Liz Truss has refused to apologise or even take responsibility for the leap in mortgage rates which occurred during her short-lived premiership.
In an interview which aired on Sunday, the former prime minister was put in the hot seat once again over the long-term impacts of her disastrous mini-budget (which saw her ousted from office after seven weeks).
Sky News’ economics editor Ed Conway asked: “Do you have an apology for the people whose mortgages went up so much when you were in office?”
“Well, I question the premise of what you’re asking me, Ed,” Truss said. “Because the fact is, mortgage rates have gone up across the world.
“The issues that I faced in office were issues of not being able to deliver the agenda I’d set out, because of a deep resistance within the British economic establishment.”
Truss has regularly hit out at the so-called “deep state” in recent months – and previously called anyone who thinks she crashed the economy “very stupid or very malevolent”.
She continued: “I think it’s wrong to suggest that I’m responsible for British people paying higher mortgages. That is something that has happened in every country in the free world.”
Conway said: “So even though mortgage rates went up – [and] you can see they went up very sharply during your time in office?”
Truss said: “They have gone up everywhere. There was a global rise in mortgage rates, and I think it’s disingenuous to say that was the result of policies I’ve pursued.
“Now, we had a specific issue with the gilt markets. But that issue was driven by the actions by the Bank of England.
“What frustrates me, Ed, is that journalists like you are not asking those difficult questions to the Bank of England of what they did in the autumn of 2022.”
The Bank of England had to step in after Truss unveiled £45m of unfunded tax cuts, to buy up to £65 billion worth of government bonds to protect some pension funds.
But Truss said the issues with the market come back to decisions made by the Bank – and urged viewers to read her book, Ten Years To Save The West, for more details.
The former PM said: “I do think it’s a problem when elected politicians are held responsible for decisions they don’t have any ability to influence.
“That is what has frustrated me about this situation. I’m not saying I got everything absolutely perfect in the way the policy was communicated.
“What I am saying is I faced real resistance and actions by the Bank of England that undermined my policy and created problems in the market.”
Asked if she had tried to address these problems directly with the Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, Truss eventually admitted she had never even met him.
She said: “I had a meeting set up and I wanted to meet him but I was advised that would be a bad idea.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken that advice, but that advice came from the cabinet secretary and what I didn’t want to do was further exacerbate the problems.”
Conway said: “So you’re blaming the cabinet secretary for why you didn’t meet him?”
She said she was just being “honest”, and she did not want to “exacerbate” the “serious” situation the country was in.
The former PM – who is still a backbench MP – then claimed: “There has been a narrative promoted in Britain about what happened in autumn 2022 that simply isn’t true.
“And the Labour Party have ridden on the back of that narrative.
“Personal attacks on me are from people who don’t want to talk about the fundamental failings of what is essentially a Blairite consensus.
“Those people who indulge in personal attacks on me are people who don’t want to face the truth about the problems in our country.”