Truss 'looked to end NHS cancer treatment' to repair damage from mini-Budget

New book says advisers wondered if she had lost the plot’

- SIMON WALTERS

Liz Truss considered scrapping all cancer treatment on the NHS in a desperate bid to repair the damage caused by her disastrous economic policies, according to a new book. The extraordinary claim is made in a new biography of Ms Truss by Sir Anthony Seldon.

Sir Anthony, who is Britain’s leading political biographer, also states that Ms Truss’s allies feared her team could be targeted with a “cocaine” smear by unnamed figures at Tory HQ who wanted to stop her from becoming prime minister.

Sir Anthony’s book, Truss at 10: How Not to Be a Prime Minister, is deeply critical of Ms Truss, who was forced to resign in 2022 after she triggered an economic crisis by proposing the introduction of £45bn of unfunded tax cuts. She spent only 49 days in office.

The author claims that, in the immediate aftermath of the miniBudget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.