Vanessa Feltz blasts ‘gobsmacking’ tax cut U-turn with scathing attack on Liz Truss-Alistair McGeorge-Entertainment – Metro

Vanessa Feltz has blasted Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng after a ‘gobsmacking’ U-turn on the Government’s controversial plans to cut the top rate of tax for Britain’s highest earners.

The TalkTV presenter launched a scathing attack on the prime minister as she questioned the reversal of the decision one day after the pair had publicly and repeatedly backed the measure despite pressure from the opposition and Truss’ own MPs.

Appearing on Monday’s episode of This Morning, Vanessa said: ‘t’s dazzling news, it’s absolutely gobsmacking – I know that’s not a very elegant word, but it is, isn’t it?

‘It was only, what, just over a week ago that this was unfurled, unveiled. We were told it was the solution, and we absolutely – the economic strategy was 100% spot on.

‘It may look a bit squiggly at this time with people struggling to turn on the heating and actually open a can of soup because they haven’t got any money to give the rich more money, and also to borrow money to fund giving the rich people more money.

‘Didn’t seem to be very comprehensible, but seemed to be – they said – absolutely the ticket. Then the bottom fell out of everything, they still said it was absolutely terrific and spot on and marvellous, and now there’s a U-turn? Talk about something that doesn’t inspire an ounce of confidence in anything!’

Vanessa Feltz didn’t hold back as she blasted the U-turn (Picture: ITV/This Morning)

Vanessa compared the situation to school exams where students are told to show how they arrived at their answer.

She continued: ‘I just find it so worrying. You go in any examination, they go, “Show your working.” You’re meant to be able to show how you came up with the idea.

‘If they show their working, how they came up with it just over a week ago and thought this reason and that reason, and historically and economically, financially, this was the right…’

Kwasi Kwarteng announced the U-turn on Monday morning (Picture: Reuters)

Just yesterday, Liz Truss backed the plans (Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images)

This Morning host Phillip Schofield interjected to point out ‘we were told we had to wait until the 23rtd November to see how it works’, and a clearly furious Vanessa pointed out the speed of the turnaround.

‘Exactly! How do you then say, “That was our working, that’s how we came up with it, we inflicted it on everybody, we imposed it saying it was going to be terrific, we believed in it implicitly,”‘ she said.

‘And now, just over a week later, “Scrub all that, that was wrong”. Plus the bit that really got me more than anything else was the bit where Liz Truss, the Prime Minister, said “We get it”. I thought, how can you get it?

‘You didn’t get it last week, you don’t suddenly get it this week! You don’t get it, that’s the point. You did not get it. That’s why you’ve had to change so soon! But it doesn’t inspire confidence in anyone – the world markets, or anyone.’

She also predicted the government will try to make the U-turn into a positive by spinning it to portray ‘good leadership’, but she hopes they wouldn’t get away with such a plan.

She added: ‘I’m just girding my loins for the bit where they say really good leadership means being able to change your mind. And then they start flogging it to us as a really good idea… Come on, they can’t have a victory out of this.’

Earlier this morning, Mr Kwarteng said ‘it is clear that the abolition of the 45p tax
rate has become a distraction from our overriding mission to tackle the
challenges facing our country’.

In a tweet, he added of the criticism: ‘We get it, and we have listened.’

This Morning airs weekdays at 10am on ITV.

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