Editorial: Badenoch and Truss both right about blunders

​An unseemly row has erupted between the Conservative Party leader and one of her predecessors.

Kemi Badenoch hit back at Liz Truss, after the latter said that under the Tories, “the economy was wrecked with profligate covid spending by (Rishi) Sunak” and that “the huge increase in immigration has been a disaster”.

There is much to be said for this analysis. It might however have been more dignified if Ms Badenoch had not replied. Instead, she accused Ms Truss of sharing the blame for our current problems.

Given that the row between Ms Badenoch and Ms Truss has indeed erupted, it is only fair to say that they are both right. The economy was indeed greatly damaged by far too much spending during covid, and by too long a lockdown. The huge increase in immigration has been utterly disastrous. The Conservatives are largely to blame for both blunders.

But Ms Truss was one of the most profligate of all prime ministers, forcing through unfunded tax cuts. And the Tories more generally, including Boris Johnson, were spendthrift, as were supposedly conservative politicians in America such as George W Bush and Donald Trump.

In fact you have to go back to John Major, and then to David Cameron and George Osborne, to remember a fiscally disciplined Tory party. The latter let their own careful stewardship of the public finances be smeared by the ugly word ‘austerity’ instead of emphasising that it was the financially responsible handling of taxpayers’ money.

Had it not been for Brexit leading to the exit of Cameron and Osborne, and then for covid, the UK would probably be in good shape in terms of debt. Instead recent Tories were little better than Labour and little better than Stormont politicians in terms of pandering to a wide range of societal demands for yet more funding absent any reciprocal efficiencies.