British Prime Minister Liz Truss is clearly a diminished leader today. She has walked back on the economic measures she placed on the table, soon after she replaced Boris Johnson, measures she and Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor of the exchequer, thought would inaugurate a great new age for Britain.
Truss has now sacked Kwarteng but has conveniently remained in her job when it should have been for her to do the ethical thing and resign. At this point of time, she is in office but not in power. A good number of Conservative MPs are convinced she needs to go, for there is the next election to be looked towards. With Truss as leader, the certainty is one of Keir Starmer’s Labour storming back to power.
The extent to which Truss is today diminished in her exercise of leadership comes through Jeremy Hunt, the well-regarded former health and foreign secretary, taking over as Kwarteng’s successor. Hunt has speedily been reversing everything in the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget. One who preferred Rishi Sunak for the Tory leadership, Hunt is now the most powerful individual in the British government.
The tragedy for the Tories is that they did not and would not choose the better politician, in this case Sunak or even Penny Mordaunt, as their leader. During the leadership campaign, Sunak consistently warned of the dangerous fallout from a Truss-led economy. His predictions have come true.
It can be reasonably argued that Liz Truss was not qualified to occupy 10 Downing Street because her policies in almost every area remained foggy. Her grasp of foreign affairs, as noted so shockingly in her conversation with Russia’s Sergey Lavrov before the Ukraine conflict broke out in February, revealed the extent of her ignorance.
Leadership is a whole lot more than mere raw ambition. Truss’ ambition was in succeeding Johnson, but her leadership, having been unaccompanied by ability, has now landed her in a situation where her occupancy of Downing Street might turn out to be the briefest for a prime minister. Leaders who reach the heights minus the ability to stay there always slip, but before they do, they hang on as lame ducks.
Yes, that thought again: In office but not in power. Boris Johnson was in much similar circumstances when it became obvious towards the end that he was diminished in office. It took Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid to resign for him to know that his sun had sunk beyond the horizon.
It is a sad spectacle when power drains away from leaders, largely because of their own flaws. In the months and weeks before he finally read the writing on the wall, Richard Nixon was unable to demonstrate the leadership that had been his trademark until Watergate came along. At home, citizens, the media, and politicians even from his Republican Party were convinced by early 1974 that the finger of guilt pointed at him, that he would have to go.
And yet, like any embattled leader fighting a last battle -- such a belief stems from the leader’s belief that he will win the battle -- Nixon felt he could survive. He sacked John Dean and had HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, his aides, resign in 1973 in the hope that the gathering storm over his role in the scandal would blow over. He did not remember that in Western democracies, the electorate does not go home until it has seen off its bad leaders.
Richard Nixon took time off to travel to the Middle East. His visits to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan were steps he thought would restore his hold on authority back home because of his unquestionably good reputation as a statesman on the global stage. That did not help him, for, in democracies, a shaky home ground does not get back to stable order through foreign policy.
In his final days in office, Nixon was president, but he was far from presidential. It remained for General Alexander Haig, his chief of staff, to keep the White House running. Haig remained in touch with Vice President Gerald Ford, knowing full well that Ford would soon take over from Nixon. In early August 1974, battered and bruised and diminished, Nixon resigned.
Powerful men in our times have often fallen on their own swords. Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, having kept an iron grip on Pakistan for a decade, saw his authority ebbing away by late 1968. The harsh measures employed against politicians, coupled with official -- and hubristic -- celebrations of his decade in power swiftly led to his diminution as the country’s ruler.
The political leaders Ayub had denigrated in his years in power came roaring back to show him the door. In 1977, it was an exhausted Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who, having wielded an authoritarian brand of leadership in Pakistan and then presiding over a rigged election, saw the ground shift under his feet. The opposition humbled him into making one concession after another. The final blow came from the army, which overthrew him and in less than two years sent him to the gallows.
In these present times, charisma is no more a quality of leadership. On-the-job leadership is the norm; and that comes through a leader’s understanding of economics, foreign affairs, social issues and the like. Populism is a thing of the past and those who go for it nowadays simply do not see beyond their noses.
Viktor Orban, Donald Trump, and Jair Bolsonaro are instances of men who have failed to exercise leadership because of their inability to grasp the essence of politics. One will just have to wait to see how Georgia Meloni fares in Italy, now that she has stepped into the political limelight.
In today’s Britain, Liz Truss’ chaotic premiership has highlighted the obvious -- that leadership is not a quality she has mastered. Her economic measures thrown out the window, her chancellor sacrificed, her new chancellor adopting the very same measures espoused by her rival for the party leadership, her determination to hang on despite the haemorrhaging of her authority -- these do not bode well for her.
One will not be surprised if Rishi Sunak rekindles his ambitions around 10 Downing Street. Hardly anyone in the Conservative Party will be sorry to see Truss go, for Tories are now praying that they are not annihilated by Keir Starmer, Angela Raynor, and Rachel Reeves at the next election.
A defenestrated Liz Truss clinging on to office will be a surefire path to the loss of power for the Tories. The party made a mistake by rejecting Sunak. It is now paying the price.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist and biographer.
