In 2022, Liz Truss served as UK Prime Minister for 49 days, a gap between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak that was short enough to last longer than a lettuce. In the annals of Britain’s decline, Mr Truss will be remembered for taking office just three days after Queen Elizabeth died, and for abruptly withdrawing a huge tax-cut scheme that was clearly unfunded after the pound fell.
If this were the 19th century, Mr. Truss would probably have been banished to a country mansion where peacocks roam the grounds or where he fights enemies with a pistol. (In 1809, George Canning, the Foreign Secretary, was wounded in a duel with the Secretary of War.) But this is not a time for repentance or honor. Instead, Ms. Truss reinvented herself as a populist and published her new book, Ten Years to Save the West: Leading a Revolution Against Globalism, Socialism, and the Liberal System. The book is part memoir, part pitch to the American right. : She’s seen the deep state up close and she knows what needs to be done.
This is not Truss’ first political change. She started her career as an anti-monarchy MP for her centrist Liberal Democrats, but she morphed into an anxious Margaret Thatcher vigil. She voted to remain in the European Union, and she has since reincarnated herself as a champion of Brexit. She survived her every administration from 2012 until her own administration came into being.As environment secretary, she was memorably furious about cheese – “We import two-thirds of our cheese. It’s… A disgrace” – but her predecessor Johnson He wasn’t actually considered a viable leader of the Conservative Party until he almost burned it down..
When she took her turn and tried to implement her vision of a low-tax, low-regulation, high-growth Britain, it didn’t work. After she announced her economic plans, the pound fell, interest rates soared, and the Bank of England was forced to intervene. Abandoning central parts of her plan did not appease her critics, and she soon resigned. (Even Mr. Canning, who survived her wounds and eventually became prime minister, lived longer; he died of pneumonia 119 days later.)
People respond to public failures in different ways. In Truss’ case, there seem to be two ways to do this. First, to claim that she was right, and was right, but was stopped by the deep state. Second, to see if America would buy what America is selling.
Last April, she gave the Margaret Thatcher Free Lecture at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she outlined how she had been duped by the establishment. “I simply underestimated the scale and depth of this resistance, and the scale and depth that it extended to the media and the broader establishment,” she said. The anti-growth movement, believed to include President Biden, the IMF, the UK Treasury and the Bank of England, is “focused on redistribution, stagnation and instilling a culture of wokeness into our businesses.” .
In February, she said at the Conservative Party Political Action Conference in Maryland, “For too long the Western world has been run by the left, and we have seen that it is a complete disaster.” ” he said. (The Conservative Party has ruled Britain for 14 years.) Real Conservatives now operate in a hostile environment, she said. It essentially requires a larger bazooka to be effective. While at CPAC, she also spoke to Steve Bannon, inviting him to “come to the UK and sort it out”, and telling Nigel Farage that when Donald Trump was president, he was “more secure for the West”. I felt that,” he said.
Well, here’s a “decade to save the West.” Although the title seems aimed squarely at America, the content often feels oddly parochial. Ms. Truss writes of traveling to Balmoral to accept Elizabeth II’s invitation to form a government. Here, Elizabeth II is a fortune teller. She said: “She warned me that being Prime Minister would age her incredibly. She also gave me her two pieces of advice: “Pace yourself.” I did. Maybe she should have listened. ”
She isn’t sure if the apartment above Downing Street will get good reviews on Airbnb. It “felt a little soulless,” she wrote. Apparently it was infested with fleas. And I couldn’t sleep because of the noise, with the nearby Horse Guard clock chiming every 15 minutes. Imagining her exhausted from flea bites reminded me of a line from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair: Or are you happy to have it? ”
Leading up to her resignation, she wrote that it “seemed like just another dramatic moment in a very strange movie that I had somehow been cast in,” and to me that felt true. It was done.
It’s unclear whether Mr. Truss finds it easier to read the American room than the British room. In his book, he describes the US as “Britain’s proudest creation, even if it was unintentional”, and criticizes Mr Biden for calling tax cuts for the rich a “mistake”. . “This was total hypocrisy and ignorance,” she wrote. Meanwhile, she was an early fan of “The Apprentice,” enjoying Trump’s “catchphrases and sassy business advice,” she said.
But Americans who fear the deep state don’t necessarily want a smaller state, and Mr. Truss is a bad public speaker. Conservative Americans see her as her curio and expect her to move on to her more familiar and charismatic icons. But you never know.
Who is responsible for Liz Truss? Maybe it was the wind of history. Or a political system that rewards risk-takers and narcissism. Or maybe it’s 14 years with one party in power, and at the end of that there are people who have hung out long enough.
Or it was Boris Johnson, who appointed her foreign secretary in his own government. (Mr. Johnson is now a tabloid columnist, writing about his late-night chorizo binges and love affair with lawnmowers, so there’s nothing to laugh about either.)
The Conservative Party is packing up for the wilderness. Many MPs are not even running in the next elections, which are due to be held by January. And Truss himself could lose his seat to James Bugg, who is running as an independent in Norfolk. Mr Bugg is part of a local group concerned about issues such as the NHS and the cost of living, and is unimpressed by Mr Truss’ globe-trotting work. “Mr Truss says we have 10 years to save the West,” he recently told the London Times. “Well, he has six months left to save Norfolk.”
I wonder if Ms. Truss is coming to America because her enemies in Norfolk are coming after her. This is the endgame for the Conservative Party. A land of opportunity beckons.
Tanya Gold is a British journalist.
Photo: Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press and RunPhoto, Isaraway Tatton, Cathering Fall Commercial, FlashPop, Posterioli, Karl Cote/Getty Images
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