Asked by the opposition to explain her recent humiliating descent, British Prime Minister Liz Truss refused to take the call on Monday, prompting further speculation about her future.
Truss last week sacked Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng after just 38 days in office as markets roiled after the couple’s tax cut agenda announcement.
His successor, Jeremy Hunt, took an ax to the plans Monday morning, leaving the country uncertain as to who was actually in charge.
Truss has remained silent for three days as the crisis consumes her leadership, declining to answer Labor Party requests to tell Parliament its decision to sack Kwarteng and send Minister Penny Mordaunt instead.
“We have this complete vacuum,” said Labor leader Keir Starmer.
“Where’s the Prime Minister? She hides, avoids questions and is afraid of her shadow,” he added.
Westminster Deputy Leader of the Scottish National Party, Kirsten Oswald, chimed in, saying: “If she doesn’t even have the backbone to show up here today, is there really any point in her showing up here again?
“Certainly time is up, it has to go and let people decide,” she added.
Mordaunt told the Commons she regretted that the government’s plans were “additional” to concerns about the “great volatility” in the economy, but said there was “serious reason” for Truss’s absence, without elaborating enter into.
The prime minister is “not under a desk,” she assured, too much hilarity.
Truss then arrived at Parliament and sat in silence while Hunt explained how he reported on their showcase budget before quickly leaving.
– party plans –
In particular, Hunt announced that the two-year freeze on household electricity bills would be scrapped.
Instead, the April freeze will be reviewed.
Markets have been spooked by plans to cut taxes despite huge unfunded Covid and energy subsidy bills.
A cut in income tax was also postponed “indefinitely”.
Downing Street insisted Truss still governs the country and has “worked closely with her Chancellor over the weekend to agree on that approach”.
The only public comments from Truss since Friday have been a handful of tweets, one of which on Monday said the “British people are right to want stability”.
She had holed up at the prime minister’s country house this weekend after a disastrous press conference on Friday, which she broke off after eight minutes.
With few defenders in her party and rumors of plans to depose her, Truss already seems to have lost all authority despite becoming leader just last month.
The Conservative press is searching for the woman whose agenda has been shredded and four Tory MPs have already publicly called for her resignation.
Dozens of others are said to be poised for a no-confidence vote, with the party nearly wiped out by current poll numbers if elected, even though a national vote is two years from now.
It’s unclear if her decision to hire Hunt, who has twice been an unsuccessful lead candidate but a quiet and experienced politician, was forced upon her.
“I think Jeremy Hunt is the de facto Prime Minister at the moment,” Tory MP Roger Gale told Sky News.
“I just don’t think it’s tenable that she can stay in her position any longer. And I’m very sad to say that,” MP Angela Richardson said on Times radio.
