Breathe
By Brenda Estefan
The pressure was unbearable. Yesterday, British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced to resign. She was in power for just 44 days, the shortest period of government by a British head of government. And if we subtract the 10 days of mourning for the death of Queen Elizabeth, during which British politics was put on hold, her actual time in office was just over a month.
Given that the Conservative Party has an absolute majority in Parliament, the largest since the 80's, Truss had the keys to lead her country, however, after her arrival in Downing Street, a series of mistakes led to this catastrophic end. The presentation, last September 23, of a "mini-budget" announcing millionaire tax cuts without explaining how they would be financed, unleashed tremendous panic in the markets and a collapse in the value of the pound sterling, to the extent that the Bank of England had to intervene to avoid a major financial crisis.
Last Friday, in an attempt to get back on track, Truss called for the resignation of his finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, and appointed Jeremy Hunt, a moderate Conservative, who immediately announced the reversal of a large part of the originally proposed tax cuts.
But this was not enough to avoid the debacle. The resignation of the Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, and the poor management of a vote in Parliament were the final nails in Liz Truss' political coffin.
It is surprising to witness such a phenomenon in the world's sixth largest economy, but in economic matters, credibility is fundamental and the Prime Minister has lost it miserably.
Truss, who had sought to project herself as the new Iron Lady, i.e. the new Thatcher, ended up becoming the iron weather vane as a French newspaper described her. There was no clarity about the future of the budget, her archaic ideas of lowering taxes for the biggest taxpayers in an inflationary context were mixed with the urgency of addressing pressing social needs, and as a backdrop: the false promise of welfare that Brexit would bring.
In the midst of an economic crisis, rising energy costs and 10% inflation, which has millions of British families in a complicated situation, the Tories are restarting an internal election to find a new leader, the fifth in just six years.
Among the candidates are former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose recent term in office was marked by numerous scandals; current Defense Minister Ben Wallace; former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak, who was the first to resign from Boris Johnson's government and was defeated by Truss just a few weeks ago; and the Minister responsible for relations with Parliament, Penny Mordaunt.
At the end of Truss's fleeting mandate, only 2 out of 10 Britons had a favorable opinion of her, it is good news that she has left Downing Street, but after the fiascos of the last two governments, the British do not have much hope in the Conservatives and their internal election. Proof of this is that today they are 26 percentage points behind Labour in the polls. Meanwhile, UK households are facing a purchasing power crisis not seen in decades and are desperate for assertive government decisions to cope with the complex situation.
@B_Estefan
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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