Darling: Economic turmoil and trashed reputation self-harm
Former chancellor Alistair Darling has said the recent economic turmoil is "self-inflicted" and that the Government is "trashing" the UK'S reputation.
He described the current situation as "chaotic" and said the Government is giving "a textbook example of everything you shouldn't do in difficult times".
His comments come after the pound plummeted in value against the dollar following Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget announcement of a raft of tax cuts, including scrapping the 45p rate of income tax for higher earners.
The Government then performed a U-turn and decided to keep the 45p rate.
Speaking on the BBC'S Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Mr Darling said: "The problem they've got is that at a very febrile time - we've got high inflation, the strengthening dollar - they suddenly decided that they were going to have £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts. Politically it was a disaster because they wanted to reduce the top rates of tax, frankly, for people who don't actually need it."
Put to him that there are similar pressures in other countries, Mr Darling told the programme: "Other governments have got high levels of debt.
"Why is it though that the pound tanked after this announcement? It was this announcement. It was selfinflicted. It wouldn't have happened if they hadn't done it.
"But they wanted to do it for political reasons. They didn't prepare the ground. They didn't talk to the people they should have talked to. The result is, at one point, it was costing this country more to borrow money than it does Italy or Greece.”