July 14, 2024, 08:51
Liz Truss has responded to her party’s terrible election results.
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Rishi Sunak, who “destroyed my record”, is responsible for the disastrous election result for the Conservatives, former prime minister Liz Truss has claimed.
Writing in the Telegraph, Mrs Truss admitted that she had remained silent during the election campaign “to avoid further damage to the party,” but she said she had to “speak out now.”
The former prime minister said: “More than 250 of us paid the electoral price for this. Sadly, over the next five years it will be the British people who will have to bear the cost of this failure.”
Mrs Truss then pointed out Mr Sunakwho, according to her, “abandoned” conservative principles by asserting that “cutting taxes does not generate growth.”
Liz Truss.
Photo: Getty
“This abandonment of Conservative principles has not only meant that he receives no credit from voters for cutting National Insurance,” she continued.
“But it also led to an even bigger electoral defeat because he continued to smear my record and promote the false Labour narrative that the global rise in mortgage rates was somehow my fault.”
Learn more: Liz Truss, shocked, stands motionless on stage as she loses to Labour by just 600 votes
Ms Truss became the first former prime minister in almost a century to lose her seat in last week’s general election.
The Labour Party recorded the The biggest swing in election history saw Ms Truss take the South West Norfolk seat by just 600 votes.
Mr Sunak and Ms Truss have clashed in the 2022 Conservative leadership race, with the former chancellor repeatedly saying his opponent’s tax-cutting agenda would not work.
Mr Sunak was finally vindicated after Ms Truss’s mini-budget sent sterling into a tailspin and triggered a spiral of mortgage defaults.
Ultimately, Ms Truss only stayed in power for 49 days and was replaced by Mr Sunak.
Rishi Sunak will step down as Conservative Party leader once a successor has been found.
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Mr Sunak is not the only former prime minister Ms Truss has had in her sights, but she has also blamed Tony Blair.
The former MP said: “The roots of this defeat go back to 1997 and the way the Conservative Party responded to the New Labour project, both in opposition and in government.”
She added: “Rather than confronting the left’s agenda, we have too often embraced it – and the election result was our punishment for doing so.”
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Photo: Getty
In total, the Conservatives were reduced to just 121 seats in last week’s general election, with Labour winning in former Tory strongholds including Norfolk.