Liz Truss Doubts Slowing Down Would Have Saved Her From "Establishment Forces"

Former prime minister Liz Truss has been left wondering whether she should have bothered enacting her radical economic reforms, because she believes that even if she had taken more time over it, the "fundamental forces" of the establishment would have found a way of derailing her.

When she succeeded Boris Johnson as Conservative leader in 2022, Truss became the UK's shortest serving prime minister, lasting just 49 days before being forced to resign over the impact of her economic policy. The controversial "mini-budget" which she devised with Kwasi Kwarteng caused major fluctuations in the value of the pound, and a significant drop in the value of UK government bonds. The Bank of England was forced to make several major interventions to shore up pension funds.

Truss recounts those days in a new book published this week, 10 Years To Save The West, where she recalls the Queen telling her to “pace yourself” when they met at Balmoral to formalise Truss's appointment as prime minister. 

But Truss told PoliticsHome podcast The Rundown that she blames the refusal of the economic establishment to embrace her growth strategy for her dramatic downfall, rather than the speed with which she enacted it. 

"Maybe there's somebody who can tell me I'm wrong on this," she said. 

"I genuinely don't think that taking longer would have made any difference to the fundamental forces, which were an economic establishment that didn't want to do this, and a Conservative Party who probably weren't strongly enough in favour of it. 

"The question for me is, 'should I even have tried in the first place?' rather than, 'could I have done it differently?'.”

Since leaving high office Truss has remained defiant in her defence of the basic principles of what she