The Tory shadow chancellor has vowed to “never again” repeat the “mistakes” of Liz Truss in a further humiliating blow to the former prime minister.
Sir Mel Stride took a jab at Truss yesterday in a bid to distance Kemi Badenoch’s leadership away from their party’s record in government, accusing her of “putting at risk the very stability which Conservatives had always said must be carefully protected”.
But, she hit back at Stride for being a “creature of the system” and claiming that “nothing will change with people like him in charge”.
Talking at a press conference in central London, Sir Mel said: “The credibility of the UK’s economic framework was undermined by spending billions on subsidising energy bills, and tax cuts, with no proper plan for how this would be paid for.
“As a Conservative, of course I want taxes to be as low as possible. But that must be achieved responsibly through fiscal discipline,” he argued.
Asked by Sky News if he thinks Truss did anything right during her historically short 49-day tenure, Sir Mel said that the “radicalism” she displayed is what is needed.
He added: “What is absolutely right is to recognise that the status quo, for the reasons I’ve given, is no longer tenable, particularly in a more dangerous world.”
In response, the disgraced former PM said: “Stride is a creature of the system. When he served alongside me as Treasury Minister, he always went along with officials – including on the Loan Charge and IR35, damaging the self-employed and SMEs.
“He backed Sunak’s huge spending, but not my tax cuts which were smaller in size and would have increased growth. Britain’s system of government is broken. Nothing will change with people like him in charge.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said the Tories have “spent the last six months making billions of pounds of unfunded spending commitments and promoting Liz Truss’s disastrous top team”.
“The Tories inflicted mortgage misery and sky-high bills on working people. Their weasel words can’t change that fact, and their unfunded plans show they will do it all over again. They haven’t changed.”
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