Settle on Sunday Truss insults intelligence of UK public

DELUSIONAL. Discredited. Finished. The slender thread by which Liz Truss’s humiliation of a premiership hangs is getting thinner by the day.

It’s surely now only a matter of time before political gravity takes hold and the letter of resignation is signed, the king’s hand shaken and the lectern placed in front of Downing Street’s famous black door.

Time is not on the PM’s side. One previously loyal colleague said she would be “told to go on Monday” with suggestions that this coming week a co-ordinated effort will be made to oust Truss with some party grandees calling for her to step down and MPs sending in no-confidence letters to the 1922 Committee.

This weekend, voter anger and disgruntlement will be poured into the ears of Tory MPs, strengthening their resolve to ditch a busted-flush leader.

Lord Hague, the phlegmatic ex-party leader, branded the fiveweek Truss premiership a “catastrophic episode” while Lord Hammond, the ex-Chancellor, said it had wrecked the party’s hard-earned reputation for fiscal discipline, leaving her growth agenda “in tatters”.

It was even said that the freshly-dismissed Kwasi Kwarteng had suggested his Greenwich neighbour and political soulmate had only bought herself “a few weeks” by ditching him and some of her Budget measures.

Understandably, Sir Keir Starmer and Nicola Sturgeon demanded Truss go and a general election be called.

The Labour leader described the Tory Party as “clapped out” and yesterday reused a famous line from Neil Kinnock, pointing to the “grotesque chaos of a Tory Prime Minister handing out redundancy notices to her own Chancellor”.

The FM was equally effusive. Describing Truss as a “lame duck” premier, she said: “The sooner she goes and the sooner people get the chance to get rid of this Tory Government that is doing so much damage, once and for all, the better.”

However, a test of public opinion anytime soon is the last thing the Conservatives want, knowing they would face a wipe-out. So, they will limp on, bruised and bloodied.

Truss’s

Who will replace her? A coronation, thus avoiding any involvement by party members, looks inevitable

dreadful eight-minute press conference in Downing St, announcing another policy U-turn after sacking her Chancellor, was a masterclass in tone-deafness. She neither apologised nor took responsibility for the economic mess she has created.

As the PM briskly left the room, having responded to only four questions, aggrieved reporters called it when they called out: “You’re out of your depth!”

At one point during her robotic monologue, Truss mentioned how she would stop public spending rising as quickly as previously planned yet having promised “absolutely” only two days earlier that there would be no public spending cuts.

It took Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies to gently point out she could not increase spending less quickly “without it actually going down”.

If the PM thought the markets would respond positively to her dramatic moves, she was wrong as the pound fell and bond yields rose. The expected U-turn on corporation tax was already priced in and, without anything more, the markets reacted accordingly.

The dwindling band of loyal Truss supporters will hope Jeremy Hunt – the fourth Chancellor in as many months – described as a

“grown-up in the Cabinet room” – will help steady the ship of state.

Yesterday, he confirmed he had been told he had a “clean slate” to change the mini-Budget. In his first media interview, he effectively announced the death of so-called “Trussonomics,” saying: “We won’t have the speed of tax cuts we were hoping for and some taxes will go up.”

THE CUTS ARE COMING

THE Chancellor also made clear that all Government departments, including health and defence, would have to find efficiencies; Whitehall-speak for cuts.

In the calmest and most soothing tone he could muster, the ex-Health Secretary admitted mistakes had been made and warned some “very difficult” fiscal decisions lay ahead, stressing his primary role was to bring stability back to the UK economy.

Today, he is due to meet Truss at her Chequers country retreat in Buckinghamshire. But it’s now clear who wears the trousers in Downing St. As one MP told The Times: “He can now stand up and change everything and she can’t stop him.”

As Conservatives ponder the end of Truss, they are also considering who should replace her. A coronation, thus avoiding any involvement by party members, looks inevitable. While some grassroots warriors will complain, pragmatism will rule.

Hunt, by dint of his new position, could, if he fares well with his Halloween fiscal statement, be well-placed to move from Number 11 to Number 10.

Then, of course, there is Rishi Sunak, whose prescient warnings about Trussonomics have been all too painfully borne out.

And not forgetting the king - making lots of money with speeches - over the water. Boosterish Boris Johnson might just consider an unfeasible comeback eminently feasible.

Could it be, though, that Hunt and Sunak have a Granita-style dinner and work out between them a deal reminiscent of the Blair/Brown one that helped secure Labour three terms in office?

Whatever happens, it’s hard, as things stand, to conceive of the Tories winning the 2024 election.

On Thursday, Kwarteng gladhanding counterparts at the IMF in Washington, was adamant he would still be in his Treasury role in a month’s time. “Absolutely. 100%. I’m not going anywhere,” he declared.

But within hours he was on a plane back to Blighty. It’s said Truss had already appointed his successor three hours before the plane’s wheels hit the Heathrow tarmac, having phoned Hunt while he was on holiday in Belgium. Kwarteng learned of his fate from a media report as he was driven to his Downing Street fate.

The fact Truss thinks she can survive her catastrophic start in office by throwing her Chancellor under the bus for carrying out her own incompetent policies is an insult to the intelligence of the British public.

The longer she stays in office, the deeper the Conservative hole will get and the greater the damage will be to its electoral brand.

Tory MPs surely know if it were done, ‘twere well it were done quickly.