Duncan Bowie on Liz Truss and her legacy
Truss at 10 by Anthony Seldon published by Atlantic
There was a rumour that Seldon was not going to write a volume in his prime ministers series on Truss, and instead was going to give her a short chapter in his forthcoming study of Rishi Sunak’s time as Prime Minister. Yet we now have a 365-page book on her 49 days in power. This could be seen as quite an achievement, especially given he was also a school headteacher while writing the book. Seldon’s approach to contemporary political studies is in the tradition of “tick-tock” history, that is a detailed chronological narrative, which since the book focuses on 49 days, is perhaps more detailed than normal, especially covering the last days and hours of Truss” time in office.
Seldon as always has a team of researchers and drafters behind him, one of whom, Jonathan Meakin, is credited on the book’s cover. However, the first hundred pages or so covers the development of Truss” politics before she became Prime Minister, including a detailed study of the Conservative party leadership election, which lasted three months, twice the length of her term in office. Seldon does not go into the detail of her backstory which was covered in detail in Cole and Heale’s biography “Out of the Blue”. The structure of Seldon’s book is to consider ten components of a Prime Minister’s role and to assess Truss” performance against each criterion, which support’s the book’s subtitle “How not to be a Prime Minister”. Seldon bulks out the book with his own judgements as to how previous prime ministers, going back to Walpole, performed on each criterion.
However, the narrative has been told before and the book contains little that was not previously known, despite Seldon” work in trying to extract new material from all the key figures he interviewed. I had perhaps expected more on Truss’s working relationship with her cabinet members and advisers, but the narrative approach, possibly because of the short timescale involved, does not allow for this analysis, and while there is a chapter which focuses on Kwarteng, there is little on Kwarteng’s political and economic views and whether they were significantly different from those of Truss.
I also wondered whether the role of her key advisers, such as Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the economist Julian Jessop is understated – we know so little about them, but in the absence of Treasury leadership given the dismissal of the permanent secretary, Tom Scholar, and the sidelining of not just the Office of Budget Responsibility’s Richard Hughes but the Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, in the drafting of the catastrophic mini-budget, their role must have been significant,. Perhaps this is intentional, as Seldon is clear to load all the blame for the disaster on Truss herself. Perhaps this is fair, as the buck has to stop with the leader and after all, even in the post Cummings world, advisers are just there to advise rather than take decisions. Nevertheless, few of the individuals around Truss really challenged her when they should have. Seldon concludes rightly that Truss was intelligent and committed to her vision, but that her understanding of government, delivery and especially economics was poor, which just proves that being an accountant does not necessarily mean you understand balancing the books.
Seldon as always is worth reading, but don’t expect any revelations from the book. What is interesting is that Keir Starmer and the Labour Party don’t get mentioned much. This was all about the internal politics of the Conservative Party. It was the Conservative party who chose Truss and brought her down. The main consequence for the current Labour government is a return by Rachel Reeves to “fiscal responsibility”, “financial rectitude” and economic orthodoxy, which has perhaps made Reeves the most cautious chancellor since Philip Snowden in 1931, and this is becoming the main constraint on any opportunity for delivering our key socialist objectives. So, thank you Liz Truss. You may have damaged the Conservative party but you have also damaged all our futures.