Would the real Liz Truss please stand up?

New Statesman​

3 hours ago

Photo byEveryone's favourite short-lived Prime Minister has become a Westminster byword for political failure. There's nothing Keir Starmer likes more at PMQs than invoking the spectre of Truss – regardless of whether it bears any relevance to the question asked. The PM has even branched out, attempting to smear Nigel Farage with the Truss brush, whether by focusing on Tory-Reform defections or pointing out the similarities between the party's fantasy economics and the mini-Budget that 'crashed the economy'.
Kemi Badenoch's tactic so far has been to ignore this line of attack. While the Tory leader has been forthright in her criticism of decisions taken by her predecessors, she has proved reluctant to wade in on the mini-Budget and its aftermath, seeming far happier to lament Theresa May's net zero policy or Boris Johnson's failure to control immigration to have a go at Truss. Maybe she was hoping to avoid drawing attention once again to a period of Conservative governance which still has the potential to enrage voters who remember their mortgage payments spiking and the sense of chaos. Or maybe she just didn't want to start a civil war in the Tory party. Until now.
Over the weekend, Badenoch changed tack and attempted to use her former boss (it was Truss who first appointed Badenoch to the cabinet, making her Trade Secretary) in the same way Starmer has been doing: to discredit her adversaries. 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss,' she wrote in an op-ed in the Telegraph, 'Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-Budget and are making even bigger mistakes.'
This Labour Prime Minister and Chancellor were just like Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, Badenoch warned, 'spending billions without also making the necessary savings to offset their splurge and balance the books'. They were risking a 'debt spiral', with the UK economy 'teetering on the brink' just as it had when the bond markets descended in the carnage in autumn 2022.
We'll come on to why this intervention from Badenoch is significant in a moment – but first, the blue-on-blue action. For if Starmer thinks Farage is the new Truss, and Badenoch thinks it is Rachel Reeves, what does the actual Truss have to say for herself? According to the former PM, it is Badenoch who has not learnt the lessons of the mini-Budget – which was, apparently, 'the right approach at the right time that would have resulted in higher growth, lower debt and cheaper energy'. The reason it all went so horribly wrong? The Conservative Party, which refused to go along with the planned 'Javier Milei agenda' to cut spending and therefore, with the help of the Bank of England, sabotaged the whole endeavour.
Truss ends her apologia by reminding Westminster watchers that Badenoch has promised to tell the British people 'the truth even when it is difficult to hear': 'If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative Party is in serious trouble.'
It goes without saying that this sort of infighting is deeply unhelpful to a party trying to rebuild itself in opposition. It goes without saying too that Truss was always going to respond this way, accusing Badenoch of 'repeating spurious narratives' and defending her record by launching grenades at the party she briefly ran. It's what she's been doing since being forced out as Prime Minister, with her book and her Maga speaking tour, turbocharged since she lost her seat last July. As one former aide pointed out, it's not like she has anything to lose. Her determination to refight the battles of 2022 regardless of the damage it might do to her successor is one reason many Tories believe Badenoch should demonstrate her insistence that the party is under new leadership by kicking Truss out.
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More interesting is Badenoch's decision, nine months into her leadership, to publicly break with Truss. The move comes with risk, and not just the inevitable backlash reminding voters of the Tory psychodrama they so despised. It also reflects on Badenoch herself, who at the time of the mini-Budget tweeted that Truss and Kwarteng were '100 per cent right' and was happy to serve in the cabinet. Lots of Tories took a different stance, not least Mel Stride. The now shadow chancellor was one of the fiercest critics of Truss and Kwarteng in 2022 when he chaired the Treasury Select Committee, highlighting their failure to engage with the Bank of England or the OBR when developing the mini-Budget. Badenoch did nothing of the sort. For someone who likes pointing out when other people have failed to take responsibility for their mistakes, this is rather awkward.
The calculation in play may hinge on the number of former Tories who have deserted the party for Reform over the past year. While there is little data on this, both Reform and Conservative strategists believe – with good reason – that it is disillusioned Tories from the right of the party who have found Farage most appealing (which is why James Cleverly might have more of a shot at the leadership than one might expect). In other words, Badenoch can afford to denounce Truss in a way she couldn't before now that the Truss fans have already quit the party.
Or it could simply be desperation. The Conservatives have essentially vanished this summer – it is Farage who has sucked up that airtime, with his 'Lawless Britain' campaign. The party is languishing on 18 per cent in the polls. Badenoch herself is under fire, and any time she tries to attack the government the inevitable riposte is 'but the mini-Budget'. You can see why giving Starmer and Reeves a taste of their own medicine is tempting, even if it's unlikely to work (focus groups suggest that, while voters are still furious about Truss, they associate her firmly with the Tories, hence why Labour's Truss lines against Reform have failed to land).
Will this change of direction help detoxify the Tories? It might – if voters were paying attention. As it is, all this shift does is reiterate to the country that the Conservative broad church is not a happy party.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[See also: Palestine Action and the distortion of terrorism]
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