Liz Truss attacks Joe Biden and Greta Thunberg as ‘left-wing orthodoxy’

The UK’s shortest-serving PM says US president ‘wants to export a socialist economic policy to Europe’

Liz Truss launched an attack on Joe Biden and Greta Thunberg in a bid to promote her book, Ten Years To Save The West.

The UK’s shortest-serving prime minister, whose tenure lasted just 49 days, will argue Western governments have been captured by the “left-wing orthodoxy” which she believes ended her premiership.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Ms Truss said Mr Biden was intent on forcing socialist policies on Europe and the United Kingdom.

And she said Ms Thunberg was part of an “anti-capitalist environmental movement”, claiming the pair had set the tone of “what is politically acceptable”.

“There is no doubt in my mind that what Biden is doing is damaging the United States economy by pursuing huge subsidies, huge spending, raising taxes and now trying to impose this on the rest of the world through the OECD Minimum Tax Agreement,” Ms Truss said.

“It’s not good enough for Biden just to have a socialist economic policy in the US, he also wants to export that socialist economic policy to Europe and to the United Kingdom,” she added.

Ms Truss said she dreads the prospect of a double act between Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Biden if Labour wins the general election expected next year.

And, linking President Biden to the Swedish environmental activist, Ms Truss added: “You’ve got the global left which Biden is obviously a key part of, but also the global environmental movement, the Greta Thunbergs of this world, the anti-capitalist movement, and they have been very effective in pushing what is politically acceptable.”

Ms Truss promises her book, set to be published in April next year, “will set out what we must do to counter the disastrous ideas of the global left and halt the rise of totalitarian regimes”.

One of the problems she identified in office was that she was often “the only conservative in the room” at international summits.

“I suppose I asked the question: why is this the case? Why is it that despite having been a Conservative MP for 13 years, despite conservative ideas having been proved right time and again, why is it that the left have been making the running?” she said.

Elsewhere in the interview, a year after she became prime minister, Ms Truss revealed that her formerly close political friendship with Kwasi Kwarteng – who she sacked as chancellor – is effectively over.

And she admitted she “still struggles to compute what happened” during her turbulent time in Downing Street.

“I was pushing against a system and against an orthodoxy that was gradually moving to the left,” she said, singling out the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility as she recalled the “seismic” period in politics.