Kwasi Kwarteng takes swipe at Liz Truss's 'mad' decision to sack him as Chancellor

11.11.2022 - 13:31 / dailyrecord.co.uk

Kwasi Kwarteng has hit out at Liz Truss calling her decision to sack him as Chancellor of the Exchequer "mad" during the final days of her premiership.

The Tory MP told the then Prime Minister she would be out of Downing Street within "three or four weeks" of removing him as Chancellor.

Speaking publicly for the first time since his sacking, Kwarteng told TalkTV of his thinking when she fired him: "This is mad. Prime Ministers don't get rid of Chancellors. I think I said to her at the time: 'This is going to last three or four weeks'. Little did I know it was only going to be six days."

He also said: "She can't fire me for just implementing what she campaigned on. And, you know, we had a conversation. And I think it was very much the view that somehow she would survive if I took the fall on that."

Kwarteng refused to apologise for the financial chaos caused by his disastrous mini-budget, but acknowledged "there was turbulence and I regret that".

He said the "strategic goal was right", but "I think we should have had a much more measured approach". He said he bore "some responsibility" for the timetable of the mini-budget, but that Truss "was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast".

The MP for Spelthorne added: "But I think it was too quick. Even after the mini budget we were going at breakneck speed. And I said, 'You know, we should slow down, slow down'.

"She said, 'Well, I've only got two years' and I said, 'You will have two months if you carry on like this'. And I'm afraid that's what happened."

Kwarteng's financial statement on September sent chaos across the markets after he announced the biggest raft of tax cuts for half a century.

Using more than £70 billion of increased borrowing, he set out a package