Michael Gove has said the Conservative Party took the “wrong turn” by electing Liz Truss as leader and prime minister.
The levelling up secretary, who was brought back into government by Rishi Sunak, said the prime minister had been “vindicated” after warning against Truss’ economic plans during the leadership race in the summer.
“I think we made a mistake, we took the wrong turn,” he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.
“The mini-Budget - as everyone now recognises - contained a number of false steps.
“It was wrong to cut taxes for the wealthiest. It was also wrong to proceed with tax cuts without saying how they were going to be paid for.”
Gove added: “Rishi Sunak as prime minister of course has been vindicated for some of the judgments he made during the course of the summer.”
The cabinet minister has also made a similar intervention in an article for The Sun in which he offered an “apology” to the paper’s readers.
Gove was a vocal critic of Truss’ tax-slashing plans and was one of the ringleaders of the revolt against Truss and then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, forcing a climbdown over the plan to scrap the 45p top rate of tax.
Furious allies of Truss accused him of getting “his kicks in a sadistic way”.
He was dramatically sacked by his old rival Boris Johnson in the summer as his premiership collapsed.
Gove then threw his weight behind Sunak in the race to succeed him and said he was stepping down from frontline politics.
But Sunak offered him a return to government after taking over from in Downing Street last week.