By Jack Mendel
Britain’s foreign secretary James Cleverly has hit out at Conservative rebels for publicly criticising Liz Truss over her spending plans, accusing them of being concerned with “having quotable tweets”.
Cleverly’s comments comes after Tory MPs began to publicly call into question Liz Truss’ policies yesterday.
A frenetic meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee last night also led to many disenfranchised MPs to speculate behind closed doors that Truss could face a leadership contest, just 38 days into the job.
Cleverly told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on Thursday: “Changing the leadership would be a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but economically”, in an attack on critics calling to oust Truss.
Speaking to backbenchers, Truss reportedly tried to reassure them of her plans to cut taxes in a bid to increase growth, leading to a number of MPs briefing against her in the press.
One told the Mail her approach was “like someone trying to light a fire using a magnifying glass, using damp wood, in the dark.”
Another told ITV they “genuinely have no idea how she is going to make the maths add up on 31 October” and “I don’t think she does either”.
During the meeting, the chair of the education select committee, Robert Halfon, also accused Truss of abandoning “workers Conservatism” and “trashing” 10-years of Tory policies, according to an MP in the meeting who spoke to the Times.
In response Clevery told Sky News this morning, “some people like having quotable tweets and some people like delivering good government.
“I am in the camp of the kind of people that like delivering good government. I know that the Chancellor, the Prime Minister, and my ministerial colleagues are focused on delivering for the British people,” he said.
Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope told his colleagues criticising the PM to “shut up”.
“If you are talking to people who never supported Liz Truss and still don’t want her to be leader of the Conservative Party, then its’s time that they shut up and allowed those who want to ensure that our country is able to break free of the anti-growth coalition to do just that,” he told Times Radio.
The Chancellor will make a statement on 31 October.
Truss yesterday said she was “absolutely” committed to not making public spending cuts, despite expectations to the contrary.
The Prime Minister told the House of Commons that “what we will make sure is over the medium-term the debt is falling” and that “we will do that, not by cutting public spending, but by making sure we spend public money well”.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said the government will need to make more than £60bn in spending cuts to calm markets, which reacted poorly to the government’s debt-funded tax cuts and energy support package.
A Number 10 spokesperson told journalists that total “public spending is due to continue to rise”, but that “there will be difficult decisions to be taken given some of the global challenges we’re facing”.
This does not rule out real-terms cuts to departmental budgets, after the government spent more than £100bn on freezing energy bills last month and amid higher than expected UK inflation.
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