Labour MP Torsten Bell has criticised Kemi Badenoch’s appointment of Andrew Griffith as Shadow Chancellor, accusing the Conservatives of failing to learn the lessons of Liz Truss’s disastrous economic experiment.
Griffith was promoted from Shadow Business Secretary as part of a major Conservative frontbench reshuffle, replacing Mel Stride as Badenoch seeks to sharpen her party’s economic offer ahead of Parliament’s return.
But Bell, the Labour MP for Swansea West, immediately seized on Griffith’s links to Truss and her economic agenda.
Writing on X, Bell said:
“The best the Conservatives have to offer on the economy is… Liz Truss’s biggest cheer leader. No learning curve at all.”
He followed up by highlighting Griffith’s prominent support for Truss during the 2022 Conservative leadership contest. Griffith publicly backed Truss that summer, arguing she offered the best plan to deliver for voters.
Griffith subsequently served as a Treasury minister during Truss’s short-lived premiership and publicly defended the economic strategy associated with her government. His appointment is likely to revive debate over the Conservatives’ record during the 2022 mini-Budget crisis, which saw turmoil in financial markets, sharp movements in government borrowing costs and pressure on mortgage rates.
Badenoch has presented Griffith as part of a new “pro-growth” economic team, with the Conservatives expected to put tax cuts, deregulation and a smaller state at the centre of their offer. Claire Coutinho has also been promoted to Shadow Business Secretary as part of the shake-up.
Griffith brings significant private-sector experience, having previously held senior roles at Sky, and his supporters argue that his business background gives him the credentials to lead the Conservatives’ economic policy.
Bell, however, suggested his political record matters more.
The intervention gives Labour an early indication of how it intends to respond to Badenoch’s revamped economic team: by tying the Conservatives’ current proposals to the Truss era and arguing that renewed enthusiasm for sweeping tax cuts and deregulation risks repeating past mistakes.
With Chancellor John Healey attempting to frame Labour’s economic agenda around growth, stability and stronger investment, the appointment of Griffith sets up a potentially sharp dividing line between the Government and the Conservative opposition.
For Bell, the choice demonstrates not a Conservative reset, but a return to an economic approach voters have already experienced.
His verdict was succinct: “No learning curve at all.”
