James Cleverly was asked “what’s the point of Liz Truss” as he clashed with Kay Burley over the government’s many U-turns.
The Sky News presenter listed the humiliating climbdowns the prime minister has been forced in her first six weeks in the job.
They include ditching plans to abolish the 45p rate of tax paid by the highest earners, watering down the cap on energy prices and being forced to abandon the freeze on corporation tax.
Truss has also sacked her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, who has warned of tax rises and massive spending cuts to come as the government struggles to balance the nation’s books.
Burley told the foreign secretary: ”This isn’t a U-turn, this is a 10 car pile-up in the fog.”
The pair clashed as Truss prepares for a make-or-break prime minister’s questions up against Labour leader Keir Starmer.
Burley asked Cleverly: “45p down to 40p, back up to 45p; 19p up to 20p, corporation tax going up to 25 per cent, public spending issues there, energy price guarantee - that’s been changed as well. What’s the point of Liz Truss?”
Cleverly replied: “What we’ve got to remember is that we are facing an unprecedented set of circumstances, but the prime minister was absolutely clear that what we ultimately have to do is grow the economy and she is still very much committed to that.”
He said the prime minister had admitted she had “made mistakes” since becoming PM and was addressing them.
Burley responded: “This isn’t a U-turn, this is a 10 car pile-up in the fog.”
Asked how many more mistakes Truss can afford to make, the foreign secretary said: “The plan is not to make mistakes. You don’t say: ‘Well, you know, I’ve got a certain number of mistakes that I’m allowed to make.’ We don’t aim to make mistakes.
“And actually the simple truth in life, in politics, in business, in life, is that mistakes happen. They do happen. What you’ve got to do is recognise when they’ve happened and have humility to make changes when you see things didn’t go right.”
Meanwhile, Cleverly also refused to confirm that the government will stick to its 2019 manifesto commitment to raise pensions and benefits by inflation.
That came after official figures showed the rate rose to 10.1 per cent last month.
Burley told Cleverly: “It was a manifesto promise that you would increase benefits and pensions by inflation.”
Cleverly responded: “We do take manifesto commitments seriously, but what I’m not going to do is pre-announce budget measures. These figures will be taken into consideration by the chancellor and his team.”