The Truss premiership was a new low for our democracy.
So Liz Truss is out. After just 44 days her premiership is no more. ‘I’m a fighter, not a quitter’, she said in parliament yesterday, and now she’s quit. Her premiership deserves to live in ignominy. Not necessarily because her blunders were so spectacular – though many of them were – but because of what this strangled-at-birth stint in Downing Street tells us about British politics more broadly. Which is that it’s a wasteland. An ideological void. A dustbowl of ideas. The lack of even the faintest glimmer of leadership material anywhere in the Westminster circus is horrifying to me. Trussism is but a symptom of a wider malady afflicting our political class.
First, her mistakes. Where to start? Probably with the observation, harsh as it may be, that the very fact she became prime minister is an indictment of Westminster. How serious must the want of leaders be for someone like Ms Truss to ascend to the highest office in the land? She had virtually nothing to recommend her. Not in the way of belief, or style, or ability to connect. Ideologically she was a Lib Dem cosplaying as a Tory. It would be an insult to wood to call her delivery wooden. Every time she compared herself to Thatcher it only reminded us that Thatcher had substance and style, while Liz lacked both. ‘The lady’s not for turning’, Thatcher said, while Truss turned, turned, turned on every single thing over the past fortnight. ‘The lady’s not for turning up’, said Keir Starmer when she was a no-show in the Commons, which is the only funny thing he’s ever said.
She handled the mantle of prime minister poorly from the get-go. There was just such a lack of suss, such an absence of strategic nous. Her failure to bring on board her leadership opponent Rishi Sunak’s allies was a catastrophic misjudgement. A more seasoned, thoughtful leader would have bunged a high office or two to his or her adversaries, for the sake of party integrity and for the sake of oneself – it lessens the chance of challenges from old foes.
