Liz Truss sends Sir Keir Starmer cease and desist letter over claim she ‘crashed the economy’

# Truss sends Starmer cease and desist letter over claim she ‘crashed the economy’
## Former prime minister’s lawyers suggest comments contributed to her losing her seat in July general election

Liz Truss has sent a cease and desist letter to Sir Keir Starmer demanding that he stops claiming she crashed the economy, it can be revealed.
In the letter, a copy of which has been seen by The Telegraph, lawyers acting on behalf of the former prime minister argue the statement is “false and defamatory”.
The lawyers even suggest that the assertions from Sir Keir before the July general election contributed towards Ms Truss losing her battle to be re-elected as the MP for South West Norfolk.
At the core of the row are the weeks after Ms Truss’s so-called mini-Budget in September 2022, when financial markets reacted negatively to its major tax cuts funded by borrowing.
The legal letter argues that the financial movements did not amount to an economic crash, since there was no fall in economic output or rise in unemployment – the usual signifiers of such an event.
To back up their claim, Ms Truss’s lawyers cite a report from Andrew Lilico, a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a Right-leaning think tank.
Mr Lilico explains his findings on a new episode of Planet Normal, the podcast from Telegraph columnists Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, released on Thursday.

He calls the claim “manifestly false”, saying: “There wasn’t any crash in the economy. The economy actually grew faster in the period immediately following the mini-Budget.”
The row comes as current borrowing costs spiral, potentially wiping out the so-called fiscal headroom available to Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, after her tax-raising Budget in October.
Ms Reeves is expected to recommit to her fiscal rules aimed at reducing borrowing in the coming weeks and will stress spending squeezes, not fresh tax rises, will be the focus.

The pound has plunged to a nine-month low, while the yield on 10-year gilts – a measure of the Government’s borrowing costs – climbed to 4.8 per cent, its highest level since 2008.
Meanwhile, a quarterly survey by the Confederation of British Industry suggested that profits in financial services will fall in the coming months at their fastest rate since the depths of the financial crisis.
Leading Labour figures including Sir Keir used Ms Truss’s seven-week record in office to attack the Tories’ economic credibility during the election campaign.

The letter from Ms Truss’s lawyers opens by saying: “We are writing in relation to statements you have made publicly in respect of our client which have caused and will likely continue to cause serious harm to her reputation.
“Of particular concern are the false and defamatory public statements you made about our client in the lead-up to the UK general election from late May 2024, at a time when you knew or ought to have known that those statements were false and the statements were likely to materially impact public opinion of our client whilst she was standing as the parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party in South West Norfolk.”
The letter makes reference to how Sir Keir claimed on numerous occasions during the election campaign in June that “Liz Truss crashed the economy”.
The letter ends: “The statements are defamatory and are causing continuing damage to our client’s reputation.
“Accordingly, our client requests that you immediately cease and desist from repeating the defamatory statements at any point, from causing them to be repeated or from otherwise re-publishing the defamatory statements or any part of them.
“We sincerely hope that this matter can now be resolved and that you will refrain from causing any further damage to our client.”

The core of Ms Truss’s argument is that the movements in the gilt and currency markets did not lead to economic output falling and therefore it cannot be claimed she “crashed the economy”.
The letter also points the finger of blame at the Bank of England and its handling of so-called “liability-driven investment” or LDI from pension funds, which left the companies unusually sensitive to movements in interest rates for gilts.
The letter claims: “Those rate movements were caused by the Bank of England, and in particular by its poor handling of the LDI crisis, and its regulatory failures.”
Mr Lilico says on Planet Normal: “It’s not as though the economy was expected to go really fast and Liz Truss made it go a little bit slower than was expected.
“The thing that happened immediately following the mini-Budget was that the economy performed well. So it’s just preposterous to claim that she crashed the economy. Exactly the opposite happened. The economy did better than had been expected.”
No 10 was approached for comment.

https://archive.is/i6rL3

Will be interesting to see how this plays out, if I recall correctly, her minibudget meant pensions were going to fail without BoE intervention, that sounds like a collapse to me considering pension income was like 70% of the UKs income.

She fucking did though. 

Sending the old head of the CPS a cease and desist is hilarious. He’s probably looking forward to a good legal battle. 

