Former Bank of England governor defends claim the economy has shrunk from 90% to 70% size of Germany’s since Brexit
Chris Philp was giving interviews this morning on behalf of the government in his capacity as the policing minister in the Home Office. When Liz Truss was prime minister, he was chief secretary to the Treasury, but he was demoted by Rishi Sunak.
In his interview with BBC Breakfast, Philp was asked about his previous job, and whether he would apologise for his role in the disastrous mini-budget. He declined. But he also implied that Truss herself, rather than Kwasi Kwarteng, the chancellor, was primarily to blame for what happened. He told the programme:
The decisions around the mini-budget were taken principally by the then-prime minister and to a lesser extent the then-chancellor.
In the meetings I was in, they were very much superior, the Treasury, they were the numbers people, they were the details people, and they indulged, they humoured the prime minister. I don’t know whether they ran rings around him; they were very rude and the special advisers were very rude and they didn’t give him any deference or respect.