Kwasi Kwarteng, UK finance minister during Liz Truss’s brief tenure, has confessed that he warned the prime minister that her heavily criticized economic and fiscal plan, which she had to retract, would drive her out of Downing Street in «three to four weeks.»
Kwarteng was sacked in mid-September after only a week in office after both the markets and members of the Conservative Party itself questioned her tax reform proposal, an episode that finally took Truss herself down with her six weeks after she became prime minister.
Now the former Finance Minister has given an interview to the British TalkTV in which he has confessed that even then he warned Truss that she should «slow down» with her economic and fiscal proposal, and warned her that dismissing him was «madness», according to the BBC.
According to Kwarteng, after warning the premier that the economic proposals would end up driving her out of 10 Downing Street, she replied that it was the right thing to do because she only had two years in office before the UK goes to the polls in January 2025 at the latest.
«I think the prime minister was of the view that we needed to move things quickly. But I think it was too fast,» confessed Kwarteng, a political ally and personal friend of Truss, who noted that he learned of his dismissal via Twitter while on his way to Downing Street after being summoned by the head of government.
This interview has been strongly criticized by the Shadow Finance Minister, Labour’s Rachel Reeves, who has called «shameful» the «gall» of Kwarteng for launching these statements after having «collapsed the economy» with a tax proposal that «has caused incalculable damage to people».
