Liz Truss's resignation - initial thoughts

 I sure know how to pick 'em, don't I?

A little over three months ago, I wrote this post extolling her virtues and wishing her the best in the race to be UK PM. And now she holds the record for holding the prime minister office the shortest length of time in British history. 

But I still stand by what I said about her principles:

She's one of those - like Ronald Reagan - who shifted from left to right as she considered which side of the spectrum best aligned with her core values:

Truss, who grew up in Leeds, northern England, worked for 10 years in the energy and telecommunications sectors before entering politics.  

She is married to an accountant and has two daughters.

Her political journey began at the prestigious University of Oxford, where she graduated in politics, philosophy and economics.

But at Oxford, she was an active member of the Liberal Democrat party. 

By her own admission, her switch to the Conservatives shocked her left-wing maths professor father and nuclear disarmament campaigner mother, whom she accompanied to demonstrations as a child.

"One of his colleagues sent an email when he found out saying: 'I see your daughter's become a T***' (Tory)," Truss told The Guardian of her father.

Truss, though, saw the Tories as a better fit for her minimalist state beliefs and quickly became earmarked for success within the party.

Two quotes from her are really helping make the sale for me:

". . .liberating people to start and grow businesses without burdensome red tape is the key to our economic future".

And

"Whether it's 'affirmative action', forced training on 'unconscious bias' or lectures on 'lived experience', the Left are in thrall to ideas that undermine equality at every turn."

Strongly supports Ukraine. 

Who wouldn't have high hopes for such a figure?

But following through was going to entail ripping the Band-Aid off on the policy level, and Britain was not willing to live through the period of disruption required to get to a full re-orienation to a conservative course:

Her Sept. 23 economic plan included a raft of tax cuts that investors worried Britain couldn’t afford. It pummeled the value of the pound and drove up the cost of mortgages, causing economic pain for people and businesses already struggling from an economy yet to emerge from the pain of the pandemic.

That financial tumult led to the replacement of Truss’ Treasury chief, multiple policy U-turns and a breakdown of discipline in the governing Conservative Party.

Truss resigned just a day after vowing to stay in power, saying she was “a fighter and not a quitter.” But she couldn’t hold on any longer after a senior minister quit her government amid a barrage of criticism and a vote in the House of Commons Wednesday descended into chaos and acrimony.

“It’s time for the prime minister to go,” Conservative lawmaker Miriam Cates said, echoing the sentiments of many others. 

And now the Tories are in circular-firing-squad-level disarray and the Liberal Party is blowing their doors off in the polls.

The same thing would happen here if an actual free-market champion started putting in place the policies that would be needed to right post-America's ship. So we keep our debate within the narrow parameters of what, if any kinds of moderations could be made to our current collectivist system.

I'll leave you with this. It's this morning's installment in Ben Sears's weekly POETS Day series at Ordinary Times. It's about an 1802 poem William Wordsworth wrote in which he yearns for a John Milton figure to come along to lift Britain out of what Wordsworth saw as its malaise. Sears closes with the poem, which I shall do here:

London, 1802

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

y 

 

SHARE