Speculation is mounting that the government will perform another U-turn on last month’s mini-Budget.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, has flown back from meeting the IMF in Washington DC a day early, fuelling speculation that he will reverse a decision to freeze corporation tax at 19%.
Markets rallied by 3.2% in response to the speculation, but were weighed down by worse than expected inflation figures from the US.
The Treasury said he was simply “returning to London today to continue work at pace on the medium-term fiscal plan”.
Critics pointed out that the last time a finance minister left unexpectedly early, it was Evangelos Venizelos who flew back in 2011 to deal with Greece’s sovereign debt crisis. Labour chancellor Dennis Healey turned around at Heathrow rather than fly out to an IMF meeting in Manila after pressure mounted on the pound in 1976.
