Liz Truss was ‘ecstatic’ with mini-budget plan and claims Number 10 infested with fleas in new memoir
Liz Truss has revealed she considered abolishing the UK’s economic watchdog and replacing leaders at the Treasury and Bank of England, accusing the bodies of being “pro-China” and “pro-Remain”.
The country’s shortest serving prime minister said she discussed scrapping the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) with her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng but concluded it would have “amounted to a declaration of war on the economic establishment”.
In an extract from her memoir published by the Daily Mail, Ms Truss says the OBR, Treasury, and Bank of England “were more interested in balancing the books than growing the economy” and saw immigration “as a way of fixing the public finances”.
Defending her September 2022 mini-budget – which led to a surge in borrowing costs and saw the pound slump to a 37-year low against the dollar – the former prime minister said she would “accept that the communications around the mini-budget were not as good as they could have been”.
However, she said the afternoon after which Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng outlined the growth plan was “probably my happiest moment as prime minister” adding “I was ecstatic”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Truss’ time as PM
Mr Kwarteng was sacked three weeks later amid rising mortgage costs, before most measures in the statement were axed in an attempt to stabilise financial markets.
Kwasi Kwarteng was also sacked following the mini-budget. Pic: PA
The serialisation also includes behind-the-scenes details of domestic life as a senior government figure.
While foreign secretary, Ms Truss says she was forced to share the grace-and-favour Chevening mansion in Kent with her predecessor Dominic Raab and would find “protein shakes labelled ‘Raab’ in the fridge”.
Anecdotes, complaints and lamentations – but a lack of self-awareness
Given Liz Truss is the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history and given she oversaw an economic meltdown and was forced to fire her own Chancellor and repeal most of her policy offering, the extracts of her memoirs are strikingly bereft of any self-criticism or self-awareness.
As the political blogger Sam Freeman has pointed, bits of the book feel like a ‘what I did on my holidays school essay’.
There’s amusing and eminently readable anecdotes about trying to get Ocado shops delivered to Downing Street, taking her children into the government nuclear bunker, and finding Dominic Raab’s protein shakes in the fridge at the foreign secretary’s country residence.
There’s also some complaining.
The former Prime Minister laments having to book her own hair and make up and says a lack of medical support meant her private secretary had to get her cough medicine in the middle of the night.
She says living in Downing Street was “intensely claustrophobic” and she was “effectively a prisoner”.
It’s an open question whether that stirs much sympathy with those who saw their mortgage rates soar during her chaotic 50 days in office.
Then there’s the now familiar defence of her economic strategy, which once again seems to consist of blaming everyone bar herself.
In four pages of text, I spotted just two flashes of introspection.
She acknowledges that the “communications around the mini-budget were not as good as they could have been”. But then neuters that mea culpa by adding: “But I have to ask: what would we have been waiting for?”
She also says the late Queen had told her to “pace yourself”, before adding “maybe I should have listened”.
Read more:
Truss ‘furious’ after MPs accused of blocking reform bill
The investigation into Angela Rayner hinges on one thing
The Norfolk MP is also critical of the levels of personal support offered to UK prime ministers saying “despite now being one of the most photographed people in the country, I had to organise my own hair and make-up appointments”.
She described the prime ministerial flat above the Number 10 offices as infested with fleas that some claimed came from her predecessor Boris Johnson’s dog Dilyn.
Ms Truss also revealed she and her husband had ordered new furniture for the residence “but were evicted before it could be delivered”.
The death of the Queen is also described in the extracts, with Ms Truss saying the fact it happened on her second full day as prime minister left her in a “state of shock” and thinking “Why me? Why now?”.
The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has acknowledged there were “too many leaks” in the run-up to last month’s budget.
The flow of budget content to news organisations was “very damaging”, Ms Reeves told MPs on the Treasury select committee on Wednesday.
“Leaks are unacceptable. The budget had too much speculation. There were too many leaks, and much of those leaks and speculation were inaccurate, very damaging”, she said.
Money blog: Nine-year-old set up Christmas tree business to pay for university
The cost of UK government borrowing briefly spiked after news reports that income taxes would not rise as first expected and Labour would not break its manifesto pledge.
An inquiry into the leaks from the Treasury to members of the media is to take place. But James Bowler, the Treasury’s top official, who was also giving evidence to MPs, would not say the results of it would be published.
Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier asked if the group of MPs could see the full inquiry.
“I’d have to engage with the people in the inquiry about the views on that”, replied Mr Bowler, permanent secretary to the Treasury.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
OBR leak ‘a mistake of such gravity’
The entire contents of the budget ended up being released 40 minutes early via independent forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
A report into this error found the OBR had uploaded documents containing their calculations of budget numbers to a link on the watchdog’s website it had mistakenly believed was inaccessible to the public.
Tax rises ruled out
The chancellor ruled out future revenue-raising measures, including applying capital gains tax to primary residences and changing the state pension triple.
Committee member and former chair Dame Harriet Baldwin had noted that the chancellor’s previous statement to the MPs when she said she would not overhaul council tax and look at road pricing, turned out to be inaccurate.
During the budget, an electric vehicle charge per mile was introduced, as was an additional council tax for those with properties worth £2m or more.
Strategy, the largest Bitcoin treasury company, submitted feedback to index company MSCI on Wednesday about the proposed policy change that would exclude digital asset treasury companies holding 50% or more in crypto on their balance sheets from stock market index inclusion.
Digital asset treasury companies are operating companies that can actively adjust their businesses, according to the letter, which cited Strategy’s Bitcoin-backed credit instruments as an example.
The proposed policy change would bias the MSCI against crypto as an asset class, instead of the index company acting as a neutral arbiter, the letter said.
The MSCI does not exclude other types of businesses that invest in a single asset class, including real estate investment trusts (REITs), oil companies and media portfolios, according to Strategy. The letter said:
“Many financial institutions primarily hold certain types of assets and then package and sell derivatives backed by those assets, like residential mortgage-backed securities.”
The letter also said implementing the change “undermines” US President Donald Trump’s goal of making the United States the global leader in crypto. However, critics argue that including crypto treasury companies in global indexes poses several risks.
Related: Strive calls on MSCI to rethink its ‘unworkable’ Bitcoin blacklist
Crypto treasury companies can create systemic risks and spillover effects
Crypto treasury companies exhibit characteristics of investment funds, rather than operating companies that produce goods and services, according to MSCI.
MSCI noted that companies capitalized on cryptocurrencies lack clear and uniform valuation methods, making proper accounting a challenging task and potentially skewing index values.
Strategy held 660,624 BTC on its balance sheet at the time of this writing. The stock has lost over 50% of its value over the last year, according to Yahoo Finance.
Bitcoin (BTC) is also 15% below its value at the beginning of 2025, when it was trading over $109,000, meaning that the underlying asset has outperformed the equity wrapper.
The high volatility of cryptocurrencies may heighten the volatility of the indexes tracking these companies or create correlation risks, where the index performance would mirror crypto market performance, according to a paper from the Federal Reserve.
The “common use” of leverage by crypto traders amplifies volatility and lends to crypto’s fragility as an asset class, the Federal Reserve wrote.
MSCI’s proposed policy change, set to take effect in January, could also prompt treasury companies to divest their crypto holdings to meet the new eligibility criteria for index inclusion, creating additional selling pressure for digital asset markets.
Magazine: The one thing these 6 global crypto hubs all have in common…
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a union championing educators in the United States, has voiced its opposition to crypto market structure legislation moving through the Senate, claiming it “threatens the stability of their retirement security.”
In a Monday letter to Republican and Democratic leaders on the US Senate Banking Committee provided by CNBC, the AFT said it opposed passage of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, the bill that senators said “built on” the House of Representatives’ proposed solution to market structure, the CLARITY Act. According to the teachers’ union, the bill presents “profound risks” to economic stability and retirement plans.
“This bill fails to provide a regulatory structure for crypto assets and stablecoin that is equivalent to that for other pension holdings,” said the letter. “Most pensions do not carry crypto assets because of their risk. This legislation pretends that crypto assets are stable and mainstream, and they are not.”
The CLARITY Act, a July draft of the market structure bill proposed by the Senate Banking Committee, and a November draft from the Senate Agriculture Committee did not explicitly mention allowing digital assets to be used in pensions or retirement funds. The AFT claimed that if the bill were to be passed, “Pensions and 401(k) plans will end up having unsafe assets even if they were invested in traditional securities.”
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations raised similar concerns over the market structure bill posing risks to “retirement funds and to the overall financial stability of the US economy” in an October letter to the banking committee. The group claimed that the legislation would “increase workers’ exposure by greenlighting retirement plans like 401(k)s and pensions to hold this risky asset.”
Related: Japan plans major shift as crypto moves from payments to securities law
The AFT represents 1.8 million members working in education, healthcare and public services. According to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, aggregate public pension assets, including teachers, totaled more than $6.5 trillion as of the second quarter of 2025, while the Investment Company Institute reported in September that total retirement assets in the US were about $45.8 trillion.
Trump is addressing crypto in retirement funds through executive orders
Separate from the Senate’s efforts to pass market structure, US President Donald Trump has attempted to change policy to allow cryptocurrencies to be included in 401(k) retirement plans. In August, Trump signed an executive order directing the Labor Department to reevaluate restrictions around alternative assets in defined-contribution plans, including digital assets.
Asset management companies have already been making moves signaling openness to adding digital assets to individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) and 401(k)s.
In October, Morgan Stanley reportedly began allowing its advisers to suggest crypto funds as part of its clients’ retirement portfolios. State-managed retirement funds, such as those in Michigan and Wisconsin, also have exposure to crypto through digital asset-linked exchange-traded funds.
It’s unclear when the Senate will vote on a market structure bill in the full chamber. Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill’s most outspoken proponents, said on Tuesday that she anticipated the banking committee releasing an updated draft this week, with a possible markup hearing before Congress broke for the holidays.
Magazine: When privacy and AML laws conflict: Crypto projects’ impossible choice
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024