We should wish PM Truss the best of luck – she will need it

Editorial: The new prime minister has only two years to repair the damage left by 12 years of Conservative-led rule

Even in good times it would be a struggle (AP)

Liz Truss has won the Conservative leadership campaign. She will soon become the 15th individual (and only the third woman) whom the Queen has asked to form a government. That, pretty much, is where the good news ends for Ms Truss – though everyone should wish her the best of luck for the sake of the country.

Her “mandate” amounts to the roughly 57 per cent of the Conservative membership that voted in the party’s internal election, or some 81,326 spectacularly unrepresentative activists, some resident abroad. It is a rather lower majority than her predecessors achieved, or the campaign surveys suggested. The party is split, and many openly bemoan the loss of Boris Johnson. There are jokes in poor taste about a leadership challenge to Ms Truss.

Most Tories talk about unity, but the leadership campaign showed just how bitterly, nastily far away they are from that ideal. The modern Conservative Party is addicted to intrigue and factionalism, and Ms Truss lacks any instinct (or taste) for inclusivity. She remains a wooden, uninspiring speaker, and seems out of touch. She will never live down the quote about the British worker being reluctant to graft. Her cabinet will be packed with cronies, and not particularly able ones.

There’s no constitutional case within the UK’s parliamentary system for the new prime minister to call a snap general election – Theresa May didn’t, at least not immediately, and neither did Gordon Brown, John Major or James Callaghan in similar circumstances. But Ms Truss’s disappointing showing among her own party’s members does highlight precisely how narrow is her base of support.

At the last count, only 136 Tory MPs had publicly declared their support for her, out of 358. This reflects the evident and widespread doubts about Ms Truss: only 12 per cent of the general public expect her to do a good job. The pound fell to a 37-year low in anticipation of her coronation. It’s hardly an encouraging premise for radical change.

From here on in, in just about every sense of the phrase, Prime Minister Truss cannot win.

The most obvious reason why she cannot win is that she cannot “deliver”, to borrow her favourite (overworked) word. Her economic policy, so far as can be judged, simply does not add up. Even if she is personally well suited to the challenges ahead – and “the jury’s out” on that – the measures she promoted during her campaign, with radical tax cuts at the centre of them, will do little to relieve the pain of the cost of living crisis; nor will they address the transcendent problem of inflation.

She has repeatedly pledged that there will be no “handouts” under her leadership, which implies no targeted help with energy bills for the vulnerable or businesses, and no windfall taxes on the energy companies.

If she tries to persist with this approach, she will fail – and she will deserve to. The measures will simply miss the target. Reversing the national insurance hike, slashing VAT, and cutting corporation tax for larger companies will mainly help those who need help the least. Wealthier individuals and firms, who are best placed to get through the energy crisis, will benefit the most.

When challenged over the weekend by Laura Kuenssberg as to whether this is fair, Ms Truss cheerfully declared that it is, because the rich pay more tax. That view no doubt resonates well among the well-heeled members of the party and its prosperous donors, but the British public is in no mood to be needlessly generous to those who will never have to choose between heating and eating.

If