Jeepers. We needed this. But we didn’t need the continued instability. Liz Truss has rightly resigned this afternoon. She had no credibility when elected. She had no credibility in her few days in office.
The procedures for replacing Truss are uncertain. The Tories after a summer that saw potential candidates for the Tory leadership tearing each other and the Tory’s ability to govern the nation, govern anything was trashed.
In a statement outside No 10 today, Liz Truss resigned. She boasted of her low tax, high growth economy. She has submitted her resignation to King Charles.
The new Tory leader and the prime minister will be decided within the next week (by the Tories).
Surely as a political party that has lost confidence in itself and has lost the confidence of the public and the international community, it should seek a new mandate through a general election?
* Andy Boddington is a Lib Dem councillor in Shropshire. He blogs at andybodders.co.uk.
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19 Comments
I have just received a load of Focus leaflets to deliver attacking Liz Truss which are now out of date. I had the same problem a few months ago when I was delivering leaflets attacking Boris Johnson just after he had quit. I wish the Conservatives would have the common decency to give us advance notice of when they are getting rid of their leader. It has become very difficult lately to keep our Focus leaflets up to date!
Kevin – quite!
At 55 there have been 11 PMs in my lifetime.
My son is only 16 and he’s already had 6!
@ Kevin Hawkins
Perhaps the Party needs to design a generic Focus with a blank space for the Tory PM.
I am reminded of a late boss of mine who used to greet his subordinates (usually jocularly) with the words, “Tell me, how long have you been in the job – not counting next week?”
I suspect that Graham Brady and the 1922 Committee will find a way to reduce the numbers so that there is only one candidate left (even if they have to get an agreement that the winning candidate makes the losing candidate deputy PM with a responsible job in Cabinet).
@Kevin Hawkins. Have you recycled the Boris Johnson leaflets yet. If not, I should hold on to them just in case he comes back.
Just four more Prime Ministers to go to Christmas Day.
@ Peter Davies.
Boris Johnson, the once and future P.M? I notice that the South West Surrey LibDem website includes an item calling upon Jeremy Hunt to sack Boris Johnson as P.M. But is it behind the times or ahead of them?
It’s probably time to ditch convention. King Charles 111 should just send for Kenneth Clarke to be prime minister and establish a government with cross party social democratic support
At 72 it’s 17 and counting (Wilson had 2 separate terms). No 18 on the way. Will he/she do any better? If you have a rotten set of policies, changing the salesperson doesn’t make a lot of difference.
It has been reported that Boris Johnson might be preparing to stand in the upcoming leadership election, that’s if he can tear himself away from his Caribbean holiday to bring his undoubted competence and integrity to smooth troubled waters to the rescue of the country and the Tory party? Would the electorate as whole accept that scenario, the thought just fills me with horror.?
What is there left to say? Even retweeting David Cameron’s famous tweet feels old.
We haven’t fixed the issues which meant thousands of people voted for Brexit and Boris (on basis of having nothing left to lose and these options appearing to be very different from usual); are just starting to feel impact of self-inflicted Brexit; have delayed and delayed responding to cost-of-living crisis; are trying to half-arse climate change crisis … and now we don’t have a Prime Minister, again.
Is there anything left to suffer through before we get a General Election?
She’s gone so the Conservative members can elect another right wing populist leader.
It is a spectacular fall from grace in a matter of a few short weeks. For Liz Truss personally it must be a devastating blow to find her political career in tatters with no future prospects in the Conservative party. I expect she will retire from politics at the next election (if not earlier) and her SW Norfolk seat will become a contest between Labour and the LibDem candidate.
If Labour was smart they would go for proportional representation if they win the next election. It would ensure that a split of the centre left vote would no longer allow the Conservatives to creep through the middle as has happened in so many past elections.
Joe Bourke: “her SW Norfolk seat will become a contest between Labour and the LibDem candidate.” I don’t think so. If Truss retires from politics, then she won’t be the Tory candidate at the next election and so will not be a factor in the constituency contest. Her seat is one of the safest for the Tories, so barring a total collapse in the Tory vote nationwide it will most likely remain Tory if it’s next fought at the GE. If, as is certainly possible, she does a David Cameron style flounce and takes the Chiltern Hundreds (at least that’s one job she can’t mess up) then we’d have a good chance in the resulting by-election. But it’ll still almost certainly a matter of whether we can beat the Tories into 2nd place.
Its clear from the last 5 Polls that Tory support has started to slip again after a long period (several Weeks) of stability, they seem to be around 22%, third Party territory. They are terrified of an Election but that does not mean that they can avoid one. All the Tory Factions want a Unity Candidate on their own Terms – they can still blow themselves up again.
We need to be prepared for a November/December Election.
“The Tories after a summer that saw potential candidates for the Tory leadership tearing each other and the Tory’s ability to govern the nation, govern anything was trashed.”
Sorry, and I hate to be that person, but, as someone wondering if and how being pedantic could be turned into a side-hustle as a proofreader, it would be remiss of me not to query that sentence. 😉
I was hoping I’d missed enough resignations to bring the Tory membership down to one.
@George Thomas “We haven’t fixed the issues which meant thousands of people voted for Brexit and Boris”
That’s a very important point (though I’d quibble that it’s millions rather than thousands).
Only the Greens and the SNP seem to be offering a positive alternative to the Tories while Labour and the Lib Dems seem to be waiting for Buggins’ turn and the replacement of worn-out Tories, locally and nationally, by default. A potential problem with that strategy is if (a big if, perhaps!) the Tories can find a safe pair of hands to replace Truss and calm the right of their party, Blue, Red and Yellow might not be as distinguishable as they ought to be.
Making an absolute mess of the country.Knifing each other in the back for naked ambition.Demoralizing our overseas friends.Wrecking our economy thru Brexit AND giving our enemies a laugh AND ,maybe, Johnson back?! (horror!).What is there to like.We need a GE but turkeys, alas, will not vote for Christmas. However the pressure to get rid of the Conservatives must continue.