UK FINANCE minister Jeremy Hunt has pledged not to return the United Kingdom to the financial austerity of the years from 2010 to 2015, yet he seems set to announce on Thursday (Nov 17) collective tax rises and spending cuts of at least £50 billion (S$81.2 billion) to £60 billion.

Hunt was appointed last month to the Treasury following the debacle of the Truss government’s emergency fiscal statement in September. That so-called “mini budget” caused major problems for both then chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and then prime minister Liz Truss, with both of them forced out of office in October. The political challenge that Hunt has to contend with is loss of trust in Conservatives since September’s fiscal statement.

No UK government in the post-war era that has presided over a domestic or international financial debacle, such as that of this autumn, has survived at the ballot box at the next election. Take the example of the so-called Black Wednesday crisis in September 1992. The UK government was forced to withdraw sterling from the then European Exchange Rate Mechanism and, even though the economy improved in the next few years, the Conservatives suffered a landslide defeat in 1997.