Anthony Seldon is very much an establishment figure - this is not the work of a raging socialist who would happily see the whole Tory Party condemned to prison. But he is a faithful and honest recorder of events. Despite the short length of Truss' time in Number 10, Seldon's book is based on some 120 interviews with insiders, MPs, advisors and "people in the room". It is also a rumination on what "success" and "failure" are for British PMs.
Liz Truss came to Prime Ministerial office more by accident than design. Her success was a result of machinations that were trying to keep out the right's favourite Penny Mordaunt in favour of Rishi Sunak. Truss arrived, blinking in the daylight, with few plans and concrete ideas other than a profoundly right wing neoliberal outlook on the economy and a happy go lucky attitude to finance. Partly as a result of the painful leadership election Truss was limited in who she could ask to be in her cabinet. More problematic was her focus on the hard-right of the Party which meant that fringe figures like Jacob Rees-Mogg were pushed to the fore instead of more level-headed and experienced people. Truss herself, it must be said, was relatively experienced. Seldon makes the point that in different circumstances, she could have been a relatively benign PM, after all she had served in multiple cabinets for previous PMs.
But she was elected by a Tory membership that favours the right-wing politicians, and she cobbled together a cabinet that reflected this. Seldon repeatedly makes the point that Truss' biggest failing was to mistake the enthusiastic support of the Tory membership for the electorate as a whole.
In office she made a series of blunders and errors. It is wrong, and deeply unfair, to attribute these simply to Truss's incompetence. Though there was plenty of that. Truss was singularly unwilling to listen to advice and criticism. Worse than this she made a series of personal choices that removed those best placed to offer concrete suggestions, even had she been willing to listen. In addition some of the ideas she was getting from those close to her were wild. Rees-Mogg's belief that the public could be won to nuclear power if a naval submarine was moored in the Liverpool docks and its reactor connected to the national grid being just one.
More problematic however were Truss' own right wing ideas. In fact, in Seldon's account, there is more than a little of Trumpism to her approach. Her obsession with the "blob", an alleged amorphous mass of civil servants and liberals blocking free market initiatives was one example. This meant she sacked or ignored those whom she disagreed with, cutting herself off from people who could have helped her find a way through the mess. In the middle of the economic storm it was a fatal mistake and a real weakness of her personal leadership.
However it was her commitment to a right-wing "mini budget" designed to kick start the economy that was her undoing. Improperly costed, with no intention to balance the books, the already fragile British economy was sent into freefall as the markets sold the kitchen sink as the pound collapsed. A vicious circle developed and neither Truss nor her closest allies could offer confidence or stability. It was only a matter of time before she went.
What is important here is the way that British capitalism reacted to Truss. There is no doubt that her measures would have been attractive to many in big business. Cutting taxes, ending the cap on bankers bonuses and so on. But they were mistimed, and in a period of instability, British capital needed stability in order to maximise profits. It was this that Truss and her Chancellor could not offer, and it was this that Jeremy Hunt, who replaced Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor and dramatically reversed all Truss' ideas did offer. Stability is always better for the bosses, and Truss had to go. It wasn't the blob that did for her, but the free market operating as its proponents think it should.
There is a certain delight in reading about what was happening behind the scenes. Truss' confusion, shock, horror and incompetence are good for a laugh. At the time, of course, we, the public, knew little of this. Seldon's interviews give us a real insight into what was going on. It is like watching a political car crash in slow motion and in HD. But if readers remember, at the time, we weren't laughing. We were all glued to the news because it was our mortgages and gas bills going through the roof. At one point there was a serious possiblity that all our pensions would vanish.
The problem with Seldon's account is that this aspect to the crisis is entirely absent. Indeed the whole book takes place within the rarefied atmosphere of establishment parliamentary politics. There is one, brief, allusion to the strikes that had rocked Britain in 2022 and continued to into 2023. One of the reasons for Truss' weakness is that these strikes had demonstrated a popular militant alternative to Tory government by and for the rich. Truss, and indeed the PMs who preceded and followed her, were incredibly vulnerable to that power. Sadly the TUC and the union leaders didn't push that through and ensure that the next PM was chosen on the back of a powerful working class mobilisation. We all would be in a better position today.
Anthony Seldon's account of Truss's pathetic stint in Number 10 can be read on many levels. One aspect to this is to see just what odious people some of these politicians are. Seldon's quotes an anonymous insider who notes that when Truss thanked them for their work after she decided to resign, it was the first time any of them had heard her say "thank you". So this is an insider's account of political disaster, chutzpah and consequent decline and fall. But it also reminds us that the "gang of waring brothers" who govern, are motivated by self interest. At the same time they are divided in only one way - how to best to maximise profit. Reading Truss at 10 is a bit of an insight into the establishment that should make us all more committed to fighting for a more rational political system - one not guided by greed.
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