Headline Roundup • October 21st, 2022
Liz Truss: What Can We Learn From the UK’s Shortest-Serving Prime Minister?
World,United Kingdom,Liz Truss,Economy And Jobs,Banking And Finance,Taxes,Tax Cuts,Politics,Libertarian,Margaret Thatcher
Summary from the AllSides News Team
British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned on Thursday, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in her country’s history and prompting a flurry of perspectives from political and economic circles.
Key Quotes: On October 14, the U.K.’s Daily Star (Not Rated) began running a live video titled, “Will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?” The lettuce won, prompting the Star to ask, “which cabbage can we expect in Downing Street next?” On Thursday, Truss said, “given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” adding that she would “remain as PM until my successor has been chosen.” Potential successors include Truss’ predecessor, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
For Context: Truss and finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng inadvertently triggered a financial crisis by announcing a “mini-budget” that would have sharply cut taxes — including by eliminating the country’s top tax bracket — without balancing them with budget cuts, even as the U.K. experienced 10.1% annual inflation. Financial markets fell sharply, prompting the Bank of England to prop up the value of the pound.
What Commentators Said: Voices across the spectrum weighed in on Truss’ resignation, particularly in business-focused outlets. While some framed Truss as representing a failed return of “Thatcherism” or libertarianism — as one professor wrote, the “Tax Cut Zombie” — some on the right pushed back on that notion, instead highlighting “lessons for conservatives.”
Featured Coverage of this Story
Daniel Leal/Pool via REUTERS
Daniel Pryor, who lobbies for governments to shrink the state and cut taxes, feels Liz Truss's brief, disastrous spell as prime minister has killed off his dream of a low-tax, deregulated British economy for at least a generation.
Pryor, who works at the Adam Smith Institute in London, laughs bitterly at the irony that Truss, who said on Thursday she would resign, was forced to abandon her libertarian economic policies by the same free markets she cherishes.
The Adam Smith Institute, and other think tanks which provided much of Truss's inspiration,...
REUTERS
The joke in Britain is that the country is becoming like Italy – but without the weather. In other words – ungovernable.
Just as Italian politics seem to throw up a new government most weeks, so the UK seems to be churning through Prime Ministers. Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday after a mere six weeks. The shortest-lived Prime Minister in history, she´d barely unpacked her bags in Downing Street before having to pack them back up again.
Her successor – due to be announced next week – will be the country´s...
Isabel Infantes/EPA
Britain has been through the wringer since last month’s mini-budget. Not only was Kwasi Kwarteng’s not-so-mini plan the trigger for a domestic financial crisis and higher mortgage costs for millions, it lit the blue touchpaper for his political downfall and that of his close friend, Liz Truss.
It was all supposed to be so different. Truss had spent the summer promising to cancel the rise in national insurance and corporation tax in the Conservative leadership race. Those pledges, plus her popular energy price freeze, would have been plenty for the new...
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