LONDON: Britain’s former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has the ignominy of being the country’s shortest serving in the top job at just 49 days, on Sunday made a dramatic attempt at a comeback to frontline politics with an indirect swipe at successor Rishi Sunak’s policies.
Truss, whose mini-budget in September last year was widely blamed for setting the UK on a spiralling economic downturn, claims she was never given a “realistic chance” to implement her tax-cutting vision for growth.
In a lengthy essay in ‘The Sunday Telegraph’, the former party leader admitted she was not “blameless” but argued that her mandate as the Conservative Party leader was not respected and that her premiership was the casualty of the “left-wing economic establishment”.
“I wanted to become Prime Minister to change things, not to manage decline or to preside over our country sliding into stagnation,” she writes.
“In the medium term, I believed my policies would have increased growth and therefore reduced debt. Five-year forecasts are treated as accurate predictions and therefore filling the ‘gap’ becomes the imperative of government policy… As a result, the government is forced to make economically detrimental decisions, such as raising corporation tax, based on uncertain forecasts that may not come to fruition,” she said.
The timing of Truss’ essay, just as Sunak marked his first 100 days as British Prime Minister this week, is widely being seen as the now backbench MP’s attempt at keeping her dream of returning to the front benches.