I am starting to think some canny Liberal Democrat in the early 1990s saw Liz Truss’s potential and recommended she join the Conservatives. If so the ticking time bomb seems to have gone off, taking the Tories down with her.
I suppose whoever it was could not have foreseen just how unlucky she would be. First she gets elected Tory leader and has to trot up to Scotland to “kiss hands” with Queen Elizabeth, none of that drama with one limo sweeping into Buck House to be appointed as Boris is slipped out quietly to go off into the sunset.
Two days later the Queen died “of old age”. She had obviously got the measure of Truss and decided that two Lizzes would be one too many and she wasn’t going to hang around to see the country go to pot. E2R suffling off this mortal coil may have been her last great service to the country as two days later Truss’s premiership was dealt it first blow.
Liz Truss had not been the choice of the Parliamentary party but under their rules the party membership the MPs have to whittle all the candidates down to two who are then voted on by the Tory party members. The MPs use a sort of extended single transferable vote system except they actually have new votes at each round rather than using true STV. At the “and then there were three” stage, the one excluded was Penny Mordaunt, leaving Truss and Rishi Sunak to slog it out. Mordaunt endorsed Truss for the member’s election.
Sunak had won 137 to 113 among the MPs but lost 60,399 to Truss who got 81,326. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Sunak’s star had been waning as the pandemic monies ran out and the realities of Brexit and the fuel increases started to hit home. So despite his fiscal expertise, impecable manners and dashing good looks, his “somewhat swarthy” complection proved a bit too far for the gentlemen and ladies in the shires. When she formed her government Truss promoted Mordaunt to the cabinet level post of “Leader of the Commons and Lord President of the Council”. As the fourth of the “Great Officers of State” the Lord President was appointed immediately Truss took office and before Elizabeth died. That appointment was Truss’s first mistake (or one of several).
The role of Lord President is in effect to run the Privy Council and chair its meetings with the monarch. On the Saturday after Elizabeth’s death there was a formal meeting of a large number of Privy Councillors as the “Accession Council” to formally declare Charles King and to oversee the swearing of several oaths as required by the Constitution. While presiding over the Council, which was broadcast for the first time, Mordaunt came accross as very…. prime ministerial while Truss was behaving like a giddy comprehensive schoolgirl.
Truss’s Fall of Discontent continued with her masterstroke to have an interim budget in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared that the top rate of income tax would be reduced from 45% to the middle rate of 40% (on taxable income above a certain amount) Business taxes were also reduced. This did not go down well with the Tory members, many of who are on fixed incomes or pensions, in light of the huge inflation (around 10% generally but some things have more than doubled in price like domestic gas and electricity).
Now the economic policy was very much a joint effort of Truss and Kwasi Kwateng, her 45-day Chancellor. Yes, Kwateng has been thrown under the bus.
Kwasi Kwarteng has been sacked as chancellor amid intense speculation Prime Minister Liz Truss is about to junk key parts of their economic plan.
Mr Kwarteng met Ms Truss for crunch talks in Downing Street after cutting short a US trip.
In a letter to the PM, Mr Kwarteng said Ms Truss's vision for economic growth was "right" and he still supported it.
The prime minister has appointed former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt - who backed Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest - as the new chancellor.
Ms Truss's pledge to cut taxes was at the heart of the economic agenda that won her the Tory leadership at the start of September.
L
Her announcement has not been received well in the money markets, an indication of the lack of faith in her policies.
Government borrowing costs rose on Friday afternoon after the prime minister announced another U-turn on the mini-budget.
The pound, which initially held firm earlier on Friday, also lost ground.
It came as Liz Truss sacked her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and said a rise in corporation tax would now go ahead.
However, some economists warned that the latest developments might not be enough to restore the UK's credibility.
"It's unlikely that the removal of Kwasi Kwarteng as chancellor and the new plans to cancel the cancellation of the rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25% from next April will be enough on their own to regain the full confidence of the financial markets," said Paul Dales, Chief UK economist at Capital Economics.
The shortest serving British Prime Minister ever was George Canning who died 119 days after being appointed in 1827. In the 20th century Sir Alex Douglas-Home served a year and a day from October 1963. Truss is unlikely to beat Canning and leave before January 5, 2023. I do not think much of her lasting more than Douglas-Home, whose last name was pronounced “hume”.
The latest opinion polls show Labour leading with around 51% with Truss’s Conservatives around 24% and the Liberal Democrats around 11% and the Greens around 6%. Because of the geographic clumping of minor party support, the trend could well mean the Conservatives would not be able to form the Opposition in the next Parliament. There are rumours that MPs have already sent “no confidence” letters to the 1922 Committee Chairman to start a new leadership election. I understand that their rules would give her a year from her election before it can start however rules can be changed. Of course she might be persuaded to step down “voluntarily”.
The Coronation of Charles III will take place on May 6 next year. On May 4, 2023 local elections will be held in parts of England. National polls have a significant influence on many of these. Will the Conservatives be willing to go into these elections, let alone the 2024 General Election? (Technically this now must be held no later than January 2025 but mid-Winter elections tend to be awkward).