Liz Truss rules out future PM bid but ‘doesn’t regret’ her short time in Downing Street

Published

3 years ago

February 6, 2023

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Liz Truss has said she would never want to be prime minister again but “doesn’t regret” her time in Downing Street.

In an interview with The Spectator, the former PM ruled out a future bid at the top job after her tumultuous 44 days in the position last year.

Asked whether she would want to be prime minister again she simply replied: “No.”

Pressed on her typical “never say never” outlook, Ms Truss said she “definitely” wants to be part of “promoting a pro-growth agenda” but insisted she had no ambition to be back inside Number 10.

“You know, I definitely want to carry on as an MP,” she said.

“I’m positive about the future of Britain. I’m positive about the future of the Conservative Party.

“I think we need to start building more of a strong intellectual base. But I’m not desperate to get back into Number 10 now.”

Ms Truss became the shortest-serving PM in modern British history when she resigned 44 days into the job after her mini-budget caused turmoil in the financial markets and sent the pound crashing.

Asked if she regrets going for the job in the first place she said: “No, I don’t. I don’t regret it.”

On whether she backs Rishi Sunak, who was drafted in after losing out to her in the summer leadership race, Ms Truss said: “I will be supporting him.”

The former PM also addressed her decision to sack her close friend and chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng following the backlash to her mini-budget.

She said it was an “extremely difficult” decision but at the time she was getting some “very serious warnings from senior officials that there could be a potential market meltdown the following week”.

“I needed to do as much as I could to indicate that things were different, and that’s why I took the decision I did,” she said.

“I weighed up in my mind about whether I needed to do that. But the reality was I couldn’t in all conscience risk that situation.”

Ms Truss also admitted that she “wasn’t really focused on my long-term future” once she started reversing all of the economic policies that brought her into office, adding: “I was focused on making sure the country wasn’t in a serious situation.”

She also accepted that one of her most controversial measures – cutting the 45p tax rate for the country’s highest earners – was “maybe a step too far” and she underestimated the political impact of it.

However, she said she still believes “it’s the right thing to do for Britain” as she doubled down on her economic ideology.

She said: “I think if you have lower taxes right across the board, the country becomes more successful…and I think that’s the argument we fundamentally haven’t won.

“Was I trying to fatten the pig on market day? Maybe. There’s a long history of failing to make the case. And that’s what I’m thinking now. I’m thinking, how can we make the argument?”

The former PM has largely kept a low profile since stepping aside in October, sparking the second leadership contest in a matter of months which quickly became a one-horse race as Mr Sunak was voted in by MPs to calm the markets.

However, on Sunday Ms Truss shared an essay in The Sunday Telegraph which described how her economic plan for growth – centred around cutting taxes – was not given a “realistic chance”.

The comments sparked speculation of a comeback following the International Monetary Fund’s warning that Britain’s economy will go into reverse this year and will fare worse than all other advanced nations – including Russia.

However, they faced a backlash from cross-party politicians.

Tory peer Lord Barwell, who was Theresa May’s chief of staff, was scathing about Ms Truss’s explanation for the failure of her premiership.

“You were brought down because in a matter of weeks you lost the confidence of the financial markets, the electorate and your own MPs,” he tweeted.

“During a profound cost of living crisis, you thought it was a priority to cut tax for the richest people in the country.”

Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “The Conservatives crashed the economy, sank the pound, put pensions in peril and made working people pay the price through higher mortgages for years to come.

“After 13 years of low growth, squeezed wages and higher taxes under the Tories, only Labour offers the leadership and ideas to fix our economy and to get it growing.”

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

11 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

11 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

11 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.