Will the Badenoch and Truss spat hurt the Tories?

Dearie me, they’re at it again. Former Tory leader Liz Truss and current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch are involved in another nasty spat, mainly about the infamous mini-Budget introduced by then Prime Minister Truss in September 2022. Badenoch has invoked that calamitous - and deeply Conservative - fiscal event in an otherwise routine attack on the government.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Truss, ever ready to defend her record, because no one else will, has hit back and told Badenoch she's wrong and needs to do some more thinking, a particularly hurtful jibe when Badenoch thinks herself one of the brainier kids in the Westminster playground. Amusing and mildly diverting as it may be, this minor row also tells us some much bigger things about the Tory dilemma.

What did Badenoch say?

That Labour is even more incompetent than Truss was: "For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-Budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books."

Is that new?

Not really. Only a few weeks ago, the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, evicted from ministerial office by Liz Truss when she formed her short-lived government, laid into the mini-Budget and apologised for it. Badenoch, meanwhile, has said she doesn't know whether Truss is still in the Conservative Party, and implied she doesn't really care either way. She's long let it be known she'd prefer Truss to just go quiet for a while.

Badenoch has also been disobliging about the Sunak administration “talking right but acting left”. But Sunak, like Johnson, May and Cameron, has, so far, preferred to ignore the present controversies and policy shifts, such as Badenoch's “net-zero sceptic” stance.

What’s the Truss defence?