There was never a dull moment under Liz Truss – that is why she had to go

Editorial: Truss managed to ram the usual quota of excitements and embarrassments seen in a standard four-year term of office into just a few weeks

(Dave Brown)

A little more than 24 hours after she told the House of Commons that “I’m a fighter and not a quitter”, Liz Truss executed the ultimate U-turn – and quit. It was a painfully ironic end to a painfully difficult time in office.

By the end of it, she will have been prime minister for just short of two months, the shortest span in history. Ms Truss has carved her name into the history books for many reasons, none of them good. She said in her resignation speech that she could not deliver her vision of a low-tax, high-growth economy. True.

She did not add that it was undeliverable because the policy didn’t work, and she left hanging in the air the impression that timorous colleagues, the “mainstream media”, the establishment and the absurdly confected “anti-growth alliance” had sabotaged her brilliant plan. International capital markets delivered the final blow, and they are neither woke nor working in concert. Traders in Singapore, Wall Street and London for that matter have no interest in Liz Truss as a leader, only in the creditworthiness of the United Kingdom and making money.