Badenoch appoints architect of Truss’s mini-Budget to replace Mel Stride as shadow chancellor

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has ruthlessly sacked her shadow chancellor, Sir Mel Stride, and replaced him with one of the architects of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget.

New shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith was financial secretary to the Treasury – number three in the department – when Ms Truss’s mini-Budget caused a run on the gilt market and almost bankrupted the country.

He was a strong advocate of the former prime minister’s plans to slash taxes and his appointment appears to be an indication that Ms Badenoch wants the party to take a more aggressive direction after the cautious approach of Sir Mel.

The Tory leader has consistently refused to apologise for the Truss mini-Budget or throw the former PM out of the party.

Now she has put one of her key lieutenants and supporters of the hardcore tax-cutting approach in charge of economic policy as she tries to take on Nigel Farage and Reform.

In a hint that he still supports the Truss approach to the country’s finances, Mr Griffiths pointedly tweeted: “The Conservatives will always back the risk-takers and wealth creators who deliver growth, investment and jobs.”

He tweeted: “It is a huge honour to become shadow chancellor for the party I joined as a teenager under Margaret Thatcher. Working as a team, we Conservatives will deliver an economic revolution.

“We will deliver lower, simpler taxes, get Britain drilling again to bring down energy costs, slash the red tape holding Britain back, and scrap the job-killing measures in Labour’s (Un)Employment Rights Act.”

Chief Treasury secretary Emma Reynolds said: “The new shadow chancellor backed Liz Truss to be PM and he was a Treasury minister during the Tories' disastrous 2022 mini-Budget, which left families paying the price. Same old Tories, same old economic policies.”

Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper wrote: “Griffith helped deliver the Truss mini-Budget that sent mortgages soaring & the economy into turmoil.

It’s clear Conservatives haven't learned a thing. His appointment to shadow chancellor shows they’re happy to forfeit any claim to economic credibility in their race to the bottom with Reform UK.”

Labour former Treasury minister Torsten Bell wrote: “The best the Conservatives have to offer on the economy is Liz Truss’s biggest cheer leader [sic]. No learning curve at all.”

The move comes as the Conservative leader embarks on her first major reshuffle of her top team amid concerns it has been underperforming and holding the party’s recovery back.

A reshuffle had been inevitable after Sir James Cleverly resigned as shadow housing secretary to run as London mayor and with Julia Lopez shadowing the former science ministry, which has been abolished by Andy Burnham.