A government minister has said she won’t be reading Liz Truss’s memoir of her brief time in Downing Street as “that’s a period I’m not interested in re-visiting”.
Laura Trott also said she’d “read enough” books about the UK’s shortest serving prime minister, having read an inside account by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale of her chaotic time in office.
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Ms Truss has been speaking to the media ahead of the publication of her book: Ten Years to Save the West.
Some Tory voices are concerned she is becoming electorally toxic and a “gift” to Labour.
Asked by Sky News if she was going to read the new book, Ms Trott said: “I’m not. I’ve read a very good book about Liz Truss, which Harry Cole and James did, but I think that’s probably enough Liz Truss books for me.
“I think that that is a period that I’m not really that interested in revisiting.”
Liz Truss speaks at the official launch event for the ‘Popular Conservatism’ movement. Pic: Reuters
Asked if Ms Truss is becoming a “thorn in the government’s side”, Ms Trott said she always supported Rishi Sunak’s leadership bid over Ms Truss and her views on the ex-PM were “aired at the time”.
But asked if she should “shut up”, Ms Trott said: “No, I wouldn’t say that to anyone.”
Ms Trott is the latest minister to snub Ms Truss’s book.
On Tuesday, Laura Farris told Sky News that she “wasn’t planning to” read it, adding: “I know that she wants to vindicate her time in office, and I’m not disrespecting that. But I perhaps don’t agree with everything that she has to say.”
Ms Truss’s tenure in Downing Street lasted just 49 days after her £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts triggered mass market turmoil, sending mortgage rates soaring and the value of the pound plummeting, while the Bank of England had to intervene to stop pension funds collapsing.
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The former prime minister has since doubled down on what she was trying to achieve, saying her attempts to rule the UK were foiled by “the left”, backed by Iran, Russia and China.
Opposition parties have seized on her recent media appearances, in which she has refused to rule out running to be Tory leader again, called for the Bank of England governor to resign and said she was “sabotaged” by the “administrative state and the deep state”.
The Lib Dems have called her a “national embarrassment” and said she should have the whip removed for “propagating conspiracy theories” while Labour has sought to paint her and Mr Sunak as one of the same, accusing him of being “too weak” to stand up to her.
