'I simply underestimated the scale and depth of this resistance and the scale and depth to which it reached into the media and into the broader establishment.'
After her premiership ended in utter disaster, making her the shortest-serving Prime Minister in UK history, one would think Liz Truss would spend some time reflecting on what went wrong, but instead she’s done the complete opposite.
With her political credibility in tatters in the UK, Truss has turned to the U.S. in a bid to revive her political career. She gave a speech to the right-wing Heritage Foundation think tank this week, where she insisted she was right all along, despite being forced from office after her disastrous mini budget caused market turmoil. Truss also railed against wokeism and the left, portraying herself as the victim of a vast political conspiracy.
She praised Ronald Reagan, took swipes at Emmanuel Macron and slammed Western democracies for losing their way during her 2023 Margaret Thatcher freedom lecture.
There was no discussion of how her mini-budget which contained £45bn of unfunded tax cuts and which led to a collapse in investor confidence and a record collapse in the value of the pound had contributed to her downfall. For someone who placed blind faith in the markets, the very markets that rejected her flawed ideas, there was no show of humility.
Instead, borrowing from the Trump playbook, Truss sought to portray herself as the victim of an establishment conspiracy. She told the audience: “We didn’t just face coordinated resistance from inside the Conservative party or even inside the British corporate establishment. We faced it from the IMF and even from President Biden.”
She also said: “There are people who work in businesses that invoice the government and they’re doing quite fine, thank you very much.
“All of those people are part of the resistance to change we need to see.
“And as prime minister, I simply underestimated the scale and depth of this resistance and the scale and depth to which it reached into the media and into the broader establishment.”
Truss also railed against redistribution and woke culture. She said: “The sad truth is what I think we’ve seen over the past few years is a new kind of economic model taking hold in our countries, one that’s focused on redistributionism, on stagnation and on the imbuing of woke culture into our businesses. I call these people the anti-growth movement.”
The comments from Truss show how delusional the former Prime Minister is as she made clear she intended to remain in politics to still champion her discredited agenda.
She said: “Last autumn I had a major setback but I care too much to give up on this agenda. I think it’s too important … Over the coming months I’ll be setting out ideas about how we together can take this battle forward …
“We need to fight this battle of ideas once again. Mrs Thatcher would have expected nothing less.”
Truss’ comments come in the same week that former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng also refused to rule out a return to the cabinet.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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