Now that Mary Elizabeth Truss has been anointed Conservative leader, the party will have chosen four different UK prime ministers in the space of six years.
For most of the public, Britain’s latest change of PM was always destined to be a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Conservative governments have been in office since 2010 and it’s been obvious for some years the party has run out of ideas beyond using and holding onto power for the sake of power.
However, much it was hyped, the run-off between Truss, who stayed loyal to Boris Johnson, and Rishi Sunak, the highest ranking of the record 55 ministers that resigned in just two days in July, was never in doubt among a party membership dominated by Johnson’s acolytes.
Johnson seemingly used his last two months in post to take overseas holidays, do a “farewell tour” and be the envy of his children by dressing up in photo ops as, amongst other things, a police officer on a drugs raid and an RAF fighter pilot. Rumours of him plotting a comeback are regularly circulated but I would imagine, given his young family, lucrative speaking engagements, and publishing deals will prove more attractive.
He does still bequeath an 80-seat majority to Truss who, in theory, has over two years left to call a general election; but during a time of rapidly escalating economic and social crises, this is a somewhat poisoned chalice.
For most of the last three decades, when inflation averaged below 3% in the UK, it was easier to divert attention from the fact many key workers were, year on year, getting de facto pay cuts and growing numbers were getting trapped in precarious low-paid jobs while societal and wealth inequalities multiplied.
This is no longer tenable now the present 11% rate is projected to possibly double before peaking.
Recent railway strikes and other workplace walkouts have attracted widespread support. Last week in London, Senator Bernie Sanders visited the Trades Union Congress to personally back the RMT railway union, whose leader, Mick Lynch, has been drawing plaudits all summer for the clarity and wit with which he responds to hostile interviewers.
A sense of quiet desperation spreading as prices have risen, lately escalated into slow panic after the head of the UK’s energy regulator announced there was nothing it could do to stop household energy prices increasing by 80% in October -- with further rises planned at three-month intervals.
Eat or heat is a real choice facing many this winter.
While neighbouring nations must also deal with fluctuations in international gas prices, France has fixed equivalent rises for the public at 4%. Other countries tend to have more fit for purpose regulation and mechanisms available than the UK’s landscape of “light touch” regulators bequeathed by mass privatizations.
Understandably, when Labour party leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the UK to freeze the price rise last week, he said he hoped the new prime minister would copy Labour’s plan.
In one form or another, Truss probably will.
This may have sounded improbable during debates with Sunak when Truss played up the free-market fundamentalist style “let’s be Singapore and have fewer laws” sloganeering, she and close colleagues Kwasi Kwarteng, Dominic Raab, and Priti Patel promoted in their 2012 book Britannia Unchained.
But now the deed is done, commentators may acknowledge the plain fact she has no major ideological differences with hedge fund multi-millionaire Sunak. Paradoxically, while Truss’s somewhat gauche persona, exemplified in her infamous “cheese and opening pork markets” speech (a YouTube gift that never stops giving), makes her seem lightweight and sets low expectations, this makes it easier for her to build credibility among her base now she has attained the highest office in the land.
Staying in power is the only game in town. The scale of the crisis that is hitting the UK harder than most neighbours clearly puts making swift pledges on energy prices top of Truss’ agenda.
Her predecessors since the days of David Cameron have had the benefit of a divided opposition and the opportunism to cite Brexit, the pandemic, and Ukraine as distractions from mismanagement and cronyism. The weakness or at least underperformance of Labour in opinion polls given the government’s myriad failures suggests some of this may hold true.
No doubt, Truss will do more the same and try to out-trump Johnson by further playing on or stoking up culture wars and picking fights with trade unions.
In the absence of a realistic plan to grow the UK economy out of its troubles and to cling on to some of its declining international standing however, it is easy to imagine this won’t suffice. An early boost from ‘new PM hits the ground running’ may soon turn to “Liz runs out of road” as woes mount and an election beckons.
Then again, with many media allies and a firm grip on a third of voters, it is just as easy to imagine a path to election victory even in the depths of economic depression.
Who is to say the public won't get fooled again?
Niaz Alam is London Bureau Chief of the Dhaka Tribune.
