Yesterday, I argued that Liz Truss had contrived the calamity she finds herself in. With no way out of the impasse, the Prime Minister has ham-fistedly taken a leaf from Boris Johnson's well-thumbed book of dodges: get someone else to take the blame. In this case it was Kwasi Kwarteng. Everything Truss and Kwarteng did was fully previewed in the leadership contest. She was less keen to discuss the energy price freeze, seemingly of the view massive tax cuts were her passage to popularity. The Tory faithful preferred to eat up this drivel than what Rish! Sunak was offering, despite his prospectus having some relationship to political and economic realities. And we all know what happened next. Kwarteng entered Number 11 and faithfully set about implementing Truss's promises. He definitely was a fully paid up member of Trussonomics (the undeclared £20k/month bung from Crispin Odey made certain of that), but by the same token he was only following orders. He did exactly what Truss asked, and got the sack for it.
As politically flat-footed Truss is, calling on Jeremy Hunt to fill the Kwarteng-shaped gap in her cabinet was a good move. From her point of view. While Hunt is rightly despised across the labour movement for the damage he inflicted on the NHS, among the Tories he's a safe pair of hands. He managed a notoriously complex organisation and kept a lid on staff pay demands. Hunt possesses the experience lacking everywhere else in Truss's operation. And second, he's a member of the Tory briefcase establishment - that layer of politicians, present in all the Westminster parties, who are "reasonable" and well connected among the elite mainstream. Unlike Truss, Kwarteng, and their cosying up to the capitalist class's most short-term and extremist elements. Potentially a source of tension, now Truss has basically adopted Sunak's programme - albeit with the National Insurance rise reversal - her government now has something she foolishly failed to secure in the first place: buy-in from leading Tories. The briefcases and sharp suits might be less inclined to be as verbose with their text message briefings and quiet drinks on the terrace now one of their prominent own is on the inside.
Hunt's appointment and going with the Corporation Tax rise looked like it could get Truss through her immediate difficulties, despite rumours of a Sunak-Mordaunt dream ticket and "serious people" coming for the Prime Minister. But Truss is gonna Truss, and she immediately plunged herself into further difficulties with the worst press conference ever given by a sitting Prime Minister. It appeared Truss could not feel the tugs of the gravity of her situation. She had to offer some contrition about crashing the economy and stoking inflation, but also the conviction the country was still on the right path. The Tories needed the iron lady, but they got plywood woman. Stiff but evidently breakable, she phoned in her speech - written down on notes - and looked panic stricken as she scanned the assembled hacks for a friendly face. After picking two right wing papers and ITV and BBC, to whom she offered the same stock answer, she simply cleared off. Perhaps Truss thought she was being decisive in the same way Dave used to just walk away from interviewers, but it was super awkward. She emoted anything but strength and direction of purpose. While Twitter isn't real life, the messages shared from Tory "sources" by top politics correspondents suggested the crisis was back on and she wouldn't last until Christmas.
What happens immediately is in Truss's hands. She can try toughing it out, but having fluffed her own rescue plan it's only a matter of time before she lurches into another crisis. Or she could have a go at threatening her opponents. As Nadine Dorries(!) has perceptively remarked, swapping Truss out for a coronation makes the pressure for a general election hard to resist. I'm not so sure. But if Truss wants to scare her charges, threatening an election is exactly what she should do. Tory MPs might be wondering how Truss has brought their party so low so fast (pro-tip, here's a book that helps) and hate the situation they're in, but these Tories will rue the annihilation of their parliamentary party even more. The dissenters know this, and fear she might just be unpredictable enough to smash the button. In other words, the situation is pregnant not with her removal but with more of the same. The agony isn't over. Far from it, we might not even be anywhere near the end of the beginning.
12 comments:
One potential consequence of the Truss crisis is the accelerated 'end' of the parliamentary Bennite Left. What future now for the Bennite/Momentum Left in a context where the Labour Right win majority government without any semblance of 'radicalism'?
The Campaign Group is already a spineless divided shambles. What future in a context where Starmer has won power on terms that require no concession to the Left?
In response to Anonymous (above). The left have to stay in the party if only to shore up the soft left for the battle over PR. There is no point in left wing members opting out and letting the right wing have a free rein. We may be back to 1997 territory, but those of us who stayed in the party then were able to make some gains (advances on OMOV in particular) which led to the Corbyn victory. If more people had stayed in the party and had been in the minor officer-ship positions (eg. CLP & ward Chairs & Sectaries etc) then we might have been able to mount a better defence. Blair to Corbyn was 20 years, it could take just as long again, but we owe it to future generations to stay & fight.
