FORMER Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng denied he has been “screwed over” by his own mini-budget after complaining that his mortgage payments have soared due to interest rate rises.
In an interview with Camilla Tominey on GB News, Mr Kwarteng said: “It’s probably revealing too much [but] I am on a tracker as well. I am affected by…they [mortgage repayments] have gone up considerably.”
Camilla interjected to ask: “Are you saying you’ve been screwed by your own mini-budget?”
Mr Kwarteng replied: “No, not at all, because Camilla we are mixing two things.
“What I’m trying to say to you is that they’re two different things. The Bank of England was in charge of inflation and my tracker rate and other people’s tracker rates will be linked to the bank rate.
“…and the reason why interest rates have gone up very high is because we’ve completely missed the goal on inflation, we’ve totally misjudged inflation.”
Asked if soaring interest rates were his fault, he said: “No, I don’t think it is. I think if you look at what’s been happening, inflation has been much higher for a lot longer than the Bank of England and others predicted.
“The Bank of England recognise themselves that they’ve got an issue here because they’ve hired Ben Bernanke, who is an American economist…I don’t know what he knows about the UK, but if you bring him in to look at your inflation models, something’s gone wrong.”
Mr Kwarteng added: “I think, in terms of the inflation and interest rates, I think there was a big fail in terms of working out where inflation might end up.
“And what’s happened since certainly, since I’ve left office, is that the bank is trying to play catch up.”
