With economy in trouble, UK gets ‘disruptorin-chief’ as leader
LONDON: Liz Truss is happy to make enemies. The United Kingdom’s next prime minister has likened bureaucrats to “gremlins,” insulted domestic and foreign leaders, and says British workers need more grit.
The self-styled “disruptor-in-chief” said Sunday she’s ready for unpopular decisions, and will now have to pick who to antagonise most as she responds to the full-throttled costof-living crisis facing households and businesses.
Signs point to a Truss U-turn on the handouts she warned against as she courted Conservative Party members, who she will try to appease with the tax cuts. Both measures may upset markets over fears of stoking inflation.
The leadership campaign rhetoric will be quickly forgotten, predicted Will Jennings, politics professor at Southampton University.
“It’s going to be a huge and sudden shift and change,” he said. “Delivering that is going to require a great deal of skill.”
Yet even her close supporters have their doubts, and her victory speech on Monday will have done little to dispel questions over her communication skills.
Her stilted praise of outgoing leader Boris Johnson led to an awkward silence, before the audience picked up on their cue.
Outlining how she plans to fix an economy in its worst state since the 1970s will dominate the frantic early days of Truss’ premiership, which officially begins yesterday following a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
Having given little away during the campaign, Truss, 47, will be expected to lay out her thinking in her first speech as premier in Downing Street yesterday afternoon, even if details have to wait until later. A fiscal statement or emergency budget is expected later this month.
She’ll then start to announce her top ministers, likely including Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer, ready for a first cabinet meeting today.
As well as rampant inflation, she takes charge of a country facing a crumbling National Health Service and labour strikes bringing transport networks to a halt.
Overseas, London is at loggerheads with Brussels and Washington over Brexit, in part due to the path forged by Truss as foreign secretary. The immediate pressure is to say something meaningful on soaring energy bills, which are set to almost triple this winter compared to last.
According to people familiar with the matter, Truss wants to unveil a temporary financial support package to effectively freeze bills, while also taking action on the longer-term security of UK energy supply.
Doing that, with the extra borrowing it will likely entail, risks disappointing those who bought into a leadership campaign built around promises of tax cuts and, significantly, a smaller state. It was a message designed to resonate in a party still harking back to former leader Margaret Thatcher.
Allies of Truss said the contest underlined her skill at targeting the right group of people, and that she has long been underestimated in large part because of past speeches that have gone viral on social media.
She used her international trade role in Johnson’s cabinet to present herself as a champion of Brexit, complete with flag-bedecked Instagram posts from around the world.
That gave her an advantage with Tory grassroots members in the runoff with Rishi Sunak. Her continued support for Johnson, having stayed on in government when Sunak quit as chancellor, also helped.
“She knows how to play to the base, she knows what the base want, she’s turned up in her smart dresses, she’s talked tough, she’s loosened up a bit,” Jo Tanner, a political strategist and adviser to Johnson when he was Mayor of London, said in an interview.
“I think she’s grown in stature during the summer in a way that people have been advising her to do for years.” — Bloomberg