A financial expert has branded Jacob Rees-Mogg's suggestion that the Bank of England is to blame for the recent chaos in the markets as "bollocks".
Gillian Tett, chair of the Financial Times board in the US, savaged the Business Secretary after he attempted to divert blame away from Liz Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng following the mini-budget.
The Tory toff claimed the turmoil came about because the central bank failed to raise interest rates in line with the United States.
Tett was asked by Channel 4 presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy to give "her verdict" on Rees-Mogg's view that the fiscal statement two weeks ago had nothing to do with the downturn in the markets.
She replied: "To use a non-technical term, that is pretty much bollocks. I think for the most part it really was the budget and the way it was delivered and the message inside, which sparked the beginning of the crisis.
"The Bank of England certainly is to blame for not having prepared for these kinds of dislocations. The British pension funds appear to have been somewhat asleep at the wheel in terms of their risk management systems.
"But at the end of day, the spark that lit this fire was very much the budget announcement."
Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Rees-Mogg pinned the blame on the Bank of England, he said: "What has caused the effect in pension funds... is not necessarily the mini-budget. It could just as easily be the fact that the day before the Bank of England did not raise interest rates as much as the (US) Federal Reserve did."
While former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said Governor Andrew Bailey's handling of the situation had been "stupid".
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