Liz Truss has refused to apologise for the financial chaos caused by her mini-budget and defiantly refused to take responsibility for things she “did not know about”.
The former PM admitted she would have done things differently if she had known about “how fragile the financial market was”, but she remained unrepentant about her policies.
And she stopped short of apologising to people who suffered financially as a result of the budget that she and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng presented in September.
The measures, involving the biggest tax cuts in 50 years, were announced without the usual independent costing from the Office for Budget Responsibility, sending the pound plummeting, and the cost of government borrowing and interest rates soaring.
“The issue was caused primarily by problems in the bond market… which I didn’t know about,” she said.
“So I am prepared to take responsibility for things I knew about and can foresee, but not things I don’t know about.”
Ten days after the mini-budget, Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng were forced to reverse their measures after colleagues and the public grew increasingly nervous, especially when mortgage costs soared during the cost-of-living crisis.
She quit after 45 days in office, when it became clear her position was untenable, becoming the country’s shortest-serving PM.
Ms Truss told ITV News Anglia: “In retrospect, we could have communicated better but there were serious issues we didn’t know about, in particular how fragile the financial market was,” she said.
Although she again ruled out a second run for the Conservative leadership, she said she remained committed to cutting tax and pursuing growth.
“I would have liked more support from the financial markets, I would have liked more support from MPs in the House of Commons, but the fact is I didn’t have that support to continue with the policies,” she said.
“The policies I set out, I believe are the right policies for the long term. Did we get everything right? No, we didn’t. Would I have liked more time? Yes, I would.
“But I’m a realist and when it was clear that I didn’t have that level of support, I wasn’t going to leave the country in the lurch and stay in office. And that is why I stood down.”
Previously she has blamed the disruption on the left-wing “economic establishment” and her party and officials, saying no one told her about the risk to pension funds.
Ms Truss was speaking on a visit to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, where the crumbling building is held up by 3,400 temporary props. She admitted refusing to make any commitments to the hospital while prime minister was a mistake.
