Top Tory taken down on stay TV as presenter factors out fundamental economics

Education secretary Gillian Keegan has been mocked after she denied that Liz Truss‘s disaster mini-budget helped fuel inflation.

The Conservative minister clashed with Sky News presenter Matt Barbet during a toe-curling interview on Friday morning, which ended up in him asking her whether she had a basic understanding of economics. Ms Keegan, when quizzed over the jump in inflation under the Tory Government, replied: “Well, you can thank Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine for that.”

Told some people would also thank Ms Truss for that, Ms Keegan replied: “No, well, that’s not true. If you look all over the world, Liz Truss was nothing to do with other countries where the inflation rate went up in exactly the same way. So, you have to be honest and you have to understand economics as well.

“The energy spike – which caused a huge spike in inflation – has now very quickly, probably a year ahead of schedule, (gone) down to 2%, which is normal, and that’s a year ahead of schedule, and I think that’s a lot to do with the restraint that we’ve shown in terms of spending.”

Sky News anchor Matt Barbet said: “If you understood economics, you’d know that it’s actually got a lot to do with the Bank of England, which is independent of the Government, in the way they manage interest rates. That’s the real reason why inflation has come down if you’re economically literate.”

Ms Keegan said the Bank of England “look at all the economic factors and all the prices”, adding: “The fact that the energy price spiked is why it went up, the fact the energy price was then brought down due to lots of other measures being put in place and lots of other supply opening up was why it then fed into them making the decision to put it down, but it’s not just energy but other things as well.”

The presenter’s takedown of Ms Keegan sparked a delighted response on X (formerly Twitter). One viewer wrote “Watching her deflate in real time is wonderful. Well done that interviewer”, while another person joked: “Perhaps a new word is necessary, consplaining. The act of a tory minister trying to give the impression that they know something when they clearly haven’t a scooby”. Someone else pointed out: “She also makes it sound as though it was a brief spike and now prices are down significantly. Not so. They’re still much higher than they were prior to the price hike”.