Farewell Liz Truss, a catostrophic failure

For most people who have occupied the highest political office in the UK, their time as Prime Minister represents the high point of their careers.

Not so Liz Truss.

Her resignation today comes after just 44 days in 10 Downing Street, and was the inevitable result of an unmitigated and unprecedented failure of leadership..

To ask where it went wrong for Liz Truss would be to fail to do justice to the enormity of that failure. There was nothing that went right for Liz Truss, and there was a singular reason for that: Liz Truss.

The fantastical promises made in the indulgent leadership contest made it quite clear that Truss was not going to be a "safe pair of hands". She could have been an unspectacular but "safe" option had she not, for whatever reasons, decided to present herself as the new Thatcher ushering in an era of tax cuts. She could have won over the support of the many MPs who either distrusted or disliked her, had she not opted to put together a "conviction cabinet" whose convictions made the previous incumbents at the Treasury and Home Office look positively centrist by comparison.

On becoming Prime Minister Liz Truss did nothing to cultivate unity within her party, which has been paralysed by divisions for years. Her friends and allies were given the top positions in government,which could have worked under someone with a reputation for strength who can effectively manage their subordinates. In Truss's case, she failed to appreciate that - being the choice of the party membership but definitely not the MPs - she needed to act in ways that brought her parliamentary party together, rather than reinforce further divisions with an "us and them" mentality. For example, she could have appointed a Home Secretary who was non-controversial nor prone to making intemperate rants on the floor of the House of Commons, but she instead promoted Suella Braverman. Playing safe was never Truss's intention. She adopted a high risk strategy and it backfired spectacularly. 

The Prime Minister was handed an early test following the death of Her Majesty, but failed to use that to her advantage, appearing wooden and failing to adequately express the feelings of the nation. That failure was not critical, but it denied her the opportunity to cultivate some goodwill and demonstrate her ability to lead the country. 

Of course, we do not elect Prime Ministers in the UK. Liz Truss was elected to lead the Conservative Party, and throughout her premiership she acted in ways that seemed aimed to please those who elected her rather than in the interests of the country. That was a mistake of enormous proportions.

From the outset - actually, even before she entered Downing Street - Truss made her views on the leaders of the devolved parliaments clear, suggesting a certain view of devolution (not to mention Wales and Scotland themselves). However, it is one thing to insult Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford when acting tough for Conservative members in election hustings or conference speeches, quite another to inexplicably fail to contact either First Minister during her entire time in office.

The mini-budget was a failure not primarily because it was ideologically driven but because it was, essentially, back of an envelope stuff. Liz Truss and her then chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, also demonstrated a lack of understanding of how markets work - a criminal failure for any political leader, but particularly critical for a new Prime Minister. If Truss had taken a longer-term approach to realise her economic plan, it could have been more successful - but she was intent on making clear her Thatcherite credientials from the outset. Kwarteng was a victim of the PM overreaching herself, but far from the only one - there are many people who will be financially struggling for some time because of the Prime Minister's vanity and ignorance.

Presenting yourself as a strong leader who doesn't "u-turn" is only a good tactic if you can back the rhetoric up with something solid. There was, however, nothing solid to Liz Truss's leadership. I have lost count of how many u-turns (and u-turns on u-turns) that Liz Truss made during her brief time in Downing Street but she has become so synonymous with altering course that my oldest daughter now refers to changing her mind as "doing a Truss" or "Lizzing it". 

The news media is alrady speculating about who Liz Truss's successor will be. This obscured the fact is that the Conservative Party is fundamentally unleadable. Liz Truss's greatest failure was the failure to appreciate how enormous the task was.

Her conference speech, in which she created a convenient bogeyman - "the anti-growth coalition" was as nauseating as it was laughable from a Prime Minister whose ill-conveived mini-budget had devastated the UK economy. Choosing to identify political opponents as a collective, regressive force had McCarthyite undertones and, quite frankly, did little to help the Prime Minister be taken seriously by anyone other than the most paranoid of right-wing Conservatives.

Truss had a reputation for ineptitude prior to entering number 10, a reputation that has only been further enhanced in recent weeks. The only thing I am surprised about is how quickly everything has unravelled, and the degree of ineptitude.

A fine example of this was witnessed yesterday, when Downing Street turned a clever, but also highly transparent, Labour ploy into a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. The chaos that ensued was entirely due to the Conservative Party's remarkable ability to fall into the most obvious of traps. 

In recent days the Prime Minister has looked overwhelmed by events, in office but not in power, struggling to hold everything together. It was impossible not to feel some degree of empathy for her position. However, it is equally impossible to deny that Liz Truss's failures were largely of her own making. 

Liz Truss offered nothing original. The short-lived Trussonomics (very effectively debunked during the leadership campaign by her opponent, Rishi Sunak) contained nothing particularly new, and was mainly a rehash of Thatcherite policies that had worked to varying degrees in a different time under different conditions. Even her defiant "I am a fighter and not a quitter" channelled Peter Mandelson (why she would wish to do this I have absolutely no idea). 

It would be easy to laugh at this incredible catalogue of failure were it not so painfully serious. At least Liz Truss, now having resigned after 44 of the most difficult days of her life, will be free from the pressures that were weighing so heavily upon someone so obviously unsuited to a leadership role. In her resignation speech, the Prime Minister said that she could not "deliver the mandate on which she was elected by the Conservative Party" - that is going to be a huge problem for whoever is either brave or foolish enough to attempt to lead the country (and the party) next. 

Liz Truss's time as Prime Minister is the latest episode in a long line of failure in 10 Downing Street. However, no failure was as spectacular, nor as inevitable.

Liz Truss has made history, but not in any way she will be keen to remember. She sets an unenviable record, relieving George Canning of the distinction of holding the office of Prime Minister for the shortest time in history. Could it all have ended differently? Possibly, but the only way in which Liz Truss could have made a success of her premiership is if she had ceased to be Liz Truss.