Ten Years to Save the West
Liz Truss
The scene is Birmingham, 30 September 2022, just before the self-described Brian Clough of prime ministers gave her keynote address to what turned out to be a divertingly catastrophic Conservative party conference.
The then prime minister is livid about how a cabal of blob-adjacent political invertebrates were trying to nobble the week-old minibudget that she had devised with her chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng .
By means of this budget, a new globally competitive postBrexit Britain would emerge. This “unchained Britannia ” would be unconstrained by planning regulations, free to frack as never before and able to explore the North Sea for oil despite the ululations of the anti-growth wokerati. This would be a Britain where the super-rich were less hamstrung by corporation or inheritance taxes, and in which the 45p income tax rate (what she calls here the “ anti-success tax ”) would be little more than a bad memory.
What Truss didn’t seem to understand, now as then, is the handbrake had long ago come off and that both she and Kwarteng, like some latter-day approximations of Thelma and Louise , were barrelling towards oblivion. At Birmingham, in the face of objections from fellow Tories and serious market jitters , Kwarteng U-turned on that tax break for the rich. Later, the pair’s whole plan for growth was junked.
This story is from the April 18, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 18, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Explained: how did the Everton crisis get to this point?
Owner made bold promises but the club have this week had to callin insolvency advisers amid huge debts
Key expects ‘slugfest' as England's batting muscle ripples from top
Amidrising tide of Twenty20 run-rates, the defending champions have opted for more aggression in selection
'Defending democracy' The fears behind EU ultimatum to Meta on fake news
Fears that Vladimir Putin is trying to fill the European parliament with pro-Russia MEPs were behind the EU's blunt message to the Silicon Valley owner of Facebook yesterday. It gave Meta just five days to explain how it will root out fake news, fake websites and stop adverts funded by the Kremlin, or face severe measures.
Whitbread to cut 1,500 jobs and sell 126 restaurants
The Premier Inn owner Whitbread is to cut 1,500 jobs in the UK and shut more than 100 struggling restaurants despite announcing a significant rise in returns to shareholders.
'Poised and calm' The young, fresh face of France's far right
A mid the paté stalls wine-tastings and of a country fair, a young politician hailed as the new face of the French far right was jostled by crowds shouting for photographs and handing him tricolour flags to autograph. \"Rockstar!\" shouted one 18-year-old.
Five skeletons unearthed at home where Goring lived in Nazi base
Amateur archaeologists have found five human skeletons missing their hands and feet under the former home of the Nazi war criminal Hermann Goring at Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair military headquarters in present-day Poland.
Trump fined 9,000 for violating gag order and warned of jail time
Donald Trump was fined 9,000 yesterday for nine violations of a gag order designed to protect participants in the former US president’s criminal trial in New York as thejudge warned him faced jail ifhe continued to violate the order.
Student protests Expulsion threat at Columbia campus
Tensions at Columbia University are boiling over since students protesting over the Israel-Hamas war inside Hamilton Hall now face expulsion, a spokesperson said yesterday.
Shh! Intimate Ralph Lauren runway show whispers quiet sophistication
In recent years, the settings for Ralph Lauren's runway shows have become something akin to displays of the designer's power and influence.
Running round a Wall of Death may aid astronauts’ fitness on moon
As humans prepare to return to the moon after an absence of more than half a century, researchers have hit on a radical approach to keeping astronauts fit as they potter around the ball of rock.