UK finance minister sacked:
Embattled British Prime Minister Liz Truss has parted ways with her Treasury chief ahead of a hastily arranged news conference on Friday as she struggled to calm markets and hang on to her job following the release of her controversial economic plan.
Sky News and the BBC reported that Kwasi Kwarteng was ousted, but it was unclear if he was fired or resigned.
It comes after a month in the job — and three weeks after he announced a tax-cutting “mini-budget” that sent the pound plunging to record lows against the dollar. On Thursday Kwarteng denied he was about to lose his job, saying “I’m not going anywhere.”
Truss is due to hold a news conference later Friday. She is under intense pressure to scrap some of the 43 billion pounds ($48 billion) in unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and led the Bank of England to step in to prevent a wider economic crisis.
Senior members of the Conservative party were publicly advising the government to take action. The pound rose as much as 1.7% against the dollar on Thursday and bond markets stabilized amid expectations that Truss and Kwarteng, whose formal title is chancellor of the Exchequer, will revise their economic growth plan.