«Yesterday, I argued that Liz Truss had contrived the calamity she finds herself in.»
I still think she has not, mainly, because she is the target, like Johnson, Trump, Sanders, Corbyn before her, of concerted "centrist" thatcherites campaign to control all main parties regardless of voter preferences, by eliminating all "deviant" leaders, whether they are right-wing thatcherite nationalists, or centre-left social-democrats.
While the spectacle of the "whig" thatcherite press attacking "tory" thatcherites may be entertaining for "lefties", I think it is dangerous to cheer it on, because the very same mechanism has been used to eliminate Sanders in the USA and Corbyn in the UK, and regardless it is anti-democratic, reducing politics to gang fights among right-wingers.
Effectively Jeremy Hunt is Prime Minister. This suggests that the in the longer run the moderates, liberals and one nation Tories will take back control of the party and neoliberalism is, at least in its purest form, is dead.
Robert, dearie me, you appear to have bought the utter guff from the mass media over the last few days that Jeremy Hunt is some sort of well-meaning 'One Nation Tory'. Hunt is no such thing. His dire, NHS resource-cutting, junior doctor smashing, term as Health Secretary was at one with the awful book he wrote ten years ago detailing just how to systematically atomise, defund, and privatise our NHS. In the recent Tory leadership election he wanted even bigger cuts to Corporation tax than even Truss !
New Chancellor Hunt has already openly signalled in interviews that he has no intention of repealing most of the Truss tax cuts, and no intention of a meaningful, French-style, Windfall Tax on the big oil/gas Energy producers to help reduce the budgetary black hole Truss has created ( the proposed windfall tax on Nuclear and wing generated is small beer indeed). Instead he warns that massive budgetary cuts in our already long-collapsing Welfare state lie ahead . Some strange type of 'liberal' or 'one Nation Tory' is he , Robert !
The ENTIRE Tory Parliamentary Party is long ago fully bought by the rapacious hedge funds, Russian and other gangster oligarchs, and other neoliberal crooks . Don't look for any respite for the rest of us from their banditry. Or, sadly, for any respite with a now very possible new NuLabour2 government under the totally neoliberalism-promoting Trilateral Commissions man, Starmer, - which will be the most right wing and authoritarian one in our history , and, as per social democracy across Europe, will soon discredit social democracy forever - and usher in the radical Far Right. We are in the foothills of massive socio/political upheaval in the UK, (and across Europe) and all previous political trends and patterns of social cohesion are soon going to be kicked out of the park by generalised grinding super-poverty for the majority of our citizens.
The UK's population are basically now standing nakedly alone in facing the coming global economic tsusunami of an even larger re-run of the 2008 Great Financial Crash, with the entire UK political class in all our major parties long bought body and soul by the global superrich - and only interested in defending THEIR wealth and power, at OUR expense.
«the moderates, liberals and one nation Tories will take back control of the party and neoliberalism is, at least in its purest form, is dead.»
Terminology/semantics is always a problem, but I think that “neoliberalism is, at least in its purest form” is a misunderstanding: "neoliberalism" as practiced in the past 40 years is not pure, classical, victorian, liberalism, as in "libertarianism", it is a mixture of liberalism for the masses and socialism for the elites. Original liberals would not have bailed out big finance in 2008, or pumped up relentlessly property prices, or put huge amounts of public money into PPI deals.
Neoliberalism is in a sense one-nation conservativism for property and finance rentiers plus dog-eat-dog capitalism for everybody else, so it is very far from one-nation conservativism as in the post-WW2 era, not just different from victorian liberalism.
It is brexitism that instead has small elements of one-nation attitudes, even if there is in addition to a nostalgic "imperial preference" tory brexitism an equally nostalgic "buccaneering" whig brexitism.
What is being killed is not “neoliberalism … in its purest form” but brexitism. I am surprised that the brexiteer faction of the Conservatives is not working harder to maintain control, despite the complaint by Truss of a "coup". The "whigs" (and one-nationers), after being purged from the Conservative party by Johnson, worked hard to take control of the right-wing media and consolidate that of the "deep state". The plan was made clear:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/07/lord-michael-heseltine-boris-goes-brexit-goes/
“If Boris goes, Brexit goes, says Lord Heseltine
Tory grandee says Prime Minister’s departure likely to lead to shake-up in relations with EU”
As a Truss supporting Tory, I agree with a lot of the above. The Blairite Technocratic Blob wins again, and the mantle of Champions of Centrism is passing from Conservative to Labour.
