The truss revolution is eating itself

The “Nasty Party” is back. After years of hard work for Conservatives to shake off that label, Liz Truss restored it overnight. Under Truss, the Tories no longer rule for the nation. They’re a cult – and it’s not even clear who they represent.

“Let’s remove them,” Truss hissed icily as two earnest and apparently harmless young women unfurled a Greenpeace banner in the middle of their speech at the convention. Tony Blair, David Cameron or Boris Johnson would have defused the situation with a smile. For Truss, it was a gift to her narrative that Britain is being held back by an “anti-growth coalition” of eco-idiots, “militant unions”, “Brexit deniers”, “talking heads” and the opposition – who, if If she hasn’t noticed, they’re way ahead in the polls.

Watching her talk made me cold. I wasn’t surprised by her failure to apologize for the disastrous economic mismanagement, or by her condescending lecture in kindergarten that we can all get a bigger slice if we enlarge the pie. What frightened me was her portrayal of anyone who disagreed with her as an enemy—an enemy of growth, an enemy of the state.

What the country needs right now is calm, stability and optimism. Yet this government has turned against almost all of us: civil servants, students, doctors who don’t see enough patients, experts who “take a taxi from north London townhouses to the BBC studios” (I ride my bike) , people who don’t work hard enough, low-skilled immigrants, the 64 per cent of people who now think Brexit is going badly, and even those of their own peers who think it’s wrong to index the state pension, while social benefits are not indexed.

This is iconoclasm for its own sake and fanaticism without a creed. It was vindictive of Truss to purge the cabinet of its few remaining talents for not giving her enough full support in the leadership contest. It was stupid too. She has made an enemy of Michael Gove, who has already forced her to reverse the top tax rate cut and is now aiming to stop her welfare cuts. Her mantra is ‘deliver’, but few of her ministers have any idea how to actually accelerate ‘more roads, faster broadband, affordable childcare’. Their chief of staff is a PR man with no Whitehall experience who advised the affable Zac Goldsmith during a nasty, failed election campaign for London’s mayoralty.

Even the normally sensible Thérèse Coffey has struck a bullying tone as health secretary just when the government should be in listening mode. Adding another target for the NHS will not help people see a GP. Also, does it not correspond to the declared goal of this government to reduce bureaucracy – unless it is only a question of “EU bureaucracy”?

But nothing is consistent from this government. Truss admits she wants a small state, but her energy package eclipses both the 2008 bank bailout and the 2020 holiday. This package should be examined much more closely. She claims her chancellor has “an iron grip on government finances,” but he’s presiding over an untargeted, two-year blank check for everyone, including the wealthiest — while refusing to implement an unexpected tax or an appropriate energy-reduction strategy in the US to consider. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister says “I believe in sound money” after inciting a run on the pound.

Four weeks into her reign, it feels like the party is already over. Not only were many Tory MPs avoiding the Birmingham conference, but many of the usual protesters couldn’t bother to turn up. Delegates usually endure menacing crowds and deafening music. But this year all I had to do was navigate through a crowd waving EU flags and a band playing the Benny Hill theme tune.

Almost every Tory MP now fears a landslide defeat at the next election. Truss allies claim their mistake was not rolling the playing field for their “mini” budget, markets will settle down and the energy crisis will ease. They point out that Gordon Brown was considered settled in 2007 but shored things up enough to oust David Cameron in 2010. Others believe the best hope of saving their seats in 2024 is to install a new leader, either “Rishi by Christmas” or a nurturing caretaker like Kit Malthouse. I think those trying to resuscitate Johnson underestimate the level of anger that he supported Truss in a naked revenge attack on Sunak.

The 1922 Backbench Committee would have to change its rules, but that’s entirely possible, especially since Truss has no mandate for their policies. When the Greenpeace banner asked, “Who voted for it?” The answer is fewer than 82,000 members of the Conservative Party, which won in 2019 with a very different manifesto.

Just before Truss made her speech, I had lukewarm coffee with a brilliant young woman who until recently had hoped to become a Tory MP. We talked about how we had developed our political views. I realized that I had always disliked the left because it seemed so full of hate. I remembered how my own godfather, a Labor MP, defected to the SDP in the 1980s, fearing the malice of the hard left. Then I watched a conservative prime minister despise the nation.

How will Truss face the striking nurses when we will all be with them in spirit at the picket line? How will she restore our country’s standing in the world if she has destroyed it? The revolution will eat itself. And as long as it lasts, we are all collateral damage.

camilla.cavendish@ft.com