On the day that Liz Truss becomes Prime Minister, I thought it might be helpful to offer her some advice. Not about her wooden delivery at the podium – we need a rest from Boris-like bravura (although, goodness knows, she needs some coaching). But on what to do as she starts to tackle the dire situation we find ourselves in. In doing this, I am channeling the learning from my annual pilgrimage to last weekend’s FT Weekend festival where there is no shortage of advice and an abundance of brain food.
One of the highlights at the FT Weekend festival is the session where you get to witness the to-and-fro between the editorial staff over what to write as the leader for the paper. Last year, the big topics were the pandemic and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. This year, in defiance of imagination, the world is in an even more perilous state. Putin, the war in Ukraine, energy prices, NHS collapse, the crisis in social welfare provision. So, what should she do? Here’s what the panel discussed.
Martin Wolf, the economics editor, opened the debate by shouting ‘resign!’, which drew a big cheer from the crowd. Another staffer suggested she form a government of national unity (yes, things appear to be that bad, even to the FT). The hygiene factors came next: construct a cabinet of all the talents and do not just appoint loyalists, as Boris did – in other words, heal the party and put the good of the country first. But even this early in her tenure, it appears that this isn’t what she is going to do. Terrific news that Priti Patel has gone but be careful what you wish for – she’s to be replaced by the even more hawkish Suella Braverman. Secondly, restore confidence in the integrity of the government – but branding the outgoing Boris as ‘my very good friend’ yesterday doesn’t send a strong signal she is putting any ethical clear blue water between her and the previous administration either. Oh dear. 0/2 so far.
Engage constructively and deeply with business. Boris didn’t because his ideologically Brexit-pure regime never trusted big business, which it always saw as remainer at heart. But if Truss sees that the answer to our economic ills is growth, she needs business engaged with the project. Jury’s out.
Price controls – as an idea, this will never see the light of day as it harks back to the era of Heath and Wilson – which is anathema to a would-be Thatcher. Tax increases for the well off. Again, not traditional ground for the Tory party, but popular with the well-to-do audience who seemed up for shouldering their responsibility to help many through a tough winter ahead. (Maybe Richi would have been the FT readership’s choice?)
Reform property and capital gains tax to free up land on which to build and close the loophole which prevents so much tax revenue being collected and exacerbates the disparity between the very rich and the rest of us.
Fund welfare properly to release the 13,000 NHS beds currently being taken up by people who do not need to be in hospital but who cannot move back into the community because there is no provision of help there.
The overwhelming consensus was that she can afford to be brave and magnanimous…but probably won’t be either. With only two years to go before a general election, these next two years will be ‘death or glory’ for her time in Number 10. No Prime Minister has inherited such a crisis. In some ways it is a phenomenal opportunity to be radical, imaginative and daring. I’m not sure those weapons are in her arsenal. I hope I am wrong.
Post script: it was death not glory. She lasted just seven weeks before resigning after doing the exact opposite of what this FT panel advised: she appointed a cabinet of only loyalists to her leadership campaign and excluded the broad church of opinion. She and her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced a ‘fiscal event’ just after the Queen’s funeral that backfired spectacularly. Billions were wiped off the value of the British pound, the Bank of England had to intervene to the tune of £65bn to rescue Government Bonds and she wiped £80k off my pension. Plus left the country with a hole in its finances which has necessitated £70 billion of tax rises and public expenditure cuts. When is this electorate going to tire of the utter incompetence of the five successive Tory leaders since 2010 who have, between them, allowed a catastrophic severance with the EU, mishandled the divorce settlement to piss absolutely everyone off, including the idiots who voted for Brexit, brought Parliament and the government into moral turpitude, been found guilty of cronyism and corruption in purchasing PPE, of selling peerages, of mishandling the pandemic to cause the death of hundreds of thousands of our citizens and, finally, of financially bankrupting the economy?