Chris Philp, the chief secretary to the Treasury, was feeling confident. As Kwasi Kwarteng delivered his extraordinary £45 billion package of tax cuts yesterday morning, sterling initially began to rise.
“Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK plan for growth,” he tweeted from the chamber, where he was sitting next to Liz Truss, the prime minister.
It proved to be premature. Moments later the value of sterling began to plummet as markets became spooked by the huge scale of borrowing. In the Treasury one official branded their new minister an “idiot”.
Philp’s tweet is a microcosm of the new prime minister’s enormous political and fiscal gamble. Truss is staking her premiership — and the future of the Conservatives —
