Will Liz Truss Last As UK Prime Minister To The End Of The Week? Here Is How Things Stand
By the end of this week, Britain will, in all probability, have its fourth conservative Prime Minister in as many years.
"This is now looking like a political drama from South America but minus the military uniforms and red berets," said a political commentator. And there's more than a whiff of truth in the statement. British politics, for good or bad, long held up by the rest of the world for its sobriety and integrity, has descended into farce.
By the end of this week, Britain will, in all probability, have its fourth conservative Prime Minister in as many years as the current tenant of 10 Downing Street -- Liz Truss -- aims to claim the rather dubious honour of being the shortest serving Prime Minister in British history -- less than 50 days.
Her economic plan -- celebrated to the rafters by free market libertarians everywhere but derided by everyone else, especially the markets -- has been spectacularly upended in the course of 10 days. Her new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who replaced Kwasi Kwarteng has reversed virtually all of Truss and Kwarteng's "growth policies".
A slew of tax cuts announced by the Prime Minister and his previous chancellor led to the Pound crashing and hundreds of billions being wiped off the markets, not least pension funds.
The turmoil is such that Truss has not only copy-pasted the economic policy of his leadership rival Rishi Sunak -- son-in-law of the billionaire founder of Infosys Narayana Murthy -- but also got Penny Mordaunt, another of her leadership rivals, to take questions in the House of Parliament.
As markets go into freefall and even the American president, in an unusual rebuke, calls Truss' plans a mistake, the Prime Minister herself has gone into hibernation. She's apparently hiding away in her country house 'Chequers' while her backbench MPs circle like vultures, calling for a change in leadership.
One even labelled Truss and Kwarteng "Libertarian Jihadists" who were treating British citizens like laboratory mice with their right-wing economic policies.
With her authority in tatters, there is urgent talk now of who will replace her. Many politicians -- both Conservative and Labour -- have called for a general election. But that’s a prospect that many Tories, not least Liz Truss, will fathom.
According to some polling the Conservative Party, one of the world's oldest political parties, would be left with just three seats! A more realistic outcome would be that the Tories will basically be wiped out, with Labour gaining a majority in the region of 160 seats -- a humiliation of epic proportions given that Boris Johnson had won in 2019 with an 80-seat majority.
So, the Tories are trying to find a leader that would put an end to what one Tory MP has described as a "Soap Opera". The leading contender? Rishi Sunak -- who routinely dismissed Truss' economics during the leadership campaign and whose promises during that same campaign has been utterly vindicated.
He was the choice of MPs to replace Johnson but was seen as too "orthodox" by the 80,000 or so Tory party members who ultimately gave Truss a go.
From the perspective of the British Indian community, Truss’ policies may have halved our pensions and increased our monthly mortgages but at least we’ll have "one of our own" in Downing Street by the end of the week.
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