Kwasi Kwarteng lashes out at Liz Truss, says he asked her to 'slow down' tax cuts

Former UK finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng has finally spoken out about his unceremonious exit from Liz Truss' cabinet.

Kwarteng was sacked in mid-October by Truss after the mini-budget introduced by her government led to an economic fiasco. The budget sent the market into a panic, and the pound hit its lowest value in 35 years. Truss then tried to buy herself some time by sacking the chancellor.

Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt in an attempt to save her own career.

This is the first time that Kwarteng has spoken about his sacking. He said: "I think the prime minister was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast. But I think it was too quick," he said during an interview on Talk TV.

He further claimed that he had warned Truss to slow down and that her government wouldn't be able to deal with the consequences of these decisions.

"After the mini-budget, we were going at breakneck speed and I said, you know, we should slow down, slow down," Kwarteng said. "She said, 'Well, I've only got two years', and I said, 'You will have two months if you carry on like this'. And that is, I'm afraid, what happened."

He also spoke about the day he was fired by Truss, adding that she seemed very "emotional and distressed."

"I can't remember whether she was actually shedding tears, but she was very emotional and it was a difficult thing to do. And I think she genuinely thought that that was the right thing to buy her more time to set her Premiership on the right path," he added.

Kwarteng and Truss had been long-time friends before the latter went on to sack him to save her own skin. He said that he told her "this is mad - Prime Ministers don't get rid of Chancellors." And that she cannot fire him for "implementing what she campaigned on."

He added: "I think I said to her at the time, this is going to last three or four weeks. Little did I know it was only going to be six days."

Truss became the shortest-serving prime minister in Britain's history after she was forced to resign after spending just 45 days in office. She has been succeeded by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.