Liz Truss’s comeback risks damaging the Conservatives’ election chances and deepening splits over taxes

 

Liz Truss’s comeback risks damaging the Conservatives’ election chances and deepening splits over taxes

 

ANALYSIS Former prime minister is largely unrepentant despite contributing to economic pain faced by millions

 

By Arj Singh

Deputy Political Editor

February 5, 2023 3:54 pm(Updated 4:26 pm)

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-comeback-risks-damaging-conservatives-election-chances-deepening-splits-taxes-2129551

 

It is perhaps understandable that after 49 chaotic days in Downing Street destroyed Liz Truss’s hard-won reputation as the Cabinet’s longest-serving minister, she wanted a chance to tell her side of the story.

 

But while conceding she was not “blameless” in sparking the market turmoil that made mortgages more expensive for millions, the former prime minister’s 4,000-word essay is largely unrepentant.

 

The Bank of England, the Treasury, No 10, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), US President Joe Biden, the IMF and even her own Conservative Party are all identified as contributing to an “economic orthodoxy” that was simply not ready for the Truss plan for growth.

 

Ms Truss also fails to acknowledge that the economic carnage she presided over has all-but-destroyed the Tories’ chance of winning the next election, with the party’s reputation for fiscal competence lying in tatters.

 

While aspects of her argument for growth may have merit as the UK stares down the barrel of a recession, and have struck a chord with some sensible senior Tory MPs, the nature and timing of her intervention means the woman once dubbed the “human hand grenade” is once again causing damage to the Government and her party.

 

Allies insist that Ms Truss does not want to undermine her successor, Rishi Sunak, or Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who she actually brought into the Treasury to calm the markets.

 

But the timing of her comeback will only deepen Tory splits, which are once again emerging over tax cuts a month ahead of the Budget.

 

Perhaps worse still, it will simply remind voters of the damage the party caused to the economy and their own finances just as Mr Sunak is stabilising the Tories’ position and beginning to demonstrate Government competence for the first time in well over a year.

 

Cabinet ministers were told at an away day last month that the Tories still have a narrow path to victory at the next election, but Ms Truss’s presence will only make it tighter.