Minford claimed that leaving the EU without a trade deal would have boosted the UK’s GDP by 4%
When recently asked to name one economist who agreed with her tax plans, Liz Truss named Patrick Minford.
Truss wants to slash £30bn off taxes funded by borrowing and with many pointing out flaws in her policies she’s turned to Minford to give her plans legitimacy.
Minford even wrote a piece this weekend for the Daily Mail in praise of Truss.
So, who exactly is Minford? The economist came to prominence in 1981 when over 300 economists wrote a letter criticising Margaret Thatcher’s disastrous economic policies, Minford defended the government and received a letter from Thatcher congratulating him for his efforts.
Minford has also made some pretty outlandish predictions in the past, leading to Will Hutton claiming that the economist was ‘wrong on every significant economic policy’ for a generation’.
Minford claimed that leaving the EU without a trade deal would have boosted the UK’s GDP by 4% which has been at odds with most other models which showed that a hard no-deal Brexit would damage the economy.
John Spiers wrote on Twitter: “Liz Truss just told Radio 4 that she wants to follow the advice of Patrick Minford, a fringe economist who said that for Brexit to succeed economically we would have to get rid of farming and manufacturing and live with much bigger wage inequality.”
Minford also said in the past that introducing a minimum wage would result in millions being unemployed.
He’s also known as one of the few economists to be in support of Brexit and is the go-to economist for the ERG group of Tory MPs who have pushed for a hard Brexit.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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