45 days of Liz Truss: the downfall of Britain's shortest-serving prime minister ever

She is the shortest-serving prime minister of the United Kingdom in history. On Thursday, Liz Truss announced her resignation, less than seven weeks after winning the battle for Conservative Party leadership. In recent days, after weeks of political chaos, more and more MPs publicly gave up their confidence in Truss. Until she drew her conclusions on Thursday afternoon. “I recognize that I cannot deliver what the party elected me to do,” Truss said in her short speech in front of the official residence. The lightning-quick downturn of a prime minister in five acts. 1. Wednesday 20 July 2022 Truss is second choice After Boris Johnson’s resignation in early July, the Conservative Party group has been unable to unite behind a single successor. Of the candidates for leadership, not Liz Truss, but former finance minister and moderate Rishi Sunak gets the most votes. The result mainly shows great division : Sunak gets 137 votes, Truss 113 and the third candidate Penny Mordaunt 105. The party members, who have the last word after the faction in the House of Commons, are also not like-minded. Truss gets more than 81,000 votes from them, Sunak gets more than 60,000. Not a convincing victory, but the predominantly wealthy, white and older party members still opt for her promises of small government and low taxes. This is where the foundation is already being laid for Truss’ later limited room for maneuver. A large majority of the group views her with suspicion from the start. Especially if she only appoints confidants and colleagues who supported her during the campaign in her new cabinet. “ Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer ”, she ignores Vito Corleone’s advice in The Godfather that certainly applies to ruthless British politics. 2. Thursday, August 4, 2022 Questioning institutions She lays the groundwork for the mistrust of the financial markets in Truss’s government, later a major cause for all the u-turns she has to make during the leadership struggle in the summer. She sees the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank, as part of the “establishment” she likes to argue with and says she wants to change the bank’s mandate . It remains unclear what exactly she wants to change, but she is fueling speculation that she would like looser financial policies to promote economic growth. She later comes back to these kinds of comments and says that the bank must remain “naturally independent”. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent British audit office, also has to suffer. During the campaign, it appears that Truss and her team have no intention of sending their tax cuts to the OBR for advice. According to her, “rapid action is needed to bring down the costs of daily living.” Calculations and a broader account of government finances could be done at a later date, while the OBR had said it would be able to provide such a calculation quickly. Actions like this create the impression that Truss and her do not consider financial soundness as important – normally such an important value for the Conservative Party. Rishi Sunak warns that her plans are ” fairy tale economics ” and that borrowing money is not free – a prediction that would turn out to be all too true. Opposition leader Keir Starmer (Labour) rubs the Conservatives that it would still be appropriate to check whether your plans are financially sensible. Normally these proportions are the other way around and the Tories are the sensible ones. 3. Friday September 23 Unsecured Tax Cuts A proud Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng presents a package of 45 billion pounds (about 51.5 billion euros) in tax cuts. It is the largest reduction in more than thirty years. But how will the government compensate for the lack of income? According to Kwarteng and Truss, the cuts will lead to economic growth, which will increase the income that the government will still receive from taxes. Their full budget with precise explanation about the coverage will follow later, at the end of November, Kwarteng promises. This turns out to be a major miscalculation . The financial markets do not believe in unsecured tax cuts, especially in times of crisis with a war in Ukraine, energy problems and screeching inflation. The British pound falls to a record low against the dollar. The Bank of England must intervene and will temporarily buy government bonds to prevent interest rates on those loans from skyrocketing. Now it also becomes clear how great the power is of the lower house members who did not support Truss. Within a week, she and Kwarteng must come back from the most symbolic measure in their package: abolishing the highest income tax rate for the richest Britons. Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential committee of backbenchers (lower houses who do not hold ministerial posts), visits Truss and tells her that she simply does not have enough support for it within the faction. The first big U-turn is a fact. With Kwasi Kwarteng, the finance minister she sacrificed to save herself. Photo Tolga Akmen/EPA 4. Friday October 14th Truss fires Quarteng The turmoil in the financial markets is not going to subside. Big question marks remain about how the government will pay for its plans. Which public facilities should believe in making cutbacks? It remains unclear. Minister Kwarteng puts forward his accountability, from the end of November to the end of October, but that is not enough. On Friday, October 14, Truss will sacrifice Kwasi Kwarteng – after 38 days – in order to remain in power. Within the party, and beyond, her action is seen as an act of desperation. She and Kwarteng are cut from the same cloth in terms of content, they sit on the right flank of the party. They made their decisions “ in lockstep ”, as Truss used to say. She cannot give a clear answer to a question during the press conference as to why she can stay if he has to go. The new Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt reversed almost all measures on the Monday after he took office . Only the cheaper tax for the purchase of a house and a reduction in social security contributions will save it – because the legislation has already advanced too far to convert everything again. And the end on the legal maximum for banker bonuses remains, but that measure does not cost the taxpayer any money. Jeremy Hunt, a moderate Tory who also twice ran for party leadership but never won, is now practically in charge, no longer Truss. She does not respond to questions about the completely new course in the House of Commons. Is the Prime Minister hiding under her desk, a Labor MP wonders? Group leader of the Tories Penny Mordaunt – her name is being circulated as a possible successor – repeats it once, no, “the prime minister is not under her desk “. Also Read: Bond Investors Signed ‘Trussonomics’ Death Sentence 5. Wednesday October 19 The Endgame Political commentator Tim Shipman of The Times has been walking around Westminster, the political heart of London, for more than twenty years. “I wrote a million words about the last six years of British politics turning into a psychodramatic drug dream, but today could be the craziest day of all,” Shipman wrote on Twitter late at night. Truss will lose another minister that Wednesday. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary is leaving. Officially because she had sent confidential documents to a colleague with her private email address, but everything shows that there is more behind it. Braverman, who is ideologically on the far right of the party, says tellingly in her suicide note that she is “drawing her conclusions” now that she has made a mistake. But according to The Daily Telegraph , Braverman refused to agree to a more lenient immigration policy , needed to remedy labor shortages in the UK. Chaos breaks out in the House of Commons in the evening as a vote on drilling for shale gas breaks out. This is also a subject on which the Tories are deeply divided. Many MPs have residents in their constituencies who are concerned about the drilling and the earthquakes it could cause. Labor is seeking a motion to ban drilling – they know many Tories would prefer to agree to it, against their party line. There is confusion about the vote. To what extent is this a disguised motion about confidence in the government? The two whips, who are responsible for the faction discipline on behalf of the government, do not have things under control and for hours it is even unclear whether they have not resigned themselves. MPs report harassment from ministers who allegedly tried to force their colleagues to make the ‘right’ choice. At half past one in the morning, Downing Street spokesmen send out a message; the whips are still there and they have “complete confidence” from the prime minister. But who still has faith in her? An interview from the Conservative Charles Walker will be circulated on Thursday morning. Not a prominent figure, but he articulates exactly what many Tories must feel. He has been in the House of Commons for seventeen years and is ashamed, he says. “It’s an embarrassing display. I’ve had enough of those talentless people who don’t act in the interest of the country but in the interest of their own position.” For the rest of the morning, the denunciations trickle in to the trust in Truss. Graham Brady of the backbenchers committee and Deputy Prime Minister and Truss’ girlfriend Therese Coffey come to Downing Street for a meeting. Then Liz Truss also knows that her premiership, after 45 days, is over. New Prime Minister What now? The Conservative Party will hold another internal election for a party leader. That election should be decided before next Friday, October 28. Until a new party leader – and thus prime minister – is elected, Liz Truss will stay on. Opposition leaders Keir Starmer of Labor and Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats immediately called for national elections after Truss left. But that is not mandatory. Due to the disastrous last party leaders and prime ministers within the Conservative Party, confidence in politics has been seriously dented. It is therefore also possible that a new Conservative party leader will indeed call new elections. British media speculate about this. Candidates have not yet made themselves known. The newly appointed Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt already announced on Thursday that he would not stand for election. Betting shops are placing the most chances on Rishi Sunak, whose Truss won the previous party leadership battle, followed by faction leader in the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fourth on the list of contenders. A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of October 21, 2022