The case for Liz Truss (terms and conditions apply)
If Liz Truss, who hates negativity, knew what some of her supporters were saying about her, the candidate they voted for in the Conservative party leadership, she wouldn’t like it.
In the last ten days or so I’ve encountered numerous friends and acquaintances, Tory members, who plumped for Truss with little or no enthusiasm after finding her rival’s campaign just too annoying. A big factor seems have been the night of the first TV debate, when Team Sunak thought it would be a clever wheeze to have their man Rishi interrupt Truss and mansplain. It was a terrible move and women watching just hated it, it seems. Sunak was always going to struggle in this contest to convince Tory members, after his tax rises as Chancellor. But that night he sealed his fate.
Since then, the terrible Tory leadership race has trundled on and Truss is said (if, if the polling is correct) to have a large lead ahead of the announcement of the result on Monday.
I’ve made a point of asking the many Tories I bump into how they feel about their choice of candidate. The responses have been striking.
“We both voted Truss, but it was with heavy hearts,” said a friend, whose partner nodded.
“I did it with no enthusiasm,” said an old friend.
Another looks to the heavens as if in despair: “Might she be better because expectations of this administration are so low? Surprise on the upside? Oh, goodness, I don’t know.”
One Tory member who voted Truss repeats the same phrase half-joking every time I see him, as if on a loop: “Oh no, what have I done?”
This will be somewhat baffling to Truss’s closest friends and loyal supporters. They are evangelical in support of someone they see as a strong personality, a woman who knows her own mind, someone full of energy and determined not to fail. They expect her to surprise people.
Might they be right? Here in five points is a robust, countercultural constructive blast of encouragement to a new administration that is faced with an energy crisis, a potential financial markets emergency, a currency crisis, strikes, public fury, a broken housing market, and a recession.
1) Truss is likely to restore orderly government to Downing Street after the Johnson chaos. For all the talk that a clearout of the senior civil service is in prospect, and there will be departures, Truss is someone more than capable of running meetings properly and giving orders to officials and colleagues in a clear manner. Boris Johnson’s brain and personality were ill-suited to the daily rigours required. Truss relishes this stuff, she takes decisions and enjoys work.
2) She listens. Although the likely PM looks bemused when reminded that her brand of libertarianism (American, hyper-individualistic) is popular with only about 100 people in Britain, and half of them work at the IEA, the Institute of Economic Affairs, in London, she is capable of pragmatism and adjusting to reality.
3) Her broad economic analysis is correct in one central respect. Britain needs growth, a lot more of it, and whatever the policy is now (is there one?) it isn’t working. The UK’s most competitive strengths lie in services and in technology and science. How can they make country more money? Otherwise, how are all the public programmes and defence the voters desire to be paid for? First, the next few weeks will be dominated by rows about the state of the public finances and energy. Although an epic rescue of low-income households is coming, the carnage on energy bills hitting businesses, especially small businesses, means many employers will simply shutter their operations and trigger unemployment and a hit to tax revenues, soon. Truss will have to find a way to survive this desperate, short-term emergency. If that is successful, the focus will be on national competitiveness, decluttering and trying to revive business investment. The answer is a more dynamic private sector, not endless government.
4) Right on Ukraine. Part of Rishi Sunak’s problem is that geopolitics isn’t really his thing. As a Goldman Sachs alumni, many of his assumptions were of that Mark Carney-esque world, from an era of smooth globalisation it was assumed would go on for ever. Then the world changed with the invasion of Ukraine. Sunak handled the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s appeals for more defence spending in a very strange manner, that demonstrated this is not his comfort zone. In trying to repair relations with Macron and France, might a PM Sunak be too open to a deal on the Ukraine war? Not sure, but it is a nagging doubt. In contrast, Truss as Foreign Secretary had the experience of dealing with Russia pre-invasion and she is a resolute advocate of Western power and values.
5) Liz Truss is a lucky politician. Her optimism, mingled with an amused, wry cynicism about her rivals, about men, about the media and the vagaries of Westminster life, means she is tough as teak. This makes her willing to take some risks for which her opponents are not prepared. It seems work. A year ago many gave her no chance of winning, now it looks as though on Tuesday she will become the Queen’s 15th Prime Minister. Truss is a lucky politician. She’ll need every scrap of luck.
