Michael Gove says Tories should apologise for Liz Truss’s ‘holiday from reality’
Reinstalled levelling up secretary says he understands public anger at party’s choice of Truss and her tax cuts for the rich
Michael Gove has said the Conservative party owes the public an apology for installing Liz Truss as leader.
Gove, who was reinstated as levelling up secretary by Rishi Sunak this week, acknowledged that the Tories “made the wrong choice this summer about the path we should take”.
The cabinet minister was a vocal critic of the £45bn tax-cutting plans announced by Truss and then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng in September, stating it was “not Conservative” to fund tax cuts from borrowing and marked a betrayal of the party’s one nation 2019 election manifesto.
He said he understood people’s anger about the chaos of recent months.
Gove wrote in the Sun: “We made the wrong choice this summer about the path we should take. Plans to cut taxes targeted on the richest were a holiday from reality.
“A mini-budget that didn’t explain how spending plans would be paid for was an error. To put it mildly. So I understand why people are angry. We must earn your trust again.”
Gove was sacked by Boris Johnson in the summer as his premiership collapsed and then threw his support behind Truss’s rival, Rishi Sunak, in the race to succeed him.
At the Tory party conference earlier this month, Gove was accused of being one of the ringleaders of the revolt against Truss and Kwarteng’s mini-budget, forcing a climbdown over the plan to scrap the 45p top rate of tax.
Allies of Truss had accused him of getting “his kicks in a sadistic way”.
Truss resigned earlier this month after a chaotic 45 days in office after the mini-budget crashed the markets, she lost two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs.
Sunak, the former chancellor, was chosen by Tory MPs to succeed her on Monday.
In the op-ed for the Sun, Gove added the prime minister “has the experience, competence and compassion to steer us through the choppy economic waters ahead”.
He wrote: “I know that he will not just get the big calls ahead right, but that he will make them with those struggling the most at the forefront of his mind.”
Gove is due to appear on several Sunday morning broadcast programmes, suggesting that he might enjoy prominence in Sunak’s administration.
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