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Liz Truss is to hold unprecedented emergency talks with officials to stem an economic meltdown in the UK, it has been revealed.
The Prime Minister is set to hold a private meeting with the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to discuss the enormous changes since it last published its economic forecasts in March.
The extrememely unusual move will see the Prime Minister meet the OBR’s Richard Hughes on Friday, along with her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, before being presented with a first draft of its full fiscal forecasts next week.
A government source told the Guardian that the meeting was “like trying to read the manual after you’ve broken the thing”.
It comes as the pound continues to fluctuate on the markets and the FTSE 100 saw enormous losses threatening pension funds.
An intervention by the Bank of England buying long term bonds saw some stability but failed to calm the turmoil.
But the revelation is a sign that Ms Truss plans to stand her ground against criticism and also refuse to sack her new Chancellor and not reverse the tax cuts.
Ministers are not meant to interfere with the OBR predictions so it is almost unheard of for an emergency meeting of this nature to be convened.
The strategy last Friday with £105 billion of tax cuts over three years was to spur economic growth in the UK and avoid a recession.
But the markets were taken by srprise and appeared to be spooked by massive borrowing combined with tax cuts which have normally been seen as boosting not reducing inflation.
The uncertainty has also seen the Tories suffer at the polls with Labour having almost record leads in the Express.co.uk Techne UK tracker poll of 20 points and an even bigger one in the Yougov poll today of 33 points.
If repeated in an election the party would face electoral oblivion worse than the 1997 result when Sir Tony Blair led Labour to victory.
Today Mr Kwarteng insisted while on a visit to Darlington that the government will be “sticking to the growth plan”.
He argued that it was “absolutely essential” in resetting the debate on how to run the economy after years of stagnation and low growth since the 2008 financial crash.
But the markets are putting pressure on the Chancellor.
Investors saw the FTSE 100 fall 123.8 points to 6,881.59 today.
Meanwhile, the pound was worth 1.11 dUS dollars after rallying a little at the end of trading.
tory Treasury committee chairman Mel Stride said that the Government has a tough task to turn things around.
He said: “It’s not a very broad path. There is a lot of work to be done. This is a huge challenge.”
READ MORE: Tory MP backlash over Truss cuts after huge Labour poll lead
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