I feel like we’ve been here before. Déjà vu anyone?
Firstly: a mea culpa. Something that was a big theme of Liz Truss’ reign. Or a lack of it.
I concluded my coverage of Boris’s departure with this zinger;
I sincerely hope for less interesting times.
A leader with integrity that I can trust may be too much to wish for, but I’m prepared to be optimistic for now.
Whoever comes next can’t be any worse.
UK CORRESPONDENT JJ LIVE AT LEEDS, FROM AN AGE OLD QUOTE –
… OH, SORRY – MAKE THAT, “BARELY A MONTH AGO…”
Ahem. Hindsight would like a word…
That word is ‘idiot’.
In the interests of balance, lets deal with the Positive Aspects of the Liz Truss interregnum:
In her first few days in charge she put through the bill to help with rocketing energy costs. It wasn’t perfect but it was something. And then she never stopped banging on about it, using it as a reflex response to distract from any questions about the chaos she went onto unleash.
There was that bit after the Queen died three days into the role and for the next 10 days all Liz was required to do was look solemn, say respectful things about the Queen and avoid any mention of politics. She managed that OK.
She also declared that she was prepared to be unpopular in delivering policies to promote growth no matter what anyone else may think of them. I think we can declare the unpopular aspect a resounding success.
Hindsight has done with me, Liz. It wouldn’t mind a word with you…
Her first Prime Minister Questions went ok. She was described as competent and even answered questions directly. Her last, the day before she resigned, actually went mostly ok, even some left wing media said it wasn’t terrible. Though in the face of Keir Starmer’s questioning on the disintegration of her economic policies she responded by asking what had he done for the economy. Which may have been a sign of mental disintegration: your party has been in power for 12 years, Liz. So sorting the economy does kind of fall under your remit.
Where did it all go wrong then?
Political naivety combined with an ideological zeal that manifested as an arrogance that she was right despite what anyone else might say. The belief that she had a mandate to carry through her plans no matter how unpopular despite presiding over a party already in a febrile state with deep divisions and ideas on what path to take. Even in the final round of voting in the leadership contest only around a third of MPs voted for her.
Not exactly a position of strength to impose her ideals on.
In choosing her cabinet she discarded anyone that hadn’t supported her, which served to deepen divisions and allow her enemies to sit in wait for any sign of things going wrong.
Which didn’t take long.
17 days into the job Liz’s partner in crime, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Kwasi Kwarteng held a ‘fiscal event’ announcing a raft of financial policies designed to cut through old orthodoxies.
These involved cutting swathes of taxes, and undoing plans set in place by his predecessor Rishi Sunak. This set them at odds with the message that Rishi had been pushing that great care needed to be taken with the economy and his warnings during the leadership contest of the harm Liz’s proposals would wreak.
There was also an issue in that government budget announcements are normally fully costed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). By positioning this as a fiscal statement they sidestepped that process. They claimed that there was no time to waste in setting out on this brave new world and the OBR wouldn’t have time to run the figures.
The OBR response said otherwise.
The tax cuts they announced amounted to £45 billion which would be funded by government borrowing. This was on top of the £60 billion cost of the energy bill freeze announced in her first week in power. There was no need to worry though as the tax cuts would benefit the super wealthy encouraging growth and investment which would take care of the big black hole in the government’s bank account. As one financial expert observed; hope is not an adequate strategy.
It didn’t look great that the benefits of these policies were weighted to benefit the wealthy far more than the average person. Then there was the fact that they hadn’t warned the Bank of England in advance.
It didn’t go down well in the financial markets.
The value of the pound immediately sank to levels unseen in decades, while the cost of government borrowing in a display of great synchronicity headed steeply in the other direction.
Meaning that the great giveaway they had just announced would cost a lot more to pay back.
Meaning that the great giveaway they had just announced would cost a lot more to pay back.
As the fiscal event happened on a Friday they had the weekend as respite from the market turmoil. Rather than pull back Kwasi committed to the task and announced that there were more tax cuts to come. That went down well on Monday morning as stock markets reopened and the turmoil continued.
Not everyone was outraged / horrified / worried (pick your own synonym).
The right wing press that had supported Liz for leader; Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Telegraph reported their plans in glowing terms. Hindsight at this point has left the building muttering that “you guys are crazy.”
The Bank of England had to step in, raising interest rates that would have the effect of undoing the benefits from the tax cuts for most.
And spending billions to prop up the economy and secure pension funds that were in danger of going under.
Debate raged in the media, in the markets and in her own party. Having spent pretty much every day saying that they would continue to boldly go where no government had gone before and no turning back they u-turned on their plan to abolish the 45% rate of income tax as it had become ‘a distraction’. Fine use of understatement.
It was really starting to get out of control.
Liz gave an interview one Sunday to be splashed on the front of the Monday edition of the Daily Telegraph saying “no u-turns”. By the time it was printed she was already heading in the other direction.
The IMF, Joe Biden, everyman, woman and their dog weighed in with criticism. Polling showed public confidence in Liz and the party plummeting faster than the pound. One poll had her net satisfaction rating drop from -2 to -51 in a month, while Labour’s lead stretched to over 30 points. Figures that would result in electoral annihilation if carried into a General Election.
On the 12th October Liz reiterated there would be no more turning back. Two days later Kwasi flew back early from an IMF meeting in Washington to be given the news that he was the sacrificial offering for having the temerity to implement her policies. Another of which was also shelved as a second major u-turn.
She then presided over an excruciating press conference lasting only 8 minutes, though her haunted expression suggested it measured in hours to her. She read out a prepared statement trotting out the same lines, failing to take responsibility then took four questions from journalists, responding with an unconvincing faltering delivery before making a hasty undignified exit leaving no one satisfied. Especially not her party.
As a new leader Conservative party rules are that she should have been safe from a leadership challenge for a year.
In reality: MPs were tendering letters of no confidence and openly calling for her to go.
On Monday 17th she sat silently beside her new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he gave a speech unpicking the majority of the plans Liz and Kwasi had set out just weeks before. This was after Penny Mordaunt (one of Liz’s closest challengers for leader) had been deputised to respond to an urgent Parliamentary question from the Labour Party.
In stark contrast, she gave an assured performance though it didn’t help that she said she wasn’t in a position to say where Liz was but she could confirm that Liz wasn’t hiding under a desk.
Nevermind hiding under a desk though. It was the lettuce that had a greater impact.
Tabloid The Daily Star, for which the word “newspaper” may be a bit of a stretch, is normally far from setting the political agenda.
But it found worldwide notice with its ongoing contest as to which would last longest; Liz or a lettuce. Satire might be pushing it but it caught everyone’s attention.
Unaware to the last, the day before the ignominious end she declared, ‘I’m a fighter not a quitter’. Kind of summed things up. Her time in office was notable for a continual denial that she would even consider going back on any of her policies only to perform abrupt u-turns within hours of denying they would happen.
She left with the shortest reign of any PM.
The previous best was 119 days by George Canning, who was forced out of office as a result of being dead.
At least she leaves with her place in the record books assured.
So then we moved onto another leadership campaign which at least was heavily truncated compared to the summer with the whole thing to be done in a week and the bar for nominations set at 100 MPs rather than 20 before. This meant a maximum of three contenders, designed to promote unity and supposedly a high enough bar to rule out Boris…..
Which didn’t quite work out. Despite being forced out only three months earlier, some decided that his brand of bedlam was an improvement on Liz’s. Nevermind that were he to regain the throne it would have unleashed more fury from within let alone the electorate and further fracture the party. Self awareness be damned they couldn’t resist pushing the big red button marked with a warning DO NOT PRESS to see what would happen.
Outside the party bubble even many of Boris’s cheerleaders in the media decided that the timing might not be right for his return and counselled against running. Fortunately for the sanity of the nation, Boris announced in a less than magnanimous statement that although he was likely to win, he had reached out to his opponents who weren’t having any part of helping him back.
So without being able to offer unity: he had to withdraw. As with the events that forced him out of the job, Boris still thought he was the man for the job, if only everyone else would stop getting in his way.
Penny Mordaunt also withdrew. That left us with Rishi Sunak as the only other potential challenger.
At 42 years of age: we now have the youngest PM in 200 years. He’s also the first non-white and first Hindu PM. The general consensus is he gives the impression of a safe(r) pair of hands.
He’s not without issues though. There’s a section of Conservative support that haven’t forgiven him for his role in bringing down Boris – which means that although he does have more support from his MPs than Liz there are still some that may be waiting for the opportunity to stir up trouble.
He’s incredibly wealthy, so he isn’t exactly a man of the people. His father in law is a billionaire and it was found that his wife had non-domiciled status allowing her to avoid paying millions in tax on her international earnings. Nothing illegal in what she was doing but it wasn’t a good look for the man in charge of the nation’s finances when the cost of living was increasing.
What also wasn’t a good look for Rishi, and further evidence that he isn’t a man of the people was in a PR video at a filling station earlier this year where it became clear he didn’t know how to make a contactless payment with his bank card. Then again, he and his wife are reported to be wealthier than King Charles so he probably has people to take care of that sort of thing for him.
His coronation as PM hasn’t been easy for everyone to take. Joe Biden needs to work on his pronunciation having welcomed Rashid Sanook as PM. Look forward to their first awkward meeting.
Its goodbye to Liz then, her leaving speech somehow focused on her ‘achievements’. First up was allowing the country to mourn Queen Elizabeth II – very gracious of her to claim credit on that. Other than that it amounted to, ‘I was right’. Which sums up why she was delivering a leaving speech.
Not to worry though, as Rishi apologised on her behalf in his opening speech, by saying ‘mistakes were made’ and he would be putting them right.
The real victims in this, though?
Journalists Harry Cole and James Heale.
And all the work they put into rushing their book Out Of The Blue: The Inside Story of Liz Truss and Her Astonishing Rise To Power. Due out December 8th.
That subtitle is gonna need a bit of work. Maybe a few extra chapters too, with the inside story of her astonishing fall from power.
Larry, the Downing Street cat, too. It can’t be easy getting a new owner every few weeks. He needs some stability in his life. Hopefully Rishi’s wealth will mean that Larry gets his own private butler.
While it does look like he can’t do worse than his predecessor, I’ll avoid any definitive assertion of that in case Rishi turns out to be a shape-shifting reptilian alien come to subjugate us all.
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It really has been a circus lately. Still, at least your clowns haven’t broken out the switchblades and flame throwers. Can’t say the same here!
One thing that I am wondering is how can the Conservative party hold onto power throughout all of this. 12 years now as you say, and no real punishment for the last 5 or so years of buffoonery. What gives?
Is it kind of like the States in that the buffoon party is also really good at PR and propaganda, while the opposition is really incompetent at practical politics? When do you think their streak will finally end?
Sorry, no short answer to those questions!
Its a 5 yearly election cycle here meaning the next one should be in 2024. While its proved quite easy to depose the PM there’s no easy way to force an election to remove their party from power. As much as all of the opposition are calling for one with everything that has gone on, the Conservatives are safe in the knowledge they can sit in power til 2024. While Rishi is benefitting from an early new leader bounce in the polls they’re still behind Labour so it would be a ballsy / crazy tactic to call an early election.
Theresa May then Boris Johnson did call early elections in 2017 and ’19 in order to strengthen their positions to get a Brexit deal through. For Theresa it didn’t work as she lost her majority and had to be propped up by Northern Irish party the DUP which brought its own special chaos whereas Boris did what she couldn’t.
The Labour leader in both those elections was Jeremy Corbyn, like a pricklier Bernie Sanders. Very left wing and inspiring passionate support but for me he didn’t quite have the right personal qualities and was a very divisive figure. At that point it was Labour rather than the Conservatives that displayed more inner turmoil as for some they couldn’t go far enough to the left while others wanted to occupy centre ground.
Jeremy did a lot better than expected against Theresa which instilled a belief he was on the right track but against Boris he came unstuck. After 3 years of Brexit chaos people just wanted it over with and Boris promised to do that. Which is what he’s good at, promising the earth and whatever it is that people want to hear regardless of his intention to deliver it. His buffoonish charisma is a surprisingly effective PR weapon. People just believed him more that he would sort Brexit whereas Jeremy was on a different page in a socialist utopia.
Which in many ways would be a lovely place to live but he didnt convince he could actually deliver it. And as much as Brexit is derided as a disaster it is what the majority voted for and in 2019 that majority wanted to get it over and done with and Boris was the one promising that.
At present my expectation is that Labour will win in 2024 and Keir Starmer will become PM. I’m not sure enough people will have forgiven / forgotten the chaos of this year but Rishi does have 2 years so anything could happen. The signs are that things will get worse economically but if he can produce some sort of miracle or just do a convincing job of making it seem that he’s managing the downturn in a fair and appropriate manner he has a chance.
Keir Starmer’s problem is that there is a perception of him as boring and uninspiring. Personally I don’t have any issue with him, I’d rather have boring than Boris and Liz’s brand of excitement.
Thanks for the extra context. That does sound complicated.
It is worrying how citizenries across the globe seem to seek out qualities that have very little to do with how candidates would govern (and to the extent that such traits do reflect governance, it’s for the worse).
I guess some of this inevitably stems from constraints put upon us via the dominant media of the day. A prickly man like Jeremy Corbyn might have fared better in the days before television took over as the king of political coverage. At some point, people started to vote for candidates that they could picture themselves having a beer with, and television played a big role in that. Neil Postman got so much right in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, observing how dangerous the mix of civics and entertainment can be.
Yet Postman’s book was written in the 80’s, and focused primarily on television. Now that social media tribalism is so prevalent, it’s better to have someone who promises to fight a particular group’s perceived enemies–and buffoons do especially well there because they lack shame.
I agree that boring is better than toxic or crazy. But once people have acquired a taste for the zany and the shameless, will milquetoast ever be palatable again? It’s a question I don’t want to answer at the moment.
We may find out with Rishi and Keir how much tolerance there is for a steady candidate . Neither stand out as zany or shameless. Liz was a strange case in that her public persona was dull and awkward but there was also plenty of political commentary from those in the know before she got the top job that in person, in her ideals and decision making that she was quite unhinged and likely to create the chaos that came to pass.
I saved this tweet for a future trivia contest.
There was a clip from Australian news coverage of the funeral when Liz walked into Westminster Abbey and the news team pondered on who that woman was getting all the attention and concluded she must be a minor royal. Forgotten even as she was in power, suggests that in 50 years it will indeed be a tricky pub quiz question.
My favorite tweet/response from this entire episode:
If there’s one positive thing to come out of the Liz Truss error, sorry should say era but I think they’re interchangeable in this instance, its that in difficult times we gave the world a laugh.
Which might be one of our problems in that when the going gets tough, sure there are plenty of people that do get angry but there’s plenty that get creative and come up with hilarious memes and twitter threads. I read something along these lines in a comment piece a couple of weeks ago and there might be something in it. If the average person put as much energy into politics and making a difference as we did into mocking those in charge we might not be in this mess.
Then again, human nature makes it difficult to resist the mockery.