for most Britons. Freshly appointed by the Queen to form a Cabinet, Mary Liz Truss presented her political programme to address the energy crisis. Except that at noon, an unusual announcement made by Her Majesty’s medical team put the entire nation on high alert and the rest of the world on stand-by. Liz Truss returned to Downing Street, according to her staff, to work on a press release. Later that evening, the Royal House announced the Queen had died!
“She has been a personal inspiration to me and to many Britons”, the British Prime Minister would say that evening in a press statement marking the death of the British monarch. Liz Truss pointed out that, although 96 years old, the Queen remained determined to carry out her duties by appointing her as head of the government, just two days before passing away.
Mary Liz Truss was the Conservatives’ final choice for replacing Boris Johnson at the helm of the party. And it was not a decision taken lightly, especially as the frequent scandals the latter had stirred in his wake had left a sizable dent in the Conservatives’ reputation. But will the “political chameleon”, which is what Liz Truss is called by her peers, be able to save the face of her party? She has promised a return to fundamental Conservative values, slashing taxes and a crackdown on state bureaucracy. But will it be enough?
Truss’s answer to the energy crisis – a temporary fix
Liz Truss is taking over as Britain’s Prime Minister at a very delicate time. The most pressing matter right now is the energy crisis. The plan presented in Parliament on the very day the Queen died didn’t pass unnoticed, many voices arguing it merely delays the fundamental issues Britons are already dealing with. Introducing a cap on the average cost of energy for households at 2,500 pounds a year will do little to change living costs across the kingdom, even though Truss claims people will save as much as a 1,000 pounds per year: they will never see this kind of money in their pockets due to record-high inflation and soaring living standards.
Britain’s civil society had already announced there would be no honeymoon period for the Truss Cabinet. No matter how cynical this might sound, Truss can consider herself lucky that the whole of Britain is now in mourning. And what is the Prime Minister doing to gain the trust of the population? She is slashing a few taxes here and there and cutting bureaucracy, the very promises she used to woo the Conservative grassroots. However, this will cover less than 1% of government spending earmarked to capping energy prices. All the experts in the UK are saying Truss’s plan is a temporary solution that lacks vision. Truss never spoke of “efficiency” or “reducing energy demand”, which raises an older question. When it comes to the energy efficiency of households across the kingdom, Great Britain ranks at the bottom of European standings. Studies confirm that a great deal of heat is wasted and the government needs to take swift action to curb this phenomenon.
Liz Truss has bought herself some time with her 100-billion-EUR plan, but in the absence of significant investment for household insulation, such programs will need to be renewed again and again. They will be just as expensive and economically unprofitable as previous plans. The British Institute for Government, the most important think tank in the United Kingdom, warned as early as April that the country was left extremely vulnerable to gas price hikes. Over 80% of British households are currently gas-heated, way above the European average. In addition, British homes are old and have the lowest energy-efficient rating at European level. 52% of households in England were built before 1965, and nearly 20% before 1919. And the Truss government fails to recognize a solution that would translate into lower energy bills.
Crises beyond the energy sector: healthcare, Northern Ireland and the war in Ukraine
And this is not the only issue the new Prime Minister has to worry about. Adding to the increasingly higher living costs is an unprecedented crisis brewing in the British medical system, the NHS. It was once the pride and glory of the kingdom. After two years of riding the wave of the COVID pandemic, the National Health Service is now on the brink of collapse. Successive Cabinets in Downing Street have in the last decade done little to prevent the acute crisis that is sweeping the healthcare sector. And things got even more complicated after Great Britain decided to leave the European Union. The British media is flooded with reports about underfunding that would inevitably lead to a shortage of qualified medical staff. Great Britain has sadly managed to break a record in terms of average waiting times required to receive medical care. Cancer patients have to wait several months before seeing a specialist and several more months before they can start treatment.
And since we’ve mentioned problems generated by Brexit, an idea that Truss seemed to endorse one second, only to oppose the next, the new Prime Minister will have to come up with a solution to settle the stand-off over the Northern Ireland protocol post-Brexit. She will also have to deal with Scotland’s pressing call for hosting a referendum next year on Scotland’s independence from the UK, an idea that has gained increased momentum in a country that opposed Brexit from the beginning.
The fourth issue Liz Truss will have to sort out is the war in Ukraine. It’s unlikely we will see any change in this respect. Great Britain will continue to assist Ukraine in every possible way. Truss might use an even harsher tone in relations with Russia. Suffice it just to recall the contempt Truss had been shown in Moscow just two weeks before the invasion. Now, on the day she was sworn in, Lavrov called Liz Truss uncompromising, arguing this will not help Great Britain maintain or consolidate its position in the international political arena.
The “chameleon” must show consistency and tell the truth if she wants to remain at 10 Downing Street
Mary Liz Truss has been a big league player for 12 years. Prior to becoming a top-level politician, she had been a backbencher in the Liberal-Democratic camp, a rival of the Conservative Party. It is from this position that she drew attention to herself with an anti-monarchy speech. Admittedly, she was only 19 when she called for the abolition of the monarchy.
Her discourse today has been stripped of any hint of anti-monarchy sentiment, but that doesn’t mean her way of switching from one idea to a diametrically opposed one, will change. Today she praises Margaret Thatcher’s fighting spirit. She aspires to be the female politician of the 21st century, the third woman to serve as Prime Minister in the history of the United Kingdom, a figure that would trigger a genuine revolution. Her father was a professor of mathematics and her mother a nurse. As a little girl, she would often accompany her parents as they attended rallies against the Iron Lady. All these episodes might seem insignificant and perhaps more suited for tabloids, and maybe we should give Mrs. Truss the benefit of the doubt. Yet not every woman who ends up in 10 Downing Street gets to be Margaret Thatcher.
Liz Truss was also a fierce militant of the Remain camp in the Brexit dispute, but she did come to the assistance of Prime Minister David Cameron – another opponent of Brexit – in organizing the referendum that produced the well-known result. A report published two years ago by the British Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) suggested that disinformation operations overseen by Moscow, particularly on social media, could have been a contributing factor that influenced the result of the referendum in favor of Leave. In fact, the report also states that the Russian influence in the United Kingdom is the “new normal”, arguing that many Russians from Vladimir Putin’s inner circle are integrated in Great Britain and have been accepted due to their wealth. Therefore, it befalls Liz Truss to also carry over the legislation adopted in Boris Johnson’s mandates regarding unaccountable wealth and money laundering.
In her first post-investiture speech, Liz Truss told Britons that “we can ride out the storm!” More specifically, it was a call for help addressed to taxpayers who are already overburdened by soaring inflation, bills and living costs. You can’t get something for nothing. To go down in history not just as Queen Elizabeth II’s last Prime Minister, but also King Charles III’s first, Liz Truss must dazzle Britons with her straightforwardness. Meaning she mustn’t lie, although it is the job description of any politician. The British people have been constantly lied to and manipulated by their politicians, and tabloids in particular. As a result, they ended up throwing away EU membership, and then had to call in the army to supply stores with toilet paper.
