Liz Truss, the former prime minister, claimed she was never given a “realistic chance” to carry out her extreme tax-cutting programme and attributed her ouster from Downing Street to a “powerful economic establishment.”
Ms. Truss stated in her first in-depth remarks following her removal from Number 10 that she had underestimated the level of the opposition to her ideas.
She stated that while she was not “claiming to be blameless” for how chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget fell apart, her strategy for promoting growth was sound.
“I am not claiming to be blameless in what happened, but fundamentally I was not given a realistic chance to enact my policies by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support,” she wrote in a piece for The Sunday Telegraph.
“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.”
Prior to taking office on September 6, 2022, Ms. Truss stated that she will focus on increasing economic growth through “tax cuts and reform,” addressing the energy situation “hands-on,” and enhancing access to the NHS.
She became the shortest-serving prime minister in British history after being forced to quit 44 days after replacing Boris Johnson.
Despite her own “bruising” experience from last fall, Ms. Truss was certain that her measures would have improved growth and reduced debt over the long run.
She said that her and Mr. Kwarteng’s growth strategy, which combined tax cuts and deregulation to jump-start the stagnant economy, had constituted a deliberate break from the “left-wards” tendency of economic theory, which was despised by some significant forces.
“Frankly, we were also pushing water uphill. Large parts of the media and the wider public sphere had become unfamiliar with key arguments about tax and economic policy and over time sentiment had shifted left-wards,” she said.
She claimed that the controversy surrounding her proposal to eliminate the 45p top rate of income tax, including opposition from members of her own party, was indicative of the challenges she would confront.
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