Sir Keir Starmer has been sent a “cease and desist” letter by former Prime Minister Liz Truss, demanding that he stop claiming she “crashed the economy”. Truss’s lawyers claim that Sir Keir’s repeated statement is “false and defamatory”, and did harm to their client during her run-up to defeat in the general election. Truss was the UK’s shortest-serving PM, resigning after just 49 days due to soaring borrowing costs following her government’s mini-budget.
Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesperson claimed that Truss needs to also write to “millions of people up and down the country” that had their mortgage bills increased due to her economic policies. The Prime Minister stands by his statement about the previous government’s record. Commons leader Lucy Powell insisted that they “won’t cease and desist from telling the truth that they [the Conservatives] crashed the economy”. At the same time, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, said that the Conservative government had “ruined the lives of people across this country” through “hubris” and “recklessness”.
These events occurred as the pound hit its lowest level in more than a year and government borrowing costs surged to their highest level in 16 years. Economists cautioned that these rising costs could induce further tax rises or cutbacks in public spending, as the government tries to stick to its self-imposed rule of not borrowing to fund daily expenditures. Jones argued that there is “no need for an emergency intervention” in financial markets since the movements in borrowing costs were driven by “a wide range of international and domestic factors”.
Tory shadow chancellor Mel Stride predicted that Labour’s tax hikes would be “swallowed up by the higher borrowing costs at no benefit to the British people”. The “cease and desist” letter is usually a warning message that promises legal action if the unlawful activity continues unchecked. Lawyers for Truss argued that movements in the financial market during her tenure at Number 10 should not be considered an economic crash. They also mentioned that the weeks following Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget in September 2022, which featured broad tax cuts, resulted in an adverse market reaction and significant mortgage costs.
Last October, Truss informed the Conservative Party conference that it would be “economic illiteracy” to suggest that Labour’s tax hikes flew from her economic inheritance. Last July, when Labour took the reins of authority, civil servants altered records describing the mini-budget as “disastrous” after Truss complained they showed “flagrant” political bias. Briefing notes on the King’s Speech revealed that Truss’s approach had damaged the UK’s financial credibility, which were subsequently updated and corrected by the Cabinet Office
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