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Truss is on center-stage, at least for now
Johnson has handed over to Truss the reins of a country tightly enveloped in an acute economic crisis, amid skyrocketing energy costs
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Elbow bump: Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi (right) and United Kingdom foreign secretary Liz Truss pose for photographers as they met in Jakarta on Nov. 11, 2021. Truss has been appointed prime minister of the UK, replacing Boris Johnson. (AFP/Handout)
L
iz Truss, proving all the opinion polls right, has finally won the coveted post of British prime minister, but she has inherited a daunting set of circumstances that none of her predecessors in the last five decades faced in their first day in office.
All previous economic and political crises in the recent political history of the United Kingdom stand pale when compared with the current energy and cost-of-living crisis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that all the problems of the past 50 years have converged on the UK in one fell swoop.
The UK faces an economic emergency that is unprecedented since World War II. Truss will meet it, even if she is unwilling, with 100 billion pounds (US$115 billion) of public money, exorbitantly higher than what her predecessor, Boris Johnson, spent on furlough during the COVID-19 crisis.
Will she make a barefaced U-turn for a prime minister who spent the whole summer vehemently campaigning for office on a pledge of no more such “handouts”? Partly, yes. Yet brute necessity will compel her to find a plausible justification for her reverse gear on her campaign slogans.
A looming energy crisis is hovering around 10 Downing Street – consumers, producers and retailers are all squawking in agony. Thousands of small businesses are facing imminent bankruptcy if the energy prices keep moving upward with this velocity. There is every likelihood that after 12 years of Tory government, Truss will be forced to resort to the Labour Party’s state interventionism to salvage the situation.
It is now immaterial what kind of management style she adopts, whether she projects herself as principled, brittle or opportunistic leader. She needs to be ultra-pragmatic in tackling the current imbroglio. What matters the most is how a pragmatic leader can carry the country through this grave emergency.
This crisis also provides a great opportunity to Truss, who, during the campaign for Tory leadership in last two months, was making reckless promises of no windfall taxes, to prove her mettle and carve a tangible role for herself in the Conservative Party by managing the economy dexterously till the next general elections without any major mishaps.
