This is the shortest honeymoon of any prime minister in history

Liz Truss enters her administration with two-thirds of the parliamentary party against her, writes Salma Shah

Liz Truss has probably just lost the next election (Reuters)

After years of worshipping the free market, it must have hurt Liz Truss to discover the free market doesn’t love her back. The mini (though obviously maxi) Budget, delivered by her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has left the entire government exposed to ridicule and rage.

She will go into her first Conservative Party conference as PM with a run on sterling, prohibitive interest rates and a stern telling-off from the IMF. Even the economic zealots of the party faithful will have to stop to consider what they’ve unleashed on the world.

This has surely amounted to the shortest honeymoon enjoyed by any prime minister in history; entering her administration with two-thirds of the parliamentary party against her. She actively chose to shut out anyone other than loyalists from her top team and now faces backbenchers with hard-won seats who are as jittery as bond traders.

With Truss’s future looking shaky, the markets are now looking elsewhere for their salvation, particularly to Labour – who for now look a better bet. It is an amazing achievement for a Conservative PM in her first weeks of office.

Labour successfully wrapped themselves in the flag at conference by opening with the national anthem, aligning themselves with the national mood. They attacked an unfair and incompetent government, which energised their grassroots. Their leadership started to put flesh on the bones of their offer as a credible government.

There are still problems with Labour – they will have to evidence (in a way Truss hasn’t) how they intend to pay for their spending too. They will reintroduce a top rate of income tax and the banker’s bonus cap, but nothing on the rest of the rather pricey policies.

They are also just about holding their internal coalition together. The hard left is still attempting to have a crack at Keir Starmer, but this will diminish if the leader of the opposition can ride high on government incompetence and show that No 10 is within his grasp. It’s exactly what happened the last time the Conservatives were in opposition. The criticism of Cameron’s centrist agenda quietened when the financial crisis came, because the prize was finally within reach.

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While elections are usually things that governments lose, oppositions must take advantage of the prevailing headwinds. We will now see if Labour can do it. Starmer can no longer afford to sit back and allow the Conservatives to destroy themselves. He will have to show there’s an alternative beyond having a good conference; an offer that voters can actively choose, if he’s going to make it behind the black door.

It would be incredible if they didn’t manage to make something of a government whose main line of briefing about the economy is, “go big or go home”. In many ways, that’s what Labour needs to do now – talk a bigger game and inhabit the belief entirely that they can get to government.

Liz Truss has probably just lost the next election. She has squandered what little reputation the Conservatives had left for competence and shows no signs of taking her risky bet off the table. The trust is gone, but the question remains: has Labour done enough to rebuild it for themselves?