Six days ago, a British tabloid asked the question “Can Prime Minister Liz Truss outlast the shelf life of a head of lettuce?” complete with a livestream of a head of lettuce being … a head of lettuce. This morning, the head of lettuce is dressed in celebratory attire because Truss announced her resignation on Thursday.
Truss took over at Prime Minister less than six weeks ago, stepping in to replace Boris Johnson after the accumulated weight of endless scandal finally squeezed Johnson out of 10 Downing Street. With her resignation, she becomes the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the UK going back to … ever. The signs of an impending resignation came just hours after AP reported that Truss had vowed to stay, describing herself as a “fighter, not a quitter.”
Her departure comes after the Conservative Party seems to have fallen into pure chaos over the last few weeks, with ministers resigning and the legislative process being racked by rebellion in the ranks and an inability to simply walk bills through parliament without near riots breaking out. In the last week, Truss had fired her chancellor, only to have this followed by the home secretary resigning. And all the while British markets have been responding to her proposed budgets—which included another round of massive tax cuts for the wealthy—with a big sell-off vote of no confidence.
In September, Truss’ brand new administration immediately disintegrated into finger-pointing after their first stab at a budget generated huge push back from both right and left, sending markets into a tailspin. In particular, massive unfunded tax cuts, on top of other unfunded tax cuts that had been executed under Johnson, immediately destroyed what little faith people were placing in Truss to calm a British economy already heading for the rocks.
Just three days ago, Conservatives were forced to come back to the well with a revised version of their budget scheme which scrapped almost everything that had been in the first version. The tax cuts were largely gone, but so was most of a plan that Truss had been touting to save the average UK citizen from rising energy prices by capping fuel costs. The result was a budget that seemed to offer nothing to anyone. It also seemed to reveal what everyone suspected from the beginning—Truss had no real plan at all.
On Wednesday, the Conservatives actually won a vote that defeated a Labour attempt to ban fracking in the UK. But the process was so unruly, that even former Truss allies seemed disgusted. That included charges that people had been physically bullied into voting against the bill. And this may have been the last straw for Truss.
The six weeks under Truss seemed to be much like the last few months under Johnson: One series of resignations after another, with no one willing to take the blame, and no one seemingly at the helm of the Conservative Party. What happens now is still in doubt, with some suggesting that Johnson might actually be in the running for a comeback after his brief vacation.