Liz Truss accuses Kemi Badenoch of not telling the truth about Tory failures as former PM hits back at Conservative leader over her mini-budget criticism
Liz Truss has accused Kemi Badenoch of ‘repeating spurious narratives’ rather than telling the truth about Tory failures.
The former prime minister said she believes the Tory Party will be in ‘serious trouble’ unless it starts to admit failures over the economy and human rights during its last spell in government.
It follows Mrs Badenoch’s remarks that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were making ‘even bigger mistakes’ than Ms Truss had in her mini-Budget in September 2022 – a month before she quit No 10.
‘It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives,’ Ms Truss wrote in the Telegraph.
‘I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated.’
She described as ‘a fatal mistake’ the decision not to repeal Labour legislation including the Human Rights Act, accusing modernisers of wanting to be ‘heirs to Blair’.
She also took aim at Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, saying that ‘draconian lockdowns’ caused huge damage, adding that the economy ‘was wrecked with profligate Covid spending’ by then chancellor Rishi Sunak.
Liz Truss has accused Kemi Badenoch of ‘repeating spurious narratives’ rather than telling the truth about Tory failures
It follows Mrs Badenoch’s remarks that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were making ‘even bigger mistakes’ than Ms Truss had in her mini-Budget in September 2022
The war of words risks sparking a row within the party, Ms Truss added that the ‘huge increase in immigration has been a disaster’.
Mrs Badenoch previously kept criticisms of Ms Truss private, telling her shadow cabinet in January that it would be helpful if her predecessor made fewer interventions.
But on Saturday she made her first major public criticism of the ex-Tory prime minister, saying Labour had not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget.
She said the bond markets are ‘increasingly jittery about the levels of borrowing today’, and warned that the ‘mismanagement’ of the economy will have ‘real consequences’ on workers.
Writing in The Telegraph, she said: ‘For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes.
‘They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.’
Ms Truss hit back at the comments, saying it was Mrs Badenoch who had not learned the lessons of the mini-budget.
She tweeted: ‘Kemi has not learned the lessons of the Mini Budget, which is that when Conservative MPs fail to back tax cuts, fracking and welfare restraint, they get booted out of office.
‘The Bank of England has since admitted that two thirds of the market movement in 2022 was down to their failure to regulate pensions properly.
‘Kemi Badenoch needs to do the work and actually analyse what happened in 2022 and hold the Bank of England to account.’
The weeks following Ms Truss’s mini-budget saw adverse market reaction and mortgage costs soar.
She was ejected from office after just 49 days – becoming Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister.
Since entering office, Labour has been highly critical of Ms Truss’s handling of the economy.
Ms Truss hit back at the comments, saying it was Mrs Badenoch who had not learned the lessons of the mini-budget.
At the start of this year, the ex-PM’s lawyers sent a letter to No10 insisting Sir Keir’s claim that she ‘crashed the economy’ is defamatory.
But Downing Street said the PM would not soften his language about Ms Truss’s premiership.
Sir Keir’s official spokesman said at the time: ‘There’s only so much I can talk about previous administrations, but you’ve got the Prime Minister’s language which he absolutely stands by in relation to the previous government’s record, and you don’t have to take it from the Prime Minister.
‘I think you can ask people up and down the country what the impact of previous economic management was on their mortgages, on inflation, and I think you’ll get similar answers.’
