Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire took a senior Tory to task last night after she refused to apologise for the economic fallout caused by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget – even while demanding Labour say sorry for its winter fuel U-turn.
🔁 ‘You want Labour to apologise – but you won’t?’
Tory MP Helen Whately appeared on Newsnight criticising Labour over its reversal on winter fuel payments. But Derbyshire flipped the script, reminding her that many Conservatives still haven’t apologised for the chaos Truss caused during her short-lived premiership.
“In recent days your own shadow chancellor, your own shadow home secretary, could not bring themselves to say sorry for Liz Truss,” Derbyshire said. “Maybe you could do it?”
Whately insisted:
“They have said, my colleagues have said, we reckon that we got things wrong as a government.”
But Derbyshire wasn’t letting it slide.
“Why is it so hard to say the actual word, though? You want Labour to say sorry – you won’t.”
🎯 ‘Gotcha’ or fair game?
Whately accused Derbyshire of playing “gotcha journalism”, but the presenter kept her foot on the pedal.
Whately claimed the winter fuel cut had a “very human cost” – while Derbyshire reminded her of the thousands of people whose mortgage payments shot up after Truss’s unfunded tax plans sent markets into panic.
Despite the grilling, Whately never used the word “sorry”.
💸 Mini-Budget mayhem still haunts the Tories
Truss’s mini-Budget in September 2022 triggered a meltdown in the UK economy, with interest rates surging, the pound plummeting, and a wave of panic hitting the mortgage market. She resigned just 44 days into the job.
While some senior Tories like Mel Stride and Chris Philp have admitted mistakes were made, no formal apology has ever been given for the damage caused to households and public finances.
Labour has faced criticism for its own recent U-turn on winter fuel payments – but as Derbyshire showed, demands for contrition ring hollow when the Tories refuse to show any themselves.
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