Barely six weeks in office, Liz Truss is once again fighting for her political survival. While the first Tories are already sawing their chair, the Labor Party is positioning itself.
Things must be serious when the British Prime Minister rounds up her cabinet at Downing Street on a Monday evening. It could be Liz Truss’ last chance to convince her ministers that she’s still in control. Amid the deepening government crisis, the sacking of her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, was a necessary political sacrifice to save her own neck.
But with the appointment of Jeremy Hunt — a respected and experienced Chancellor of the Exchequer — Truss has bought, at best, breathing space. The latter, in turn, wasted no time on Monday in making the Prime Minister look anything but good. In a short-term televised speech, Hunt reversed virtually all of the tax breaks Truss had announced. Even the duration of the state energy price cap – her political heart project – was shortened from two years to six months. “The most important goal for our country now is stability,” Hunt said. In her party speech almost two weeks ago, Truss presented herself as an “advocate of change”.
Her focus remains on “delivering,” a government spokesman said on Monday when asked whether the prime minister would take action. But the crucial question is: How many U-turns can Truss afford on her 39th day in office?
Tories are already sawing Liz Truss’s chair
So while the Prime Minister will try to mollify and explain on Monday night, a group of senior Tory MPs are meeting for dinner – the menu of the day says ‘truss on a skewer’. Many of the lawmakers are supporters of Rishi Sunak, Truss’s campaign competitor. It is most likely that “it will fall before Christmas,” ex-Finance Minister George Osborne predicted on Channel 4. Tory MP Crispin Blunt was even clearer: “No, I think the game is over,” he said when asked whether Truss could survive politically. It is now a question of finding a successor.
With the promise of radical tax breaks and her insistence on “growth, growth, growth” Truss had prevailed in her own party in the summer election campaign. According to their strategy, dubbed “Trussonomics,” lower taxes should lead directly to strong economic growth. Instead, the opposite happened: spooked investors retreated, the pound plummeted and the Bank of England had to intervene on several occasions. The Prime Minister was forced to announce a partial departure from her tax policy. Coupled with Monday’s appointment of their new Treasury Secretary, the 180 degree turnaround is perfect. Hunt’s statement was basically “a very polite coup“, puts the “Guardian” political journalist Peter Walker in a nutshell.
Others in Truss’s cabinet are privately asking what the point of her government is now that it has had to scrap almost everything it started with. The world has long speculated that the chairman of the “1922 Committee”, Sir Graham Brady, has already received 100 letters in an attempt to officially overthrow Truss. Even the “Sunday Times” is calling on the Conservatives to overthrow the Prime Minister: “Leading Tories must now act in the national interest and remove her from Downing Street as quickly as possible,” says an opinion article there.
Criticism from economists – and even from the USA
The pressure on Truss is also growing from the business side. Leading economists have long since stopped privately discussing a change at the top. Alison Carnwath, a senior advisor at investment bank Evercore, said the “Financial Times‘, Truss was set to go down in the record books as ‘the shortest-serving Prime Minister ever’. Top British financier Guy Hands publicly demanded Truss ‘should go as soon as possible’.
The Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is currently campaigning for an independent Scotland, also speaks of a “self-inflicted crisis by Liz Truss”. The sooner the prime minister vacates the space, the better.
And criticism even comes from the United States. US President Joe Biden made it unusually clear over the weekend that he did not agree with Truss’ approach to introducing tax breaks for the super-rich in times like these. “I wasn’t the only one who thought this was a mistake,” Biden said. However, it is not up to him, but to Great Britain to judge.
Even Boris Johnson’s return is up for debate
By Wednesday at the latest, the prime minister has to answer questions from MPs in parliament. If Truss really does get the vote of confidence, Britain could soon have its fifth prime minister in six years. Ex-Treasury Secretary Sunak, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Penny Mordaunt and Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace are already being discussed as possible successors. Even the scandal-ridden ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson is believed by some to return. Since Truss himself has no mandate, an early election would be almost inevitable.
However, this could end bitterly for the Tories: the opposition Labor Party leads in some polls with more than 30 percentage points Head Start. A current “Opinium” analysis of the constituencies even indicates that the Conservatives would lose up to 219 seats in the House of Representatives in the event of new elections. “The PM claims she is in charge, but the evidence this weekend suggests she is in office but not in power,” scoffed Labor leader Keir Starmer.
“Will Liz Truss last longer than this salad?” the tabloid “Daily Star” asked spitefully on Friday – and a youtube live stream started, in which a photo of the head of government can be seen next to a head of lettuce with a blonde wig and glued-on eyes.
The photo has since been turned over. Underneath it reads: “BREAKING: Liz Truss has gone into hiding”.
Sources: “The Guardians“, “BBC“, “TheTelegraph“, “The NY Times“, with DPA material