Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget didn’t go how he planned, to say the least (Picture: Getty Images)
Kwasi Kwarteng has admitted he ‘blew it’ with his daring but disastrous mini-budget that crashed the economy.
The former chancellor told the Financial Times in a story yesterday that he and his political soulmate, Liz Truss, got ‘carried away’.
Kwarteng said: ‘People got carried away, myself included. There was no tactical subtlety whatsoever.
‘My biggest regret is we weren’t tactically astute and we were too impatient. There was a brief moment and the people in charge, myself included, blew it.’
Kwarteng delivered what Truss had long promised the Tory party members – sweeping tax cuts and embracing the free market.
Yet when it came to it, her mandate crashed the financial markets, sent the pound tumbling amid a cost-of-living crisis and forced the Bank of England to intervene.
The then-prime minister and chancellor took a wrecking ball to the economy, financial experts have said (Picture: Reuters)
Kwarteng and Truss were ideological soulmates (Picture: PA)
He shrugged off the volatile market reaction to his and Truss’ tax and spending plan, saying ‘markets move all the time’
Kwarteng, the MP for Spelthorne, claimed in November that he pleaded for Truss to ‘slow down’ her economic reforms.
The decision to sack him only six weeks into the job was a ‘mad’ one, the MP for Spelthorne told the Financial Times.
He told TalkTV at the time: ‘After the mini-budget, we were going at breakneck speed and I said, you know, we should slow down, slow down.’
He said within No 10, Truss insisted she only has ‘two years’ in the top post and threatened to fire him within ‘two months’ if he pushed back her speed.
In the end, Kwarteng would have not even that. He was fired in 38 days, becoming Britain’s shortest-serving chancellor.
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‘I can’t remember whether she was actually shedding tears but she was very emotional and it was a difficult thing to do,’ Kwarteng said.
‘I think she genuinely thought that that was the right thing to buy her more time to set her premiership on the right path.’
Truss had barely any time at all. She stepped down after only 44 days in office, with now chancellor Jeremy Hunt taking a torch to her botched budget.
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‘People got carried away, myself included.’
