Britain | Playing with fire

Britain’s government is yet to deal with a mess of its own making

Investors in its bonds are still far from satisfied

BRITAIN’S PRIME MINISTER came to office promising to fight “Treasury orthodoxy” and the department’s “abacus economics”. Yet barely a month later, financial markets are teaching Liz Truss and her government a lesson about the importance of sums adding up. Ever since September 23rd, when Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor of the exchequer, announced the biggest tax cuts in half a century with no hint of how he would pay for them, the markets have been in varying states of turmoil.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Playing with fire”

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