Liz Truss’s new book shows no remorse
‘‘ She makes clear she still believes in cutting taxes and helping the rich become richer
Liz Truss and her disastrous 49-day premiership are arguably one of the key reasons the Conservatives are in their current woeful position - miles behind Labour in the polls and staring at the likelihood of heavy defeat come the general election.
Her successor Rishi Sunak would like voters to forget all about Ms Truss's seven-week stint in Downing Street and the mini-budget with its £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts which prompted market turmoil, saw the pound fall to its lowest ever level against the dollar and the sent the cost of borrowing soaring, meaning mortgage misery for millions.
But as the election looms, up pops Britain's shortest-serving prime minister with her new book, seeking to justify her record in office, blaming the "economic establishment" for most of what went wrong and arguing that what the country needs is more of what she was trying to do.
In the book, Ten Years to Save the West, she shows no remorse for the chaos she created, admitting only to not getting her message across. “I accept the communications around the mini budget were not as good as they could have been,” she says. And confesses: “I assumed people understood what I was trying to do more than they did.”
But despite revealing that even the Queen advised her: “Pace yourself ”, she later dismisses the idea they should not have rushed into their radical package of measures. “What would we have been waiting for? The longer you wait in politics, the harder things become.”
She makes clear she still believes in cutting taxes and helping the rich become richer as the way to boost the economy, regardless of the consequences when she tried it. She has also launched a new organisation, Popular Conservatism or "PopCon", to further the cause, adding to the party's growing collection of right-wing fringe groups. And despite complaining about the lack of loyalty shown to her by Tory MPs when she was at Number Ten, she has been happy to hit out at some of Rishi Sunak's policy initiatives, not least the gradual ban on smoking, branding it an example of "the nanny state".
Boris Johnson has adopted a similar view on the proposed smoking ban. Mr Sunak reportedly hoped he might take part in the election campaign. It’s safe to say the prime minister never planned to look to Liz Truss.