Liz Truss says she didn’t get ‘realistic chance’ to enact tax-cutting agenda

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Liz Truss is expected to launch her political comeback on Sunday, months after her calamitous tenure in Downing Street ended after 49 days.

Her return is expected to begin with an opinion piece in this weekend’s Sunday Telegraph, as well as a number of planned media appearances.

The former prime minister has kept a relatively low profile since her disastrous mini-budget of ?45bn in unfunded tax cuts brought about the beginning of her demise.

Having returned to the Conservative backbenches, she holds the somewhat undistinguished record as the prime minister in office for the shortest length of time.

Truss’s piece for the Sunday Telegraph is expected to look back on her brief stint in No 10 and explain where she believes her successor, Rishi Sunak, is going wrong.

Despite her perilous record on the economy, it is also understood that Truss will call on the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to cut taxes in the forthcoming budget.

A close ally told HuffPost: “Liz has taken a few months to gather her thoughts and is now ready to speak about her time in office and the current state of play.”

Her allies, including the former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke, have recently formed the Conservative Growth Group to push for her tax-cutting agenda.

Following a number of scheduled media appearances over the next week, Truss is also due to deliver a “hawkish” speech on China that could add to the pressure already mounting on Sunak, who only took over from her in October.

Later this month Truss will address a conference of international politicians in Japan, with her speech billed as focusing on Beijing’s threat to Taiwan.

Her comeback could stoke divisions among Conservative MPs, with many more eager to hastily cut taxes than Sunak and holding a more aggressive stance on China.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a campaign group seeking to coordinate international pressure on Beijing, is arranging the event at which Truss will speak on 17 February.

She is expected to be joined by two other former prime ministers, Australia’s Scott Morrison and Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium.

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An ally of Truss said the speech would be “hawkish”, telling PA Media: “She’s expected to address Sunak’s decision to brand China a strategic competitor rather than a threat.”

She had been expected to officially redesignate China as a “threat” in official speak, instead of a “systemic competitor” during her leadership.

In November Sunak said the “golden era” of UK-Chinese relations was over but described the country as a “systemic challenge” rather than a threat. That marked a dialling down of his language, having called it the “biggest long-term threat to Britain” during the summer leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson.

Truss’s return to the international stage follows Johnson’s own re-emergence, having made visits to Ukraine to visit Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as well as to the US.

Shortly after Truss was forced to resign 45 days into the job, her former speech writer said she took a “Spinal Tap approach” to government, demanding the volume was “turned up to 11”.

Asa Bennett said the former prime minister had arrived in Downing Street determined to put “rocket boosters” under the economy and that it was a matter of “bitter regret” that her efforts had failed.