In a pointed critique, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has lambasted the government led by Liz Truss, accusing it of transforming Britain into "Argentina on

the Channel." Carney also took aim at Brexiteers, including Truss, suggesting that they possessed a "basic misunderstanding of what drives economies." Truss, who had one of the shortest tenures as Prime Minister in history, has defended her policies since leaving office.

Carney's remarks came during a speech in which he extolled the virtues of "progressive" policies while denouncing "far-right populists."

The reference to Argentina in Carney's speech seemed to allude to the economic turbulence that followed the budget devised by Truss and her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, last year. Argentina has become synonymous with countries grappling with recurrent economic crises.

Speaking at the Global Progress Action Summit in Montreal, Carney challenged the notion that cutting taxes and reducing government spending automatically leads to economic growth, characterizing it as a "misguided view." He accused Brexiteers of seeking to "tear down the future."

Carney emphasized, "Progressives build things that last - health care, infrastructure, schools, opportunities, sustainability, and prosperity. Others, and there are others, have a different model. They are in the demolition business. Far-right populists see the anxiety of today as an opportunity to stoke the anger that's necessary for their project."

The former Bank of England chief asserted that populists, including Brexiteers, often view spending cuts and tax reductions as a reflexive response to every challenge, a perspective grounded in a "basic misunderstanding of what drives economies." He quipped, "It meant when Brexiteers tried to create Singapore on the Thames, the Truss government instead delivered Argentina on the Channel - and that was a year ago."

Carney's remarks elicited laughter from the audience, followed by applause.

Since departing from office, Liz Truss has consistently defended her policies, contending that they were not given a fair opportunity to succeed and asserting that they could have yielded positive results over the long term. In a Westminster event earlier in the summer, she likened the UK's sluggish economic growth to a "boiling a frog situation," suggesting that it had not improved substantially following her departure from Downing Street but had rather worsened.

While Truss reaffirmed her belief in measures like significant tax cuts as the right course for Britain, she also acknowledged that reducing the 45p tax rate for the highest earners might have been "maybe a step too far." Photo by Flickr user World Economic Forum, Wikimedia commons.