“Liz Truss is going too fast,” says Kwasi Kwarteng

 

 

 

Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has said he warned Liz Truss she was going too fast with her ill-fated economic plans.

In his first interview since he was sacked by the then PM, Mr Kwarteng told TalkTV he had warned her to “slow down” after September’s mini-budget.

He said he told her it was “mad” to fire him, and she would only last “three or four weeks” if she did.

 

“Little did I know it was only going to be six days,” he added.

 

Mr Kwarteng was dramatically fired by Ms Truss in October, two weeks after their tax-cutting mini-budget sparked turmoil on financial markets.

 

She then ditched almost all of the plan in a bid to stay in power, but announced her resignation a few days later – less than seven weeks after taking office – as support from Conservative MPs ebbed away.

 

Speaking to TalkTV, Mr Kwarteng said that he had warned Ms Truss about going at a “breakneck speed” with economic measures after the mini-budget.

 

“She said, ‘Well, I’ve only got two years’ and I said, ‘You will have two months if you carry on like this’. And that is, I’m afraid, what happened.”

 

He also said: “I think the prime minister was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast. But I think it was too quick.”

 

Mr Kwarteng, a longtime political ally and friend of Ms Truss, revealed the then-PM was “distressed and emotional” when she called him in to be fired, after summoning him back from a trip to the US.

 

He also revealed he found out he was going to be sacked when he saw a journalist tweeting about it while he was in the car going to Downing Street.

 

He said he had told her: “This is mad. Prime ministers don’t get rid of chancellors.”