.jpg)
The Guardian view on Liz Truss: the disingenuous
insurgent
Editorial
The current frontrunner in the race to be PM is
pursuing reckless politics in the Johnsonian style
Tue 2 Aug
2022 19.40 BST
As her
opponent in the race to become prime minister has not infrequently pointed out,
Liz Truss voted remain. To Rishi Sunak’s chagrin, this heretical past (and an
earlier disreputable association with the Lib Dems) has failed to unduly
disconcert Conservative party members. Ms Truss has confessed to error and now
pursues the ever elusive benefits of Brexit with the zeal of a convert.
Unfortunately for the former chancellor, who needs to come from behind in the
polls, the transformation appears plausible because Ms Truss’s political style
– if not her past policies – gels naturally with the disruptive vibe of Vote
Leave.
This week,
this “move fast and break things” approach arguably led to Ms Truss’s first
major misstep of the leadership contest. An ill thought out but radical
sounding policy to slash civil service wages outside London was withdrawn
within hours, after a predictably furious response from “red wall” Tories. But
if Mr Sunak fails to capitalise on the moment, it will confirm the continued
hegemony of what one might call the “insurgent style” in British politics.
Despite
serving three successive Tory prime ministers in five cabinet positions,
culminating in her current role as foreign secretary, Ms Truss has successfully
cast herself as the “change” candidate in the party leadership race. To pull
this off, she has shown a considerable appetite for confrontation (she blamed
media misrepresentation for Tuesday’s policy fiasco) and a gymnastic gift for
repositioning. Mr Sunak’s traditional Thatcherite focus on deficit-cutting has
been derided as part of a failed “orthodoxy” in the Treasury, where Ms Truss
served for two years as chief secretary (after previously backing the austerity
policies of the Osborne era). The Northern Ireland protocol bill has become an
anti-Brussels totem to brandish before the members as evidence of crusading
authenticity. At the second hustings in Exeter on Monday, Ms Truss spoke about
the EU in terms more appropriate to discussing Vladimir Putin’s Russia,
suggesting that: “We’ve learned from history that there is only one thing the
EU understands and that is strength.”
To a
country facing rampant inflation, possible recession, an accelerating climate
crisis and an ever-more threatening energy crunch, Ms Truss and Mr Sunak offer
different kinds of wrong answers. Mr Sunak’s dry economic instincts are
hopelessly inappropriate for the times, and are already leading to a shortfall
in the assistance needed to help those suffering at the sharp end. Ms Truss’s
libertarian iconoclasm, and distrust of the state and public sector – at a time
when collective solidarity and solutions are required – would sow division and
social strife. But her status as favourite as voting begins – bolstered by the
support of supposedly moderate figures such as Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat
– suggests that aggressively paraded convictions and having it both ways still
cuts through, however contradictory and inconsistent the claims being made.
Disastrously,
this brand of politics has come to dominate since the Brexit referendum. It
enables Ms Truss to pledge to curtail Britain’s economic dependency on China,
Britain’s third-largest trading partner, while simultaneously risking a trade
war with its biggest, the EU. In the middle of a cost of living crisis. If the
tone is right – a kind of belligerent boosterism which condemns all criticism
as “talking Britain down” – it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t add up. Boris
Johnson pioneered this style in Downing Street. For the time being, it seems
that a majority of Tory party members may be minded to go again.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário