The UK foreign secretary has said “mistakes happen” but the government has moved on after Liz Truss’s U-turns on tax cuts and the sacking of the chancellor.
James Cleverly, a close ally of the prime minister, tried to blame global economic conditions for rising interest rates and inflation, despite the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, acknowledging the impact of the mini-budget and overturning its measures that spooked the financial markets.
Cleverly was challenged on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after he said “some of the things done round the mini-budget weren’t done right. We got them wrong. She said we’ve learned from that and moved on.”
When Cleverly said Truss had been proved right on her growth strategy and support for energy bills, the BBC presenter Nick Robinson replayed to him quotes about the prime minister from two weeks ago when Cleverly told him in relation to Truss’s tax-cutting philosophy: “If people weren’t listening properly, I think that’s more their problem than hers.”
Robinson also put to Cleverly that it was the government that had not been listening to mainstream economists, the former chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The foreign secretary said that was not a valid criticism as some other developed economies had higher interest rates, energy prices and inflation, which the Office for National Statistics said had hit 10.1% in the UK in September.
Cleverly also could not guarantee the pensions triple lock, supposedly protected by the Conservative manifesto, and which Truss also promised to maintain on 2 October.
He said Truss’s promise had been made “in response to the announcement that was made at the time”, suggesting the government could argue the fiscal landscape has changed.
Earlier on Sky News, Cleverly said the government did “not aim to make mistakes” but “in life, in politics, in business, mistakes do happen”.
He told the Kay Burley morning programme: “What you’ve got to do is recognise when they’ve happened to have the humility to make changes.
“The prime minister and the chancellor have learned lessons from what happened previously.”
