Liz Truss has branded Rachel Reeves’ plan to grow the UK economy by green-lighting major infrastructure projects “thin gruel” in comparison to her own 2022 mini-budget.
Ms Truss’ plans to cut £45billion in tax would have been a better option for UK growth than the Chancellor’s project-focused approach, the ex-PM claimed in a post on X.
Despite the market disruption that followed the 2022 mini-budget, Ms Truss pointed the finger of blame at the Bank of England, “unelected bureaucrats [and] the legacy media … looking for any excuse to stop change”.
“They will find the people of Britain now demand much bigger change,” she said.
Ms Reeves announced during a speech on Wednesday that the government would back a number of major developments including a third runway at Heathrow and “Europe’s Silicon Valley” between Oxford and Cambridge.
But the former Prime Minister, who lost her Norfolk seat in last year’s general election, slammed the plans, which she said wouldn’t accomplish half of what her own policies would have.
“Contrast and compare today’s thin gruel from Labour with the Mini-Budget aka the Growth Plan,” Ms Truss wrote on X.
“Imagine where Britain would be now if [it] had been implemented,” she added, before listing a number of policy ideas including more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, a reversal of the fracking ban and cutting stamp duty.
The UK’s shortest-serving Prime Minister resigned less than two months after announcing the mini-budget.
Her lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to Keir Starmer earlier this month asking him to stop saying she had crashed the economy, describing such claims as “false and misleading”.
It also alleged that they could have “materially impacted public opinion” and contributed to her losing her Norfolk seat.
Since leaving the House of Commons, Ms Truss has kept herself busy flying the flag for Donald Trump across the pond and publicising her book, Ten Years to Save The West.
She also made headlines when leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch told shadow ministers she thought it would be best if the former leader “shut up for a while”, in an apparent effort to distance the Tory Party from its predecessor.
