Liz Truss is enjoying a “well-deserved” break after becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history, friends said today.
Therese Coffey, a close ally of Truss who served as her deputy, said the former prime minister was with her family.
Truss announced her resignation last Thursday after just 44 days - making her the shortest-serving occupant of No.10 in British history.
Coffey, who was made environment secretary by new PM Rishi Sunak, was asked on Sky News how Truss was faring.
“I have of course been in touch with Liz,” Coffey said.
“She’s a good friend. She’s with her family. I think she’s enjoying a well-deserved break.”
The MP for South West Norfolk resigned last Thursday after a series of embarrassing U-turns and the sacking of her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.
The pair had introduced a disastrous mini-budget that spooked markets, sent the pound plunging and sparked a mortgage rate shock.
However, Coffey said she believed Truss did not owe the public an apology for the economic chaos.
Asked on LBC if Truss should say sorry, Coffey said: “I’m very confident that the financial situation is one of seriousness, as I’ve explained repeatedly to your listeners.
“The aftershock of Covid, the impact of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine – they’ve all been challenging times. And we need to continue to try and grow our economy so that we can have that prosperity in our country.”
Pressed on the question, she said: “I don’t believe I owe an apology to your listeners, no, as much as I don’t think you owe me an apology for keeping me late from the next show.”
It comes ahead of the publication of a tell-all book on the unexpected rise and rapid downfall of Truss.
The book, by The Sun’s Harry Cole and Spectator’s James Heale, claims that Treasury chiefs warned Truss the UK risked plunging to the status of a “Third World country” unable to sell its debt on global bond markets, with the City “reduced to rubble”.
According to the authors, Truss confessed privately that, despite her scepticism, “the problem is that the last time I ignored all these people they were right”.