Truss doesn’t have a majority
In the headline of this newsletter I added a “terms and conditions apply” in relation to the start of the Truss era. One of the least discussed subjects in the dire leadership contest has been the question of whether or not the new Prime Minister commands a reliable majority in the House of Commons. This, to my mind, matters rather a lot.
Britain has a parliamentary system. As Boris Johnson has just discovered, if a leader who is PM loses enough of their own parliamentary party then it’s off to the great speakers agency in the sky. Friends of Boris say he has his own cost of living crisis with a young family and plans to earn £10m in the next year making speeches about what a brilliant success his premiership was. It’ll be a short speech.
In theory, Truss has a working majority of 75. Yet the leadership race was brutal and there is scope for rebellions by assorted factions, on numerous contentious votes with so many difficult decisions required. Parliamentary management will be complex. Rightly, the opposition parties will be alert to opportunities to exploit rebellions.
There is always Tory party hypocrisy to fall back on, of course. On Monday and Tuesday all manner of Conservative MPs who are not Truss fans will make public statements saying the new Prime Minister, if it is Truss, has earned the right to full support, in this time of crisis, in the national interest, and so on, and so on.
There was an early warning signal of what could go wrong this week, when Michael Gove declined to say he would vote with the government in a Truss/Kwarteng emergency budget. Gove wants to see what measures are in it first. Could this catch on?
The head of the Net Zero Support group, Chris Skidmore MP, is a Truss supporter. But then so are advocates of fracking and fossil fuels. The Conservative Environmental Network is well-funded by friends of Boris “Cop26” Johnson. How does all this add up and what happens when the new administration announces a bold new plan to boost energy supply, with an emphasis on fossil fuels? Pass.
Ahead of taking over, the Truss campaign is said to be determined to shut out parliamentary opponents from government, presumably to indicate toughness. The parliamentary dispensation suggests something more subtle will be required. When a parliamentary majority cannot be relied on, it changes the dynamics. Everything will have to be negotiated or at least checked with those assorted Tory factions, to ensure the votes are there.
Northern Ireland blow up underpriced
In January this year, Liz Truss hosted the EU’s Maroš Šefčovič at Chevening, the country retreat usually used by Foreign Secretaries.
Truss, a former Remainer, attempted a reset of relations in pursuit of a compromise over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The NIP is part of the Brexit agreement, and introduces a trade border and checks down the Irish Sea.
From January, there then followed various rounds of talks. Truss wanted a deal.
The initiative got nowhere. Every attempt Truss made – couldn’t the EU think a little differently about the special status of Northern Ireland and relax the Protocol significantly or devise new rules? – was rebuffed. Šefčovič had his mandate from the EU and there was no interest in changing it. President Macron’s grumpy opposition was a factor, apparently.
The experience has shaped Truss’s thinking on the EU. The bill drafted by the government on the Northern Ireland Protocol was a response born of a frustration that the EU has no interest in shifting. So the UK might as well make policy for the UK, runs the argument.
Advocates of compromise on this (me included) have to acknowledge Truss tried and was rebuffed.
It didn’t help that the EU’s intelligence and assumptions appear to have been faulty. In January, Truss was not seen as likely to be Prime Minister this autumn. Now, it looks as though the former Remainer who tried to do a deal on the Protocol, and was rejected by Brussels, is about to become Prime Minister.
Would it be surprising if she has come to the conclusion in the process that there has already been enough faffing about? That the EU is impossible so she might as well get the pain over and rip the sticking plaster off? I’m not sure it is that simple, if it happens. Years of legal wrangling are in prospect, but it’s worth understanding why her experience of the EU may have led her to a combative conclusion.
That’s why I think Truss triggering Article 16 next week, initiating conflict and perhaps a trade war, is underpriced.
What I’m watching and reading
Not much in the last week that wasn’t news about energy, Gorbachev and the Tory leadership contest. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling as if the world has come roaring back this week ahead of an “exciting” autumn. Along the way, I did rewatch All The President’s Men, the 1976 film about Watergate, for the umpteenth time. Partly for the soundtrack by the great David Shire – you can hear his Suite here – but also for Robert Redford’s hair, and Dustin Hoffman’s energy. All the President’s Men stands as a reminder that we go through these crises, involving energy shocks, monetary reorderings, war, political corruption and recessions. Then we come out the other side. Angst can be overdone. In the interim, life carries on, people find a way to make it work, babies are born, families are formed, much-loved members of the older generation rally and are released from hospital, drinks are had and jokes are told. Good stuff happens, even in the bad times.
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