Political column - October 22

“And here is the Swiss Naval Attache!”

There was a ripple of laughter.

The Swiss Naval Attache piped up: “Why are you laughing? After all, the Italians have a finance minister.”

Today it is the United Kingdom which finds itself in the position of having a reputation for financial competence and political stability on a par with that of successive Italian governments.

Other countries must be laughing at us. It is a national humiliation, and the fate of Liz Truss is a personal and political tragedy, the worst nightmare of any politician, making history in all the wrong ways.

So much in politics, as in life, is about timing. Arguably there are no right or wrong policies, just right times and wrong times for policies.

Perhaps in a different, less turbulent, time and in different and more favourable circumstances, Liz Truss would have made an adequate Prime Minister of the lacklustre placeholder type.

But she has demonstrably not been the Prime Minister for these times and these circumstances.

One of her more unfortunate qualities has been an unmistakeable aura of absence. At critical points in the past few weeks, when she needed to be an indefatigable presence doggedly batting at the crease and defiantly making her case, she has not been there. When the going got tough, Liz got going – somewhere else.

Finally, she has disappeared entirely. She is the Conservative Party's gone girl.

Whatever you may think of her, some of her treatment has been cruel and grubby. It has not been pretty, with frightened politicians on one side, ambitious politicians on the other.

She has been assailed and attacked as if she is some sort of heartless criminal who deliberately set out to spread misery and hardship with measures designed to make things worse for people during the cost of living crisis.

In fact, with her tax cuts and energy support package – the former reversed, and the latter now watered down – she was trying to make things better.

The markets are like the weather, affecting us all and impossible to ignore. Now we have Jeremy Hunt in place as Chancellor making sacrifices to appease the weather gods.

It's worth remembering that the bankbusting elements of that now notorious mini Budget enjoyed a measure of cross-party support. And accusations that it was a mini-Budget to help the rich were hardly enough to bring down a Tory premier after just a few weeks in office.

What killed off so-called Trussonomics was the markets going into meltdown. They did the sums and saw that the mini-Budget didn't add up.

Obedient to their demands, Liz Truss ditched almost all of it.

With hindsight, it all ended right there. After the U-turns Liz Truss ended up not even standing for Liz Truss. Her credibility was fatally shot, and whatever authority she had had among MPs, most of whom had not backed her in the first place, drained away.

The markets destroyed her first, and she lacked the strength, resilience, and cunning to survive politically.

A question arises out of this about to what extent elected politicians should try to assuage those weather gods of the markets, who are elected by nobody and nothing except money.

With Liz Truss it was almost as if The City had the whip hand in deciding who can be Prime Minister and the policies those in 10 and 11 Downing Street are permitted to pursue.

Let's do some just supposin'. Just supposin' Jeremy Corbyn was elected in 2019 on a radical Labour agenda. On the face of it, he wouldn't have lasted as Prime Minister for long. The markets, the very whirring wheels and cogs of capitalism, wouldn't wear it, and would throw a major wobbly. Similarly, John McDonnell would have been quickly shot down as Chancellor.

The comparison falls down for one reason. Jezza and John would not have done any U-turns. They would have said "stuff the markets."

So now we have another Conservative Party leadership election. Sadly for the Tories, the saintly Sir Keir Starmer still remains unavailable due to other commitments.

With a general election the last thing the Tories wanting, Sir Keir will at least have a bit more time to choose some new wallpaper for his arrival into Number 10.