Liz Truss says her radical tax-cutting plans were blocked by a ‘powerful left-wing economic establishment’

Writing in the Telegraph, Truss said that while her experience last autumn was “bruising for me personally”, she believed that over the medium term her policies would have increased growth and therefore brought down debt.

She said: “I am not claiming to be blameless in what happened, but fundamentally I was not given a realistic chance to enact my policies by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support.

“I assumed upon entering Downing Street that my mandate would be respected and accepted. How wrong I was. While I anticipated resistance to my programme from the system, I underestimated the extent of it.

“Similarly, I underestimated the resistance inside the Conservative parliamentary party to move to a lower-tax, less-regulated economy.”

She also pointed the finger at Treasury officials, the IMF, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and a lack of support within the Conservative Party for making her job impossible.

The former Prime Minister added that her agenda is still the solution for the UK rather then “manage decline or to preside over our country’s slide into stagnation”.