Liz Truss has to go

She has to go. Although columnists should be wary of repeating themselves, there are times when it is necessary. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that the Tories were in danger of being seen as incompetent and uncaring: a lethal combination. Today, “incompetent” seems an understatement. A week ago, I said that Liz Truss faced an almost impossible task: to earn a second chance to create a first impression. Now, it is too late. No-one is listening.

Even if she spoke with the tongues of men and of angels, she would find it very difficult to hold an audience. As it is, she has an odd, flat delivery which makes it hard for her to express conviction. She is not even as good as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

The treatment of Kwasi Kwarteng did not help. After all, they were both in it together. The policy which he propounded was a joint one. The First Lord of the Treasury is entitled to sacrifice the Second Lord in order to save her own skin – but summoning him back across the Atlantic was an undignified and indeed absurd episode worthy of a third world country with a panicking dictator and a trashy currency. What was she thinking of? Is the word “think” appropriate?

Over the past sixty years, Prime Ministers have dispensed with Chancellors. Macmillan and Selwyn Lloyd, Major and Lamont, May and Osborne, Johnson and Javid: none of the PMs prospered. Nor will Liz Truss.

Disposing of her involves two serious problems. The first is the mechanism: the second, that the party would look ridiculous.

If there were a drawn-out leadership degringolade, the ridicule would be inescapable, so an alternative must be found. What about a brief contest between two men who ought to have been Leader? Jeremy Hunt should have beaten Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak should have defeated Liz Truss. Both candidates are grown-ups. Either would reassure the markets: either should be able to talk the public through the next few difficult months.

That said, plenty of Tories have a tendresse for Kemi Badenoch, a politician of immense promise. Instead of spending half her time in airport lounges on her way to the next trade deal, she should be back on the domestic front-line – but not yet in No.10. 

The winner who does end up there would find themselves looking up a hideously steep gradient towards a cloudy and menacing electoral mountain. But they would not be facing Tony Blair. Keir Starmer is the man who always puts the “un” in unimpressive. Over the past few interesting days, what has he done to impress himself on the national consciousness? The answer is nothing – apart from sending Tom Watson to the House of Lords. That is a disgraceful appointment. Hitherto, Sir Stumbler could at least lay claim to a certain wooden decency. The decency is now hopelessly compromised by Watson: wooden moral sense is more accurate.

Perhaps the Labour leader thought that the government’s travails would be a good time to bury bad news. But why make the news? In 1964, a Tory called Peter Griffiths won the Smethwick constituency with the help of racist slogans and literature. Harold Wilson promptly called him “a Parliamentary leper.” That soubriquet should now be revived for “Lord” Watson. 

The new Tory leader will find themselves with graver challenges than Tom Watson and with objectives which could easily seem incompatible. They must persuade the markets that the Tories are still the Party of fiscal rectitude while also appealing to the Tory faithful by holding out hope of tax cuts when circumstances permit.

The promise of tax cuts during the Truss leadership campaign delighted a lot of Tory MPs – though not a majority – plus large numbers of Party members. But it was more a sugar-rush than a strategy. After they had won, the PM and her Chancellor were too slow to tone down the campaigning rhetoric: too quick to aim at too many targets. Truss and Kwarteng were right to stress the need for growth: the only long-term solution to the economy’s difficulties. So could a case have been made for using tax cuts as an investment in growth?

It would have been hard. The markets were not just looking at the reductions in tax. They were probably more worried by the potential cost of the energy reliefs. The new Government did not seem worried by anything and seemed ready to brush aside any prudential voices: the Bank, the OBR, the Treasury in general and Tom Scholar in particular. There was not enough interest in stress-testing.

That has now been corrected and the new Ministers will also be hoping for luck. If energy prices continue to fall and we have a mild winter, the pressure on inflation may ease. The voters might also be persuaded to interest themselves in international comparisons. Britain is not the only country facing higher energy bills, rising inflation and a currency under pressure from the Dollar.

There would be one advantage in a Hunt/Sunak play-off. The loser could automatically become Chancellor and either of them would do that well. So which should it be? The answer is simple: the better politician. He would have to induce the British people to take a second look at the Conservative party: to forget the recent travails and agree to re-set British politics. At a time of economic hardship, he would have to offer renewal and excitement.

He would also have to win a vital intellectual argument: the relationship between free enterprise and social generosity. He must insist that far from being incompatible, they are complementary. Welfare depends on the resources created by enterprise.

It should not be impossible to win that battle. The Truss/Kwarteng team went at it too impetuously. A more deliberate approach should gain ground, while exposing the Labour Party’s intellectual shallowness. 

So which would be better placed, given that they are of roughly equal intellectual merit? I suspect that the answer would be Sunak. He would win the excitement stakes.

The party needs to get on with it. There is time to recover, but not under her. To put the matter brutally, the current Prime Minister is a decomposing political corpse. There needs to be a rapid funeral and then a steady transformation. 

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