There are lessons for centre-right politics in Australia in the British prime minister’s spectacular fall. | OPINION by George Brandis
The great irony of the brief and ill-starred prime ministership of Liz Truss is that she was brought down in attempting to do the very things that, in the Tory leadership contest, she had promised to do: cut taxes, shrink the size of the state, embrace a growth agenda.
The reluctance of the City – and the financial interests which it represents – to sign on to the growth agenda reflects, in part, the anxiety of the times: the hesitancy engendered by the two years of pandemic; more immediate fears arising from the war in Ukraine and the looming energy crisis. But there is something deeper going on here: an in-dwelling pessimism about Britain, which Truss’ promises of high economic growth failed to conquer.
What makes the overthrow of Truss so stunning is that it all happened so fast. A mere 45 days elapsed between the declaration of the ballot of the Tory rank-and-file and her ejection by Tory MPs. That fact alone is revealing of how febrile the parliamentary party has become. It seemed to have made no impact on the MPs that Truss, in her fatal mini-budget, was doing just what she had been elected by the members to do.
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