Mel Stride has admitted Liz Truss and her mini-budget left a “very deep and painful scar” on the Conservative Party.
Liz Truss’ mini-budget in September 2022 unleashed a financial crisis with unfunded tax cuts, including the abolition of the 45p top income tax rate, without any indication of how these cuts would be paid for.
When asked by journalists whether the Conservatives should publicly distance themselves from the former prime minister’s economic policies by apologising and pledging it would never happen again, Stride admitted that Truss’ £45bn of unfunded tax cuts had done significant damage to his party’s reputation.
According to the HuffPost, the shadow chancellor said: “I think it’s fair to say the-called mini-budget – on which I had a lot to say at the time – as I was chair of the Treasury select and I was very vocal about what was going on during and after that event – it is a very deep and painful scar on the Conservative Party.”
He added: “At a stroke, it severely damaged that mantle of economic fiscal competence that our party has always [had].”
Truss lost her South West Norfolk seat in July’s general election, where her majority of 26,195 was overturned. Stride narrowly clung on to his seat, with his majority dropping from 16,831 to just 61 votes.
Despite the Tories suffering their worst election loss in history, the shadow chancellor is still optimistic his party can regain power. He said: “We have a long way to go in order to get back into political contention, but I believe we can do it, because I think that Labour victory last time round whilst wide is relatively shallow, and under 34 per cent of the vote.
“We are in very volatile territory at the moment in which almost anything can happen in the future.”
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