After days of silence, Liz Truss has finally faced questions on the UK financial market turmoil triggered by the government’s plans for sweeping tax cuts.
The prime minister agreed to a series of interviews with local BBC radio stations on Thursday, while Chris Philp, Kwasi Kwarteng’s number two at the Treasury, also answered questions on BBC radio.
The chancellor is yet to answer questions this week, despite the Bank of England being forced to make a massive £65bn intervention in markets on Wednesday morning to prevent a liquidity squeeze on pension funds.
But some of the claims in those interviews have raised eyebrows as they insisted government measures were not to blame for the turbulence. Here we check the facts.
The mini-budget was not a big surprise
The claim
Liz Truss said: “No, it isn’t [wrong policy] because… the majority of the package we announced on Friday was the support on energy for individuals and businesses…
