Keir Starmer has mocked Liz Truss after she sent him a legal letter telling him to stop saying she crashed the economy.
The former prime minister’s lawyers accused Starmer of causing “serious harm to her reputation” by making “false and defamatory” claims about her.
“Our client requests that you immediately cease and desist from repeating the defamatory statements at any point, from causing them to be repeated or from otherwise re-publishing the defamatory statements or any part of them,” Truss’s lawyers said.
Truss was forced from office after just 44 days after her disastrous mini-Budget sent the money markets into a tailspin.
At prime minister’s questions today, Starmer took the opportunity to hit back at his predecessor - and double down on his attacks on her dire record.
He said: “I got a letter this week from a voter in a Labour seat. I hope they don’t mind me saying who it was - it was Liz Truss. It wasn’t written in green ink but it might as well have been.
“She was complaining that saying she crashed the economy was damaging her reputation. It’s actually crashing the economy that damaged her reputation.”
The PM also defended his government’s economic record despite days of grim data.
Government borrowing costs have hit record-highs, while the value of the pound has fallen - leading to speculation that a fresh round of spending cuts are on the way.
At PMQs, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “We left him the fastest-growing economy in the G7. In just six months, under his leadership, it’s been taxes up, borrowing up, mortgage rates up.
“And that’s not all - business confidence is down, jobs are down, growth is down. Can the country afford four more years of his terrible judgment?”
But the PM told her: “What have we heard? All they’ve got is complaining. No regrets for their sorry record - they don’t even acknowledge it.
“They’re like a blank piece of paper blowing hopelessly in the wind. No wonder the country put them in the bin.”