Liz Truss has called it “economic illiteracy” to suggest that Labour having to make cuts and raise taxes is because of her ill-fated mini-budget.
The former prime minister was asked at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference how she would respond to the charge that whatever cuts or tax rises Labour now has to make are the consequence of the economic legacy she left.
“That’s complete economic illiteracy,” she said.
Liz Truss during the Conservative Party conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham (Jacob King/PA)
Ms Truss also told The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley during the event that she thought Sir Keir Starmer’s plans were “bad” and “malevolent”.
“I think they’re malevolent, but I also believe that the government and the governments of this country is dysfunctional,” she said.
Asked if the country under Labour was “on the road to socialism”, Ms Truss said: “We are already a socialist country.”
“We have huge swathes of the economy controlled by regulation and the bureaucracy,” she said.
Ms Truss said this was a “cumulative effect” of Brown and Blairite policies and then decisions by Tories who came after.
The former prime minister said she does not think the Conservatives can say all the problems Britain has now have been caused by the Labour Party.
She said: “Yes, they’re making it worse. Yes, they’re talking the country down. Yes, they don’t have any of the right solutions. Yes, their analysis is totally flawed.
“But a lot of the problems we are facing now are as a result of us failing to turn things around.”
The four party leadership candidates – Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly – have not acknowledged “how bad things are” in the country and the Tory party and they should “explain what went wrong”, Ms Truss said.
She said she only supported one Labour policy, adding: “There’s only one thing that the Labour Government had announced that I support, which is decriminalising the TV licence.”
Ms Truss spoke to a packed audience at the Tory Party conference.
She said she is still thinking about what to do next after losing her seat as an MP in the July election.
Ms Truss added: “What is certainly true is I’m not going to give up on this fight, right?
“I think this is the fight of our lifetimes … saving Western civilisation, and that is what I’m focused on.”