Kwasi Kwarteng is facing fresh calls to apologise for the economic turmoil facing Britain after distancing himself from his disastrous mini-budget.
The former chancellor claimed the then prime minister Liz Truss ignored his warnings about rushing through radical reforms that spooked the markets and caused the pound to crash to record lows.
He served just 38 days in charge of the Treasury before Jeremy Hunt was parachuted into the job by Ms Truss in a failed bid to save her premiership.
Mr Kwarteng told TalkTV: “I said, ‘You know, we should slow down’.
“She said, ‘Well, I’ve only got two years’ and I said, ‘You will have two months if you carry on like this’.”
He also rejected claims that his budget was primarily to blame for the painful spending cuts and tax rises set to be announced in the Autumn Statement next week.
“The only thing that they could possibly blame us for is the interest rates and interest rates have come down and the gilt rates have come down,” he said.
Lib Dem MP and Treasury spokeswoman Sarah Olney said Mr Kwarteng “owes an apology to families across the country who have seen their mortgages increase by hundreds of pounds a month because of his botched budget”.
She added: “The public will remember it was him who delivered the budget, which was cheered at the time by backbench Conservative MPs.”
Labour said: “Working people are still paying the price for their kamikaze budget. No humility, no apology.”
Mr Hunt is expected to announce a raft of harsh spending cuts next Thursday.
He said today: “When we produced a fiscal statement that didn’t show how we were going to bring our debts down over the medium term the markets reacted very badly.
“So we’ve learned you can’t fund spending or borrowing without knowing how you are going to pay for it.”
On September 23, Mr Kwarteng announced the biggest raft of tax cuts for half a century.
Using more than £70 billion of increased borrowing, he set out a package which included abolishing the top rate of income tax for the highest earners and axing the cap on bankers’ bonuses, on top of a massively expensive energy support package.
The mini-budget triggered turbulence in the financial markets, sending the pound tumbling and forcing the Bank of England’s intervention, which pushed up mortgage rates.
Two days later, Mr Kwarteng signalled more tax cuts were on the way, spooking markets further.
Asked repeatedly if he wanted to say sorry to the people facing extra costs in re-mortgaging, Mr Kwarteng refused, saying: “I don’t want to relive the past.”
He added: “I do feel sorry, actually, for the people who are going through this difficult time in terms of re-mortgaging.
“I’m not going to wash my hands of what we did, I think the strategic goals (were) the right thing, but as it said, the delivery and implementation, there was no real tactical plan, there was no real timetable for it and I think we should have done that.”
The ex-chancellor said he first learned of his firing via a tweet as he travelled to a meeting with Ms Truss in Downing Street.
“I can’t remember whether she was actually shedding tears but she was very emotional,” he said.
Describing his thinking at that moment, he said: “This is mad. Prime ministers don’t get rid of chancellors.
“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.”
Mr Kwarteng added: “She can’t fire me for just implementing what she campaigned on. And, you know, we had a conversation.
“And I think it was very much the view that somehow she would survive if I took the fall on that.”
Mr Kwarteng insisted he and Ms Truss were still “friends”, but said he had not returned a missed call from her several days ago.
Ms Truss ended up resigning after only 44 days in office, with her economic measures swiftly ripped up by Mr y Hunt and her successor in No 10, Rishi Sunak.
