Ex-PM Liz Truss takes aim at Tories and the Whitehall blob for blocking low ... trends now
Ex-PM Liz Truss took another swipe at her Tory opponents and Whitehall mandarins for blocking her dreams of a low tax Britain tonight, in her first broadcast interview since being forced from power.
In a wide-ranging sit-down with Spectator TV she accused a wide-range of actors of standing in her way during her 49 days in power last year.
The former leader, 47, said that her party 'had not moved in a free market direction' in the past decade and needed to 'start building more of a strong intellectual base'.
She also lashed out at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) over its economic forecasting, suggesting it was less accurate than her accountant husband, and complained of 'system resistance' from a Remainer-dominated Civil Service.
She also suggested that she was forced to sack her close friend Kwasi Kwarteng to avoid a 'market meltdown' after his mini-Budget - which fatally undermined her position.
But she insisted it was unfair to blame her for a surge in mortgage interest rates since last autumn that have hammered homeowners.
Ms Truss's re-emergence into frontline politics has sparked fears she will kick off a new front in the Tories' ideological civil war that broke out last year.
But she told interviewers Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson she would support Rishi Sunak and had no desire to return to power.
In a wide-ranging sit-down with Spectator TV she accused a wide-range of actors of standing in her way during her 49 days in power last year.
Rishi Sunak is facing a fresh assault from predecessor Liz Truss today as he bats away calls for early tax cuts
'I’m positive about the future of Britain and I’m positive about the future of the Conservative Party. I think we need to start building more of a strong intellectual base. But I’m not desperate to get back into Number 10, no,' she told the Spectator.
‘Nobody would be more delighted than me, Katy, if there were lots of other people coming forward and making these arguments. I would be more than delighted to have other people go out there and make the case. But the fact is there aren’t enough people making the case, full stop.'
She added that there had been 'a drift, right across the free world, towards ... higher taxes, higher spending, bigger government, relatively low interest rates and cheap money'.
'There’s no doubt that those of us on the side of politics who believe in smaller government and free markets have not been winning the argument,' she said.
'Take, for example, the view of Brexit by part of Whitehall, the view of reform to institutions. I’ve always known that there is system resistance and there always is: every democracy has institutions or people who have a particular point of view that doesn’t agree with the elected government.
'And I also think the political support I had during my time in Number 10 wasn’t enough to achieve the type of bold reforms I was looking to achieve, so there was a combination if you like of the economic orthodoxy – which for more than 10 years we’ve had relatively cheap money, low interest rates, relatively high government spending, and there’s been a variety of factors that have caused that – Covid is a good example, and relatively high taxes.
'But also not diverging from the EU, not doing some of the deregulatory stuff that might have got growth going more, so those attitudes were part of the system. At same time, the level of political support required to maybe change some of those attitudes wasn’t there. That’s what I found.'
Ms Truss stoked the simmering Conservative civil war yesterday by complaining that she was never given 'realistic chance' to implement her radical tax-cutting agenda due to a lack of political support and a 'powerful economic establishment'.
But allies of Mr Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have been making clear there is no prospect of reducing the burden - running at a post-war high - in the Budget next month. Instead they insist action must wait until after rampant inflation is brought under control.
Downing Street today insisted the PM welcomed the contribution of former prime ministers. But his official spokesman appeared to rebuff his predecessor's suggestion that the UK' 'fiscal policy is in a straitjacket' and that a 'worrying economic consensus' is threatening growth.
Ms Truss used a 4,000-word article yesterday to acknowledge that she was not 'blameless' over the way her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's infamous mini-Budget