This is a little bit “old man yells at cloud” eh.

At best its a desperate attempt to stay in the news cycle. At worst she genuinely thinks this is a good idea

Oi, listen ‘ere, you lot! It’s me, Liz Truss, speakin’ plain and true — born an’ raised, metaphorically speakin’, within the noble sound of Bow Bells (give or take a few postcodes). An’ I ain’t gonna stand by while Sir Keir Starmer — that geezer wiv more front than Brighton — keeps blamin’ me for crashin’ the bleedin’ economy. ‘E’s got more cheek than a barrow boy sellin’ turnips as gold bars, an’ it’s doin’ me nut in!

Now look ‘ere, mate. Crash the economy? I wouldn’t know how to crash a soapbox derby, let alone a nation’s finances. Markets wobblin’ about like a jelly on a builder’s plank — that ain’t *my* fault. That’s the Bank o’ England, innit? Them lot were s’posed to keep things steady, but instead, they were like a blind man drivin’ a black cab, swearin’ blind it was my blinkin’ map that led ’em into the ditch.

An’ what’s all this palaver about a “mini-Budget”? It weren’t no disaster. It was a proper bit o’ graft to help the little man, lighten the tax load, give a bit o’ breathing room. But nooooo — the markets got twitchier than a ferret in a fireworks factory, and all of a sudden, it’s *me* what’s to blame! I’m just the poor cow what opened the gate; the bull was already runnin’ loose, smashin’ up the china shop!

Starmer, you slippery so-and-so, callin’ me out like a market stall shouter floggin’ fake Rolexes — you ain’t foolin’ no one, sunshine. You’re pointin’ fingers like a dodgy punter losin’ a bet and blamin’ the bookie. If a bloke lays dodgy pipes an’ they burst, you don’t go yellin’ at the poor sod wot flushed the loo, do ya?

Now, as for them LDIs — liability-driven investments, whatever the ‘ell that means — that was a proper stitch-up from day one. Built like a dodgy motor from a back-alley mechanic — looked good till you turned the key. That house o’ cards weren’t down to me, but when it toppled, who got the blame? Yours truly. Ain’t that just the bleedin’ way.

So ‘ere’s the deal: cut the cobblers, Keir. You stop callin’ me the wreckin’ ball of Britain, and I’ll stop callin’ you a featherweight fella punchin’ above his weight. Otherwise, I’ll send a proper sternly-worded cease-and-desist, right? Signed an’ sealed, wiv a nice cuppa tea stain on it for good measure. Now sling yer ‘ook before I get really wound up.

God save the King, an’ mind the gap, yeah?

i’ve never seen a more rattled politician than this

jesus wept

Right wing nut jobs like her hate facts and reality.

Does she think the British public just forgot that the pound crashed to it’s lowest-ever level against the dollar just 1 after her mini budget?

Truss is living in another world inside her head

44 days in office and she still has the gall to take the full former-PM pension of £115k pa

He’ll have no trouble defending that in court.

I look forward to it.

I wonder if he has any experience and understanding the justice and court systems?

So what should we say, she was best, the longest serving, most financially astute prime minister we ever had. She’s also definitely from a different planet.

He should let this run to Court so that it can be found that she did in fact crash the economy and have it on record.

We will all get a letter then? It’s not like he’s the only one saying it.

Also he’s free to have an opinion so her solicitor should be referred to Arkell vs Pressdram.

But she did, it’s a fact. What is she going to argue if it goes to court, that she didn’t?!

Only one response needed.

[“I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.”](https://loweringthebar.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/browns_letter_1974.pdf)

being charitable – is she now mentally ill from the stress/shame?

Ahh..sweet 😆

Incompetent butt-hurt usless Tory complaining about being called Incompetent

The only moron she’s fooling with this approach is herself. We ALL know what you did

I mean, she can try. But “absolute truth” is a total defence in any defamation case.

In short, her case is fucked.

Liz better send one of those letters to me as well then, I keep telling everyone that a lettuce would have managed the economy better than her.

It is fun to laugh at Truss, but what we really need to look at is how the Tory Party keep promoting people to senior positions who are this thick and this shameless.

You would hope they learned their lesson, but then there is Badenoch, so…