Liz Truss has refused to rule out running to be Tory leader again, saying she has “unfinished business” with the Conservative party.
The country’s shortest serving prime minister also said the governor of the Bank of England should resign over his response to her catastrophic 2022 mini budget, and that opponents were attempting to “smear” her by blaming the event on the UK’s subsequent economic woes.
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The Lib Dems branded her a “national embarrassment” following the comments, while Labour said the prospect of her returning to office “will send shivers down the spine of working people”.
Ms Truss’s tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts triggered mass market turmoil.
The former prime minister has since doubled down on what she was trying to achieve, and is touring the media ahead of the publication of her book: Ten Years to Save the West.
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Asked by LBC if she would want to play an “active” part in a future Tory administration, she said: “I definitely have unfinished business. Definitely. And I think the Conservative Party has unfinished business.”
She insisted she had not written her book “to run a leadership campaign”, but rather to build support for her political ideas.
But pressed if she would rule out standing for the Tory leadership in future, she said: “Well, it’s never wise to rule anything out in politics, is it?”
On criticism of her mini-budget, which included a tax cut for the wealthiest 1%, she said opponents are “trying to smear me with economic results that I’m clearly not responsible for”.
Asked if she thought Andrew Bailey should still be governor of the Bank of England, Ms Truss said: “No, I don’t.
“I certainly think there should be a proper investigation into what happened in September 2022, and the actions the Bank of England took.”
She added: “The difficulty is the way that [former Labour prime minister] Gordon Brown set up the independence of the Bank of England in the statute books means it’s very hard to move a governor of the Bank of England on, but I think big mistakes have been made with monetary policy.”
The Bank of England intervened to stop pension funds collapsing following Ms Truss’s mini-budget in September 2022.
The package of measures sparked a huge economic fallout, leading to a surge in borrowing costs and mortgage rates and causing the pound to slump to a 37-year low against the dollar.
The then chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked over the chaos, with Ms Truss walking out the door a week later after reversing nearly all of her measures in order to stabilise the market.
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The Lib Dems suggested Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should withdraw the Conservative whip from Ms Truss because of her comments.
Deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Sunak cannot have a Conservative MP on his backbenches who peddles conspiracy theories and is, frankly, becoming a national embarrassment on the global stage.
“By allowing Liz Truss to remain a Conservative MP, Rishi Sunak is yet again proving himself too weak to govern.”
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Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said homeowners are “still reeling after the Conservatives crashed the economy and sent mortgages rocketing by hundreds of pounds every month”.
“The prospect of Liz Truss returning as Tory leader will send shivers down the spine of working people.
“Rishi Sunak is too weak to stand up to the reckless actions of Liz Truss and it’s working people that pay the price.”
