Barely six weeks old and already on the bench. Since her enthronement on September 6, Liz Truss’s term as head of the British government seems marked with the Indian sign. Indeed, having had the misfortune to see the queen die two days after her accession, the Prime Minister is already listening to politicians, observers and public opinion planning her own political funeral.
the tabloid daily star enjoys comparing, live on YouTube, its longevity in its stall with that of a lettuce (whose expiration is set at 10 days). Apart from this vegetal comparison, her position is so fragile that it is hard to imagine Liz Truss managing to match the 118 days of power of George Canning in 1827, the most short-lived British prime minister at 10 Downing Street to date. BFMTV.com explains this Tuesday how Liz Truss was able to sink so low in such a short time.
Liz Truss’s “serious mistake”
“Liz Truss made a serious mistake. She thought that she could present her program to win the Tory internal competition as an electoral program, and approach the beginning of her term as if she herself had won the legislative elections, ”analyzes the expert essayist from BFMTV.com. Europeans, Patrick Martin-Genier.
At the end of the summer, Liz Truss bested her opponents in the race to replace Boris Johnson, ousted by the Conservatives, with a Liberal recipe that was as simple as it was full-bodied. She has based her success on developing a “mini-budget” that looks like a fiscal shock. The idea was to reduce public spending, while lowering taxes for the richest and corporate taxes. Except that everything went wrong on September 23 when the “mini-budget” in question was disclosed to the deputies.
The outcry aroused in public opinion and in the political class by this horse remedy led her to swallow her hat many times. Did Liz Truss intend to cut the tax by 45-40% above £172,000 a year? she will be no Did she intend to cancel the increase from 19 to 25% in corporate tax decided by the previous executive? She will eventually she will keep it.
From economic disavowals to political turmoil
These measures were not only unpopular with the British population. They also caused a panic in financial markets: the IMF criticized a “targetless” and unfunded policy, and sterling plunged to an all-time low against the dollar. At the same time, interest on British loans skyrocketed.
These economic disavowals led the interested party to a serious political crisis. On Monday night, Liz Truss said she was sorry for “mistakes made” and told the BBC that she wanted to go “too far, too fast”. Last Friday, she had already had to sacrifice Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) and friend of his, Kwasi Kwarteng, and promote Jeremy Hunt in his place.
The “political direction” escapes him
And the latter does not seek to play the good comrades. Speaking on Monday before the House of Commons, he did not hesitate to sweep away the financial policy carried out by his prime minister and this, under the latter’s gaze. “It’s a snub, a humiliation,” said Patrick Martin-Genier, noting that Jeremy Hunt took his boss’s program on the wrong foot on one last point: “He reserves the right to impose extraordinary taxes on oil companies, which is the opposite of what she wanted.”
Result: Liz Truss no longer seems to exercise the reality of power according to observers. “The press says that she is just the Prime Minister in office, and Jeremy Hunt appears to be the real Prime Minister,” notes the UK essayist, adding:
“There is no longer any political leadership on their part. Many conservatives believe that his departure is only a matter of days. For them it can no longer stand because it no longer has political strength, because its program no longer exists and because of its political dishonesty.
Misunderstanding among the Tories
Indeed, if of course the opposition has never endorsed his austerity policy, his own supporters do not tolerate his 180° reversal. “The Tories won’t forgive her for being cast on a show she’s already turned down,” adds Patrick Martin-Genier.
Basically, according to the expert, a departure from Liz Truss would only correct an original misunderstanding, her appointment only as a result of a deep misunderstanding or, according to her expression, a “double divorce”. Liz Truss has relied on the increasingly right-wing base of the Conservative Party to beat the competition in the domestic campaign. However, this base is out of step not only with the rest of the country, which is in no hurry to see a new Margaret Thatcher arrive at its head while its gas and electricity bills, now frozen, have already doubled since 2021, but also with the parliamentary group of the movement. “The conservative parliamentary group is more centrist and preferred Rishi Sunak” during the primaries, emphasizes Patrick Martin-Genier.
Packed, weighed: it would therefore be up to the Conservative Party to get rid of a Prime Minister it no longer loves and may never have loved. Unfortunately for him, he is caught in two traps. First of all, his statutes prohibit him in principle from overthrowing his leader in the year following his accession. In addition, there is no interest electorally speaking.
impossible choices
The first point is not, however, prohibitive. The Conservative Party has a body in charge of organizing a possible motion of censure, the “1922 committee”, which brings together the party’s deputies. “If the committee believes that a majority of deputies no longer want Liz Truss, it can change the current rules in a few days,” asks the expert on European issues who continues: “The best option would then be to call early elections.” elections (in principle, the next elections should wait until 2024, editor’s note)”.
This is where the shoe pinches. Because the Tories expose themselves to a sharp drop should they have to go back to the polls these days. Two polls taken on Monday outline the extent of the disaster: a poll by the Deltapoll institute gives 55% of current projections to Labour, the Conservatives getting just 23%. It’s even worse on the side of the studio run by Redfield & Wilton with a Plowing calibrated at 56% against Tories reduced to 20%. A 36-point gap that is simply the widest voting gap in the history of the two movements.
“The Conservative Party has angered the public by emerging as the party of the rich, especially since Brexit. Labor would obtain its greatest victory since Tony Blair in 1997 and would even recover the ‘red voters’ lost in the last elections”, explains Patrick Martin-Genier, summing up: “The Conservative Party is risking its political survival”.
Sunak, Hunt… or Johnson: who will replace Liz Truss?
To survive, the Tories Therefore, it is necessary to solve the square of the circle: delay the term of the elections, and change the captain anyway. London is already full of putative replacements for Liz Truss. In addition to Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister’s most serious rival during the recent domestic campaign, is naturally mentioned. Other hypotheses circulate, more extravagant but not necessarily less well-founded:
“We are talking about a return of Boris Johnson who is a political animal, is always popular and has said that he will not give up on one day returning to number 10 Downing Street. Some even think of Theresa May”, smiles Patrick Martin-Genier. who suggests a final hypothesis: “We could still choose what is called over there a ‘interim prime minister‘, that is, an interim Prime Minister”.
So anything but Liz Truss? That’s what these different scenarios have in common anyway. A trend in unison with the personal assessment of the head of government with the British. This thus reaches unprecedented abysses for a Prime Minister. A YouGov poll published on Tuesday by the independent he only attributes a 10% good opinion to him, against 80% hostility. Only one character is more infamous among the populace: Prince Andrew, embroiled in the sex scandal sparked by the Epstein affair, who only finds favor in the eyes of 5% of his fellow citizens. Liz Truss is definitely 36 below.
Source: BFM TV
