Bridget Phillipson hit out at free speech advocate Liz Truss after she wrote to Keir Starmer demanding he stops saying she crashed the economy
Bridget Phillipson makes ‘brutal’ free speech joke about Liz Truss
A Labour frontbencher has thrown shade at Liz Truss’ crusade to stop people saying she crashed the economy.
During a debate on free speech, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson branded the Tories “snowflakes”. It comes after lawyers for the wrecking-ball former Prime Minister wrote a cease-and-desist letter to the Prime Minister.
Ms Truss claims Mr Starmer’s comments are damaging her reputation. Ms Phillipson told the Commons: “Want to know what a U-turn on free speech looks like? I suggest they turn their attention to Liz Truss, who for so long extolled the virtues of free speech and is now on some kind of bizarre quest to cancel the Prime Minister for saying that she and the party opposite crush the economy.
“Freedom of speech cuts both ways. What a bunch of snowflakes.”
The 49-day leader, whose mini-budget unleashed chaos in 2022, claims statements made by Mr Starmer in the build-up to the General Election were “false and defamatory”. Her reputation suffered as a result, her lawyers wrote.
Ms Truss dramatically lost her South West Norfolk seat to Labour in July as the Tories plummeted to a historic defeat. The ex-Tory leader has steadfastly maintained that others were to blame for her downfall.
The letter said Mr Starmer’s comments about Ms Truss “are causing continuing damage to our client’s reputation”. It demands: “Accordingly, 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.”
The PM doubled down at PMQs, telling the Commons: “I got a letter this week from a Tory 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 was crashing the economy that damaged her reputation.”
