Badenoch must stop ‘mud fight' with Truss, says Kwarteng
The former chancellor, who worked with Ms Truss on the mini-Budget, said that the pair having a 'ding-dong battle about whose fault it is' did not help the Conservative Party.
Mrs Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph last week that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were making 'even bigger mistakes' than Ms Truss and had not learnt the lessons of her mini-Budget.
Ms Truss then hit back, claiming that the Tory leader was 'repeating spurious narratives' and not telling the truth about the 'real failures' of the previous government.
Addressing the row, Mr Kwarteng told the Political Currency podcast: 'It's like a mud fight.
'It's not going to help the Conservative Party. Having Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss having a ding-dong battle about whose fault it is, it doesn't help the party at all because what the party needs to do is essentially project unity, a degree of competence, a degree of humility.'
The former MP for Spelthorne was sacked as chancellor a fortnight after he delivered the mini-Budget, as Ms Truss scrambled to save her premiership.
The programme of £45bn in tax cuts led to market chaos and ultimately the downfall of Ms Truss, who served just 49 days in Downing Street.
The former chancellor urged Mrs Badenoch to 'try and draw a line' under the mini-Budget and the previous administrations.
'It's not just about Truss and me, it's about 14 years. When I talk to people, you know, the Conservatives who are flipping to Reform, they talk about economic management, but they talk a lot about immigration and that.
'So she's got to somehow distance herself from a whole range of policies over that 14-year period, particularly the last period.'
He added: 'It's all right, bashing Liz and me. It's all right, bashing Rachel Reeves. But what is the Conservative Party actually standing for?'
Before Mrs Badenoch's article in The Telegraph last week, Mrs Badenoch had only criticised the former prime minister in private.
She had told her shadow cabinet in January that it would be helpful if she made fewer interventions.
The Tory leader wrote: 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.'
After the comments were published, one shadow frontbencher told The Telegraph that they believed Mrs Badenoch was right to have said something publicly.
They said that past prime ministers should 'intervene sparingly', and added that Ms Truss had 'had her chance' at governing.
Sir Keir continues to refer to the fallout from the mini-Budget at the despatch box, almost three years since it was delivered.
He and the Chancellor have claimed it was in part because of it that they had been forced to make unpopular decisions on tax and spending.
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