Liz Truss has said she would not want to be prime minister again, simply answering "no" when asked the question in her first interview since she was forced out of Number 10.
Truss, MP for South West Norfolk, said she did not regret going for the top job.
She said: “I definitely want to be part of promoting a pro-growth agenda. I definitely want to carry on as an MP.
“I’m positive about the future of Britain and I’m positive about the future of the Conservative Party. I think we need to start building more of a strong intellectual base.
“But I’m not desperate to get back into Number 10, no.”
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The former prime minister has admitted her plan to abolish the 45p top rate of income tax was "a bridge too far", as she otherwise dug in to defend her economically disastrous bid to boost growth.
She said she was maybe "trying to fatten the pig on market day" with the policy, as she vowed to continue to make the case for tax cuts.
Ms Truss repeated many of the arguments made in her 4,000-word article in The Sunday Telegraph, including accusing the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) of restraining fiscal policy.
“The OBR and its position is taken very seriously by the market, so it effectively constrains what the government can do,” she told The Spectator magazine.
“It’s very important that forecasts are honest, but I think we have ended up in a place where they’re done so separately of government that it ends up driving fiscal policy.”
Ms Truss’s brief premiership lasted just 49 days as she was forced to quit after then chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s £45bn package of unfunded tax cuts panicked the markets and tanked the pound.
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