BBC Newsnight Presenter Leaves Badenoch Floundering With Brutal Liz Truss Reminder

A BBC journalist left Kemi Badenoch floundering by reminding her that she had served in Liz Truss’s short-lived government as it crashed the economy.

Nick Watt, political editor on Newsnight, skewered the Tory leader after she claimed Labour was heading for a financial crisis due to the UK’s soaring debt.

She even claimed the government may have to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund if it runs out of money, as a previous Labour government did in 1976.

Badenoch said: “A lot of the indicators are pointing in that direction. Many well-respected commentators and economists are saying this. It is something I am really worried about.”

But Watt then told her: “The broad reason you’re saying you have to do this is because you say Labour has now entered a tax doom loop and you’re saying that Labour is pushing the UK closer to a bond crisis.

“Presumably you’d be an expert in that as a member of Liz Truss’ government.”

That was a reference to the disastrous mini-Budget in 2022, when Truss’ chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts, which sent interest rates soaring.

The Tory leader, who was President of the Board of Trade when Truss was PM, appeared flustered and tried to dodge the question.

She said: “Well what I would say is that if you become a bad customer, you end up getting charged more for your borrowing and that’s what’s happening with the Labour government.”

Later in the same programme, Labour peer Lord Wood said Badenoch was talking “total nonsense”.

He said: “It is economically basically illiterate. The debt we have now is totally different from 1976. It’s in pounds, which means we have a central bank, we can print our money.”