Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has reportedly urged predecessor Liz Truss to keep quiet about UK politics after the former prime minister made a legal threat against Keir Starmer.
Ms Truss, who led the nation for 49 days in 2022, last week had her lawyers issue a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Sir Keir, demanding he stop saying she ‘crashed the economy’.
But he refused, and the well-publicised spat merely worked to remind voters of the economic turmoil during under the leadership of Ms Truss, who has become a vocal supporter of Donald Trump.
A source told the Guardian and the Telegraph that Ms Badenoch told her shadow Cabinet last week that ‘it would be it would be best if Liz would shut up for a while’.
One shadow minister said Truss’s letter to Sir Keir had been ‘absurd’, adding: ‘I think she’s gone nuts.’
A second added: ‘The thrust of it was Liz should stop making unhelpful interventions … that it would be much more helpful if Liz wasn’t as vocal.’
Lawyers acting for the former Conservative leader accused Sir Keir of making ‘false and defamatory public statements’ about her record in power while she was standing for re-election in South West Norfolk last July.
A source told the Guardian and the Telegraph that Ms Badenoch told her shadow Cabinet last week that ‘it would be it would be best if Liz would shut up for a while’.
Ms Truss, who led the nation for 49 days in 2022, last week had her lawyers issue a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Sir Keir, demanding he stop saying she ‘crashed the economy’.
A spokesman for Ms Badenoch said he did not recognise any of the quotes attributed to her. But he declined to confirm whether or not Ms Truss and her letter had been discussed by the shadow cabinet.
Ms Truss was one of the leading Tories to lose their seat in the party’s 2024 election mauling, losing to Labour after it overturned her 2019 majority of 26,195.
Her record-setting 49-day tenure in No10, and the economic fallout from it was a key feature of the election campaign for Labour – with few Tories willing to defend her.
The mini-Budget in September 2022 unveiled £45bilion of unfunded tax cuts, which set financial markets into a panic and mortgage rates soaring. Ms Truss was forced to quit within a fortnight of it taking place.
But in their letter to the PM, seen by MailOnline, her lawyers say: ‘We disagree that any market movement during the relevant period referred to in your defamatory statements can be classified as a ”crash of the economy” in any proper sense of the the meaning of those words.’
However, Downing Street questioned whether former prime minister Liz Truss would also be writing to ‘millions of people up and down’ the country who shared Sir Keir Starmer’s view.
Asked whether the Prime Minister stands by his assertion, his official spokesman said: ‘You’ve got the Prime Minister’s language which he absolutely stands by in relation to the previous government’s record, and you don’t have to take it from the Prime Minister.
‘I think you can ask people up and down the country what the impact of previous economic management was on their mortgages, on inflation, and I think you’ll get similar answers.’
And the PM and senior ministers have since pointedly made the claim repeatedly since the letter was sent.
Last week Chancellor Rachel Reeves attacked her Tory shadow Mel Stride in a row over the economy, with reference to Ms Truss.
Asked whether the Prime Minister stands by his assertion, his official spokesman said: ‘I think you can ask people up and down the country what the impact of previous economic management was on their mortgages, on inflation , and I think you’ll get similar answers.’
‘His economic strategy is to ignore the mistakes of the past with no apology to the British people for his part in Liz Truss’s mini budget that crashed the economy,’ she said.
And Foreign Secretary David Lammy laid into her ‘kamikaze’ economic plans.
The mini-Budget in September 2022 unveiled £45billion of unfunded tax cuts, which set financial markets into a panic and mortgage rates soaring. Ms Truss was forced to quit within a fortnight of it taking place.
Former Tory minister Conor Burns also questioned her decision to take legal action, tweeting: ‘I wonder if Liz Truss has thought of taking legal action against Liz Truss for the serious damage she has done to her reputation?’
But in their letter to the PM, seen by MailOnline, her lawyers say: ‘We disagree that any market movement during the relevant period referred to in your defamatory statements can be classified as a ”crash of the economy” in any proper sense of the the meaning of those words.’
Ms Truss has conceded her plan to quickly abolish the 45p top rate of tax went too far, but otherwise defended her failed bid to boost growth in her doomed ‘mini-Budget’.
The lawyers highlighted several occasions in which Sir Keir said she had crashed the economy, including a TV debate with Rishi Sunak on June 4.
And in his last appeal to voters before the July 4 vote Sir Keir said voters faced a choice between Labour and ‘a Tory party that crashed our economy, left public services in ruin, and now wants to give us Liz Truss 2.0 with more unfunded spending promises.’
Last year Ms Truss received an apology from the Cabinet Secretary after Government King’s Speech documents written by civil servants described her mini-Budget as ‘disastrous’.
