Liz Truss shows how politicians are wrongly invincible
If you were sacked within two months of a job you may feel that you’d made mistakes. You may think the job did not suit you or that you simply could not perform what was asked of you. You may even decide that a change in career is perhaps needed. What most of us would not do is abdicate responsibility by blaming everyone else and quickly reapply for the job just a few months later.
But most of us are not Liz Truss. Truss lacks many things- a coherent political philosophy and good judgment sit at the top of the list but one thing she does not lack is self-belief. Despite being the UK’s shortest-lived PM, her tenure coming in at a mere 49 days, she still wants the top position. Some have taken her seriously rather than laughing her off as delusional or ridiculous. Perhaps because of the deeply parlous state of the Conservative Party anything seems possible but why would anyone want to enable such a politician?
After-all, Truss is hardly a political giant. Wandering around departments before she was PM Truss was most famous for an odd rant at a party conference about cheese imports. Despite being an ex-foreign secretary she somehow believes Trump, the man who has admired dictators around the world and caused chaos in NATO, is a safer bet for ‘the West’ than an admittedly ageing and distinctly average Joe Biden. None of this speaks to a wise head or someone we should be listening to but a reactionary with little political skill or sense.
Truss is not an intellectual or even someone who poses as one. When she speaks little but poorly spouted cliches come out and a slightly crazy look in her eye appears. Rather than admitting she was wrong and to blame for her own disastrous tenure, Truss has instead placed the blame on ‘unelected bureaucrats’. They were the ones who crashed the economy, made her a national joke by being decimated on radio show after radio show and acquired an approval rating which only Jeremy Corbyn would have envied.
Across the West—especially the English-speaking world—there has been a shift of power away from democratically accountable officeholders to unelected bureaucrats and technocrats. The administrative state undermined Mr. Trump’s first term and undermined my tenure as Britain’s prime minister, forcing me out of office after 49 days. (Liz Truss in the Wall Street Journal)
The lack of reflection from Truss is startling. During her tenure, the economic catastrophe she helped inflict on the country was a by-product of a war in Eastern Europe which sparked a worldwide catastrophe. Now, it’s the OBR’s and the Bank Of England’s fault. Perhaps, it is a case of looking at anyone but herself. Yet, few would point in any other direction. Indeed, her own former chancellor has blamed the ex-PM for the mess she created.
Her philosophy, if she ever had one, is an unfortunate mixture of American generalities woven together from a basic misunderstanding of philosophy and history. The radical libertarianism she has economically embraced has been nestled onto a more communitarian political commitment to cultural issues. Thereby creating a clash of values working throughout her competing claims. You can see this in her rhetoric over university courses. She wants freedom of choice but demands university courses which offer ‘no value’ close. Yet, in her parliamentary rant against banning cigarette smoking, she says that no one wants to vote for someone finger-wagging about what they can and cannot do…
But we should not stop there. Her views about power show the same misconceptions. Striving to ‘reduce’ the power of the state she simultaneously wants to smash the Supreme Court, Bank of England and the OBR… in essence, she desires to be rid of external impediments to her action as PM so she can kick on her agenda. That is not ridding us of state power but emancipating the executive to exercise state power more freely. This is the problem with Truss… she doesn’t seem to understand the consequences of her own arguments.
Truss offers nothing of substance. She’s for a smaller state but supported the triple lock on pensions which is one of our biggest spending commitments. She wants people to take control of their own lives but opposes legislation for trans people to use puberty blockers before the age of 16. She supposedly loves the West but believes people like Trump, admirers of dictators and wannabe authoritarians, are best placed to safeguard it. Listening to her Spectator interview, especially on foreign policy, is truly painful. Trump, the man who made rhetorical love to Kim Jong Un, was ‘harder’ and ‘clearer’ on matters of freedom than Joe Biden apparently…
So why is anyone really taking her seriously? The usually sober Iain Dale appears to be going into bat for Truss. Giving a glowing review of the book as supposedly ‘unputdownable’ and something ‘everyone should read’. Dale is helping to rehabilitate someone who was kicked out of the job so quickly it made everyone’s head spin. Some could argue it is almost cruel of him to do so. Feeding Truss’s bizarre ambitions and lack of self-awareness is hardly something a broadcast journalist should be doing.
“I think it's something that should be read by everyone who wants to understand the events of the last 10 years. It's well written, a gripping read at times & thought-provoking. I read it in 2 sittings and found it unputdownable.” (Iain Dale tweet)
What the media tour of Liz Truss shows is that politicians, or rather ex-politicians can do almost anything and still have a comeback. Barring the illegal, you can crash the economy, blame everyone else, talk conspiratorial nonsense about the ‘deep state’ and have no public service left to offer, yet you can do the shows, bring out a book and even try to talk yourself back into a job which you had no business being in the first place.
The real question is not how many people will read this book but why would anyone read it in the first place. It is not important on its own terms and it will not re-shape political debate. Instead, its the last gasp from the worst PM in modern history. Truss was a Prime minsterial footnote and this book won’t even be that.