Kwasi Kwarteng 'rewriting history on Budget turmoil' after claims he warned Liz Truss about tax cuts

Yesterday, Liz Truss’ allies accused Kwasi Kwarteng of ‘rewriting history’, after claiming to have warned her that she was going too far too fast with her sweeping economic reforms.

The former chancellor said he urged the then prime minister to ‘slow down’ following the September mini-budget that triggered his downfall.

Mr Kwarteng admitted he bore ‘some responsibility’ for the mini-budget timetable, which spooked financial markets, but said Miss Truss was ‘strongly of the view that we need to get things done rapidly”.

“Even after the mini-budget, we were going at breakneck speed,” he told TalkTV on Thursday. “And I said, ‘You know, we should slow down.’ .

Kwasi Kwarteng said in an interview that he warned Liz Truss that she was going too far too fast with her sweeping economic reforms.

However, Ms Truss’ allies say Kwarteng is ‘rewriting history’ and was ‘fully on the mini budget’

But an ally of the former prime minister said yesterday that Mr Kwarteng’s version of events ‘does not match’. They said, “There is a serious rewriting of history going on here. It was fully on the mini-budget. After that, no other action was taken other than reversing parts of it – there was nothing to slow down.

Another ally pointed out that Mr Kwarteng brushed off market concerns about the mini-budget at the time, even giving a TV interview two days later, boasting there was ‘more to come’ on the cuts. taxes. “If anyone was pushing to go faster, it was him,” the source said.

Mr Kwarteng refused to apologize for the financial turmoil caused by the mini-budget, but admitted “there has been turmoil and I regret it”. He said “the strategic objective was the right one”, but “we should have had a much more measured approach”.