A government that has barely begun is confronted by open questions about its imminent end. That is the astonishing truth at Westminster, so spectacularly has Liz Truss cratered her authority with her own MPs. In the short term, she seeks to salvage her premiership and her programmed for government, or at least any parts of it that can command the confidence of her party and the financial markets. Her critics say waiting until the end of the month to announce her plans is unsustainable. Meanwhile Tory MPs speculate about her future and that of the chancellor. Could Kwasi Kwarteng be the fall guy for the chaos, some ask.
One senior Conservative MP told me Ms Truss had found herself in a maze. “And every way we turn, there’s a brick wall,” they said. Others argue she has tanked and bombed with such unimaginable speed she has to go. But they’re not sure who could replace her, or how. Some talk of an “assembly of elders” as it was put to me, but then joke darkly that many of those elders either left Parliament or were thrown out of the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson. They then ponder that with so many former ministers, including two former prime ministers on the backbenches, there is plenty of experience to be drawn on, if a Conservative government of all the talents could be cobbled together.
Could defeated leadership candidate and former chancellor Rishi Sunak work with fellow defeated candidate Penny Mordaunt? What about Boris Johnson? Theresa May? William Hague? I’ve heard all these names being mentioned as the future is pondered. So back to the here and now. A U-turn looks inevitable, so when will it happen? Can it wait until the chancellor’s economic statement two weeks on Monday Right now, that seems a long, long way off. “It is choppy and might get choppier. But we’ll find a way through it,” one of Ms Truss’s team told me. The thing is, it might not be up to them. A government not yet six weeks old faces an existential threat.
