Very rarely in modern political discourse do we witness such an emphatic and resounding failure as we have seen from Liz Truss over the past few weeks.
The platform upon which Truss was elected, the ambitious but wholly irresponsible “mini-budget” has all but disintegrated, and with it her programme for Government. She U-turned on more economic policy in a shorter amount of time than any leader before her, and hit the lowest ever poll ratings for a sitting Prime Minister.
Members of her cabinet were dropping like flies, with the latest to leave, ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, delivering a scathing repudiation of Truss’s Government in her resignation letter.
Braverman’s resignation was also triggered by disagreements over immigration between her and the PM, within Truss wanting to increase levels to fuel her coveted growth. Braverman represented the right of the Tory party on immigration, and her disagreement with Truss serves to highlight divisions within the party.
Her policies were already reviled by left-leaning Conservatives, but the failure of Trussonomics, and subsequent abandonment of those policies have alienated the rest of the party as well.
She seemed bewildered and completely out of her league when confronted with the immense tribulations facing the UK, and that lack of backbone has ultimately led to her party, in its entirety, losing confidence in their leader.
When Sir Graham Brady was seen at the back door of No. 10, we all knew what had happened, but I don’t think we were remotely prepared for it. Truss is, by far and away, the shortest serving PM in British history. Second to her was George Canning, who served for 119 days in 1827. Truss lasted only 44.
Truss was finished weeks before her resignation, that much was painfully clear. She had been reduced to a mere figurehead; a dilapidated, deflated shadow of what an effective Prime Minister should look like. The Chairman to Hunt’s CEO.
Her revolutionary ideas for the UK’s fiscal direction withered away to nothing upon contact with reality. It seems that Rishi Sunak’s dire predictions of inflation and rising interest during their leadership campaign have all come true, and such prescience is already attracting more and more Tory MPs to a renewed Sunak leadership bid.
Truss has lost her career, her party’s electability, and very nearly the economic stability of her own nation in pursuit of vindicating her fringe ideology. She, and the deluded libertarians she surrounds herself with, have chosen to drag the UK, already in the throes of the most serious economic crisis in a generation, to the brink of financial ruin. The Tufton Street think tanks, to whom Truss was so attached and loyal, crammed their free market fundamentalism into the door of No. 10. Through Truss, they turned the UK into a grand experiment, the results of which have turned out apocalyptically negative.
If we needed any more evidence that this type of radical free marketeering, the belief that companies owe loyalty not to society, but to shareholders only, this almost allergic aversion to institutions like the NHS and the welfare state, the worship of free markets, was wrong, it has just been shown not only to Britain, but to the world. I thought the zenith of my shame had been reached during Partygate. How wrong I have proven myself.
Truss is not only the shortest-serving PM, but no doubt the least popular, least effective, and least successful in recent history.
So, what’s next? The Tories are trying their best to cling to their outdated majority with bloody fingernails, saying that the next PM will be chosen again by the Conservative party, and not the nation.
If ever there was more need for a general election, I cannot remember an occasion. The people must be given a choice now. The Tories have become so gross, so negligent, so complacent with their historic majority, that they have led this country into the worst crisis in decades.
They have had four, soon to be five Prime Ministers during their time in power, and we are worse off now than when they were first elected in 2010. They have proven that they can no longer deliver effective government for the UK, no matter who is leading them, and must be confined to the opposition benches, for the good of the country.
However, they won’t, in all probability, do the right thing, the honourable thing, the decent thing, and call an election. I am of the firm belief that a politician’s primary and majority motivator should be altruism. If these Tories don’t call an election, they will have demonstrated that they do not have the best interests of the British people at heart, only their own professional security, and that of their party.
The upcoming Tory leadership election will be a short one, by most accounts. The Parliamentary party wishes to choose their next leader without going to the wider membership, and hope for the whole ordeal to be over by the end of next week. The bookie’s favourites are currently Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, and Boris Johnson.
Boris f*cking Johnson.
I had to do a double take when I saw him on the list. What little faith I have in the Conservative party is swiftly ebbing away, but if he makes it into even the second round of voting, or God forbid wins the leadership again, I will never forgive them, and nor should the electorate.
The overriding strategy among Tory MPs is one of damage limitation. They need a stable, boring leader, capable of sound government (as I know the Tories still are, deep down) to lead them, uneventfully, into the next election, whereupon they can migrate to the opposition benches with a modicum of dignity. There, they can lick their wounds, regain their credibility, and rebuild their relationship with the exhausted and frustrated public. Perhaps they can retain more than 100 seats, if they’re lucky.
But if they try and do a hell-for-leather, balls-to-the-wall campaign for another stonking majority with Johnson at the helm, I honestly do not see it working out for them. Johnson had his chance to lead with integrity and honesty, but he squandered it. He had his chance to handle his myriad crises with dignity, but he missed it. He had his chance to leave office with decency, but he lost it. The people haven’t forgotten the lies and lies and lies he has told, and I doubt they will have the stomach for round two.
Behind the soap opera that Westminster politics has turned into, there is a very real problem facing our political system (apart from looming financial ruin); for a government to be kept in check, strong opposition is needed.
I like Kier Starmer, it’s no secret. He has raised Labour up from electoral disaster to competent Government-in-waiting. He has assembled a killer front bench and won the loyalty of his party membership. I have no doubt he will make a very good Prime Minister, but I fear what will become of him and of Labour if they are left unchecked with a massive majority.
As polls stand, the Tories will be reduced to a rump of around 80 MPs at the next election, not even larger than the Lib Dems or SNP. The top three parties in Westminster will all be left-leaning, and that bodes very ill for the UK. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and a Labour Government drunk on such power will be no exception.
The Conservatives have only themselves to blame. They have been in power for twelve long years, the last four of which they have enjoyed an historic majority. If they wanted to change the country for the better with sound economics, prudent spending, restraint in foreign affairs, compassionate social policy, all traditional Conservative values, they very well could have, and I, and the British public, would have been behind them. But no, they pandered to their base, they squandered the trust placed in them by their constituents, and they have left Britain bleeding.
Brexit is an abject failure; anyone arguing to the contrary now is either blind, deaf, on the take, or stupid. The great right-wing experiment that started with the referendum has ended with the death of the “mini-budget”. Public opinion on Brexit is unrecognisable to what it was a few years ago; 59% of Brits think it has made us poorer. In the words of the Daily Telegraph (of all people), “project fear was right all along”.
Brexit relied on the Tories sucking up to the working class, those who would not traditionally vote for them, to maintain credibility. After the last Prime Minister left office, Trussonomics pivoted the Tories back to the wealthiest in society, and tore off the populist sham Johnson had draped over the party.
Where are the new freedoms we were promised? Where are the safe, secure streets, the nations clamouring for trade deals, the fully funded and functional NHS? All I see is the EU laughing at us, the hospitals are filling up, and the money in my bank account worth less.
We cannot wait until 2024 for deliverance. There must be a general election as soon as possible. They argue that an election would bring more instability and uncertainly, which the UK can ill afford.
No. Another tempestuous Tory leadership race, followed by another unsuitable Prime Minister from the rapidly shrinking pools of Tory competency, would spell even greater disaster. Give the people their choice.
stay safe
/e