Kwasi Kwarteng told former British prime minister Liz Truss to “slow down” her radical economic reforms or risk being out of No 10 within “two months”, he said in a bombshell first interview after his ousting.
The former chancellor also criticised Ms Truss’s “mad” decision to sack him for enacting her tax-cutting agenda.
Mr Kwarteng refused to apologise for the financial turmoil unleashed by his and Ms Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, but acknowledged “there was turbulence and I regret that”.
He said the “strategic goal was right”, but “I think we should have had a much more measured approach”.
Mr Kwarteng said he bore “some responsibility” for the timetable of the mini-budget, but that Ms Truss “was very much of the view that we needed to move things fast”.
“But I think it was too quick,” he added.
“Even after the mini-budget, we were going at breakneck speed. And I said, ‘You know, we should slow down, 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’. And I’m afraid that’s what happened.”
Liz Truss's final day as prime minister
On September 23, Mr Kwarteng announced the biggest series of tax cuts for half a century.
Using more than £70 billion ($82bn) of increased borrowing, he set out a package which included abolishing the top rate of income tax for the highest earners and cutting 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, forcing the Bank of England’s intervention and pushing 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 remortgaging.
“I’m not going to wash my hands of what we did, I think the strategic goals [were] the right thing, but as I 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.”