Liz Truss appears to be taking a “scorched earth” approach to the economy which will leave a Labour government to pick up the pieces after the election expected in 2024, a shadow cabinet minister has said.
As stock markets sank and the pound plunged in the wake of last week’s “kamikaze” mini-Budget, delegates at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool could scarcely believe their luck at the apparent willingness of the prime minister and chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to take a hatchet to their own party’s biggest electoral assets.
And there was a growing sense of confidence among them that opinion polls giving Keir Starmer’s party leads of up to 17 points over the Conservatives could presage a remarkable return to power just five years after Labour’s crushing defeat in 2019.