Truss should resign. She has nothing left to aim for. The enterprise is dead. She should arrange for Sunak to take over.
Truss's mistake in broad terms was not announcing spending cuts to provide Fiscal stability. She ended up doing everything at once and whilst I think it would have worked in time, the job is as much about managing the day to day and she didn't do that.
Obviously the political news stories are all short term and personality related, but surely the big news now is that complete political acceptance that The Bond Market is king. The Bond Market is what will determine politics in the UK for the next decade or so. Hence you can forget billions going into the NHS. Simply not possible. Because The Bond Market will see signs of spending without revenue as terminal.
My guess is the right have lost the battle but will win the war. We will see recession and reduced tax incomes because the Corporation Tax and income tax measures will reduce innovation and business investment. the Bond Market will limit the government's ability to fund a deficit. So the government will have no choice but to cut public spending, and to produce policies that deliver growth. It will be faced with a collapsing NHS because as a large Soviet style enterprise it is completely dysfunctional, so will be forced to limit demand and source more efficient services, and end up with a continental style state insurance system.
It has proved politically impossible for the Tories to make necessary reforms to welfare and public spending. Only Labour has the political credibility to make substantial changes to the welfare system as it is their baby. And they will have no choice but to do this.
"In response to Anonymous (above). The left have to stay in the party if only to shore up the soft left for the battle over PR. There is no point in left wing members opting out and letting the right wing have a free rein." Sorry, but the labour right do now have free rein and the "soft left" are as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. So we are either looking for a rerun of WW2 (Atlee) or Phil's gradual death of the tory party. The first is unlikely, the second will happen I'm sure, I'm also sure the planet will be on an unstoppable trajectory to burn to a crisp before that happens (its being so cheerful that keeps me going).
Dipper,
If you're right, then that's all the more reason why this rotten capitalist system needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history, along with its creator and handmaiden, the modern nation-state!
And replaced it with what, David?
Capitalism has been hugely successful at delivering unprecedented living standards across the globe.
Not much notice being taken here of the repercussions in Scotland, a nation not-quite-state which is not going to be consigned to the dustbin of history any time soon. I’m not sure how much the SNP’s performance about Indyref 2 is authentic, but the sight of a major politician offering an alternative to semi-permanent Tory rule, with or without the Tories, is heartening.
@Dipper "as a Truss supporting Tory"? Surely you jest? "She ended up doing everything at once"? Only one thing really, destroying her 'credibility' and her authority - although to anyone paying attention, credibility was not really one of her attributes. She looked like a lightweight proselyte, she talked like one, and it turned out, she was one.
What is clear is that she was converted to the idea that the Treasury convention was a drag on the system, that the rules were for the obeyance of fools, and what was holding us back from the sunlight uplands was petty caution and blind adherence to unnecessary dogma. Someone persuaded her that going against perceived budgetary wisdom would make magical things happen (they did, but not in the way she hoped). She didn't come up with the ideas herself. If she had, surely she'd have defended them a bit more. No, she was convinced by someone plausible, superficially clever, and with boundless arrogance. Presumably KamiKwasi himself. Hence, perhaps, why she was so quick to drop him.
Liz seems to have no original ideas at all. She seems attracted by ideas that are offbeat, outliers, unconventional, even counterfactual. Perhaps it is to make up for her being so very ordinary herself? Whatever, she latches on to people who push these ideas, and runs with them with all the zeal of the convert. Somehow she contrived, by perseverance, and some fortune, more that design, to get into the inner circle. By hanging around, always being ready to lend a hand, and never turning a job down, she found her rivals eliminating each other, until she was left in pole position.
Of course she turned to here fellow believers. Here was their chance to prove how right they were. To mold the world to how they thought it ought to be - how it was meant to be. But when ideas, no matter how fervently held, meet reality, there is only one winner. And so it all collapsed within days.
Given she herself appears to have been the dupe of true zealots, it is difficult to say much about those who were taken in by her, without being unkind, so I'll just say that you can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. I'll let the reader decide which category applies to those who "supported" Truss.
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