“You were brought down because in a matter of weeks you lost the confidence of the financial markets, the electorate and your own MPs"
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has been brutally mocked after claiming that a ‘left-wing economic establishment’ was to blame for her disastrous time in office, which resulted in her quitting after just 45 days, making her the shortest-serving Prime Minister in UK history.
Last week LFF reported that Truss was planning an intervention in the Sunday papers as she plots a political ‘comeback’, championing the cause of low taxes ahead of the budget in March.
Writing in the Telegraph, in her first detailed comments after being forced out of Downing Street in October, Truss claimed that she was never given a “realistic chance” to enact her radical tax-slashing agenda by a “very powerful economic establishment”.
She continues to insist that her policies, which resulted in economic turmoil, a collapse in market confidence and which crashed the pound, were the right ideas to pursue.
Truss wrote: “I assumed upon entering Downing Street that my mandate would be respected and accepted. How wrong I was.
“While I anticipated resistance to my programme from the system, I underestimated the extent of it.
“Similarly, I underestimated the resistance inside the Conservative parliamentary party to move to a lower-tax, less-regulated economy.”
Showing no humility or regret over her disastrous economic decisions, Truss also took aim at Whitehall’s “strength of economic orthodoxy and its influence on the market” and condemned Treasury officials for blindsiding her on the collapse of the pension market.
Her comments were ridiculed.
The News Agent’s Jon Sopel tweeted: “Hold on – wasn’t it those pesky free markets – that she champions – reacting in horror to £45 billion in unfunded tax cuts? That led to surge in cost of borrowing, near collapse of pension industry, and more costly mortgages for all of us. Didn’t Liz Truss bring Liz Truss down?”
Labour MP Chris Bryant tweeted: “The main thing I’ve learnt from @trussliz article is she’s paranoid, refuses to take responsibility for her actions, thinks most of the Tory party are lily livered pinkos and has no self-awareness or compassion for others. Oh – and the Tories are hopelessly divided.”
The Tory peer Lord Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff, was scathing about Ms Truss’s explanation for the failure of her premiership.
“You were brought down because in a matter of weeks you lost the confidence of the financial markets, the electorate and your own MPs,” he tweeted.
“During a profound cost of living crisis, you thought it was a priority to cut tax for the richest people in the country.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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