightening of more than £60bn if he wants to convince investors that he can stabilise the UK’s public finances, according to a leading think-tank. The chancellor, who has promised to “get debt falling in the medium term”, will on October 31 set out a new debt-cutting plan

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack” against the bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia, a key military supply route for its invasion of Ukraine and symbol of Russian prestige. Russia’s president said there was “no doubt” that Ukraine was behind the explosion, which sent two of the bridge’s road spans

An explosion tore through Russia’s bridge across the Kerch Strait to Crimea early on Saturday, killing at least three people and severely damaging its structure in a major blow to Vladimir Putin more than seven months into his invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s anti-terrorist committee said a truck exploded on the bridge’s roadside in the early

Liz Truss has overruled her chancellor and insisted the UK should not set a limit on the number of applications for low-tax investment zones despite internal Treasury concerns the projects could cost billions of pounds in lost taxes. The flagship policy designed to turbocharge UK investment is a key plank of Truss’s “dash for growth”

The White House said nothing was off the table a day after Opec+ angered Washington with sharp cuts to world oil supply, as it considered responses — including new releases from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to contain energy prices. The Opec+ cartel led by Saudi Arabia and Russia on Wednesday agreed to lower production

The White House has accused Opec+ of aligning with Russia after Saudi Arabia led the group in agreeing deep oil production cuts, prompting a backlash from countries already battling surging energy inflation triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Opec+ group said it would reduce production targets by 2mn barrels a day, equivalent to 2

Liz Truss will on Wednesday attempt to rally Conservative MPs behind her faltering leadership, at a party conference that has descended into acrimony, cabinet infighting and confusion. Truss, who has been prime minister for less than a month, will urge her party in a brief 30-minute speech to unite behind her tax-cutting economic policy, which

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is to accelerate the publication of his plan to cut Britain’s debt in an attempt to reassure markets after he was forced to make a humbling U-turn on a key part of his “mini-Budget”. Kwarteng is expected to publish his medium-term fiscal plan, accompanied by official forecasts, later this month after previously

Kwasi Kwarteng is facing a mounting Tory rebellion over his plan to scrap the 45p top rate of income tax, but will on Monday tell Conservative party members he is “confident” that the plan is “the right one”. The chancellor’s tax-cutting “mini” Budget, which also included a wave of new government borrowing, created turmoil in

Prime minister Liz Truss has said that “Britain’s economy needs a reset” and pledged to prioritise “aspiration, enterprise and growth” as the Conservative party prepares to gather for its annual conference in the wake of a week of market turmoil. MPs and party members will convene on Sunday in Birmingham, and Truss is expected to

The UK watchdogs responsible for the £1.5tn corner of the pensions sector that came close to imploding this week are holding daily talks with asset managers to stave off a fresh crisis when the Bank of England’s emergency bond buying ends. The £65bn plan, which ends on October 14, was launched on Wednesday to safeguard

Liz Truss is under mounting pressure to change course on her tax and borrowing plans after a new opinion poll gave Labour a historic lead over the Conservatives. The prime minister was rocked by a YouGov poll which found that Labour had a 33-point lead over the Tories, the biggest gap since the 1990s. The

The Bank of England took emergency action on Wednesday to avoid a meltdown in the UK pensions sector, unleashing a £65bn bond-buying programme to stem a crisis in government debt markets. The central bank warned of a “material risk to UK financial stability” from turmoil in the gilts market, which was sparked by chancellor Kwasi