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Britain will get its third female prime minister on Tuesday after Liz Truss is invited to form a government by the Queen. Ms Truss arrives in No 10 at an inauspicious time. Rising gas prices and risks to the electricity supply this winter could lead to blackouts. The UK faces a wave of industrial action of the kind not seen for 50 years, and the threat of stagflation looms. Yet Ms Truss won the top job by not addressing, or even acknowledging, such malaise. Britain’s next prime minister dismissed the idea of Britain heading for trouble as “declinist talk”.
Ms Truss won’t last long in office if she continues her holiday from reality. Her predecessor, Boris Johnson, thought the public was willing to be conned – provided that there was enough fun to be had. Eventually the lies caught up with him. Ms Truss lacks his star quality, his sheer brazenness and his record of electoral success. She also leads a party with a record in government of running down Britain’s public services, and the failure of its principal political project – Brexit – to deliver a promised dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the nation.
During the 2010s, despite low interest rates and inflation, Britain suffered from high levels of inequality, low wages and low productivity.
