Truss compares her pound-crashing mini budget to slaughtering a pig

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Truss compares her pound-crashing mini budget to slaughtering a pig
Truss compares her pound-crashing mini budget to slaughtering a pig

EX-PM Liz Truss today admitted she went too fast with her pound-crashing mini budget as she compared the tax-slashing bonanza to "slaughtering a pig".

In her first major speech on the doomed event since leaving No10, Ms Truss conceded: "I didn't just try to fatten the pig on market day.

Liz Truss delivered her first major speech on her catastrophic mini budget at the Institute for Government in London qhiqquiduidrxprw
Liz Truss delivered her first major speech on her catastrophic mini budget at the Institute for Government in LondonCredit: PA

"I tried to rear the pig, fatten the pig and slaughter the pig on market day.

"I confess to that."

But it was the "political and economic establishment" that the ex-PM ultimately blamed for the mini-budget's catastrophic failure last year.

Spectacular New Year fireworks light up London sky as huge crowds celebrate across UK for first time in three yearsSpectacular New Year fireworks light up London sky as huge crowds celebrate across UK for first time in three years

She insisted members of the "anti-growth coalition" embedded within the civil service, financial institutions and Tory Party over-reacted to the package of £45bn of tax-cuts, in turn causing the market to get nervous and crash.

And she argued she felt pressured into committing a series of "counterproductive" U-turns on her tax plans.

Ms Truss said: "It was certainly the case that there was pressure on me and the Government to reverse our decisions on taxes - and I believe that reversal was counterproductive.

"I believe that raising corporation tax to 25% was the wrong decision but I was essentially forced to do that on pains of a market meltdown."

Responding to Ms Truss, Rupert Harrison, a former advisor to ex-Chancellor George Osborne, said: "The sheer brass neck of this. To presume to offer advice after what happened.

"And still no genuine acknowledgment of the real mistakes that were made.

"Happily, nobody in the Conservative Party or the Government is listening."

The ex-PM said her doomed mini-budget would only have made a "marginal difference" to national deficit.

And she argued the BBC failed to communicate the policies and aims of her economic vision, causing the fallout from the mini budget to intensify.

Ms Truss said: "The tax cuts we were introducing were not major tax cuts, they would have made a fairly marginal difference in fact to the level of the deficit.

Robbie Williams poised to launch his own brand of energy drinks to rival PrimeRobbie Williams poised to launch his own brand of energy drinks to rival Prime

"What they were about was showing a new direction for Britain."

The ex-PM argued that during her 49-day stint in No10, "institutional bureaucracy" held back ministers from transforming Britain into a high-growth, low-tax state.

Ms Truss said: "Lots of people in the civil service are brilliant at what they do. I think the problem is a system problem, rather than a people problem.

"But certainly as a politician, trying to deliver what I believed people had voted for, there was a lot of institutional bureaucracy in the way.

"And even during the leadership election campaign, and maybe this did not make me popular with the OBR and the Bank of England, I pointed out that there was an orthodoxy in Britain about economic policy and I tried to challenge that orthodoxy.

"And I didn't find a massive level of support, frankly, from those institutions."

Noa Hoffman

London, Money saving, Conservative Party, Conservative Leadership Contest, Budgets and statements, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Kwasi Kwarteng, Boris Johnson

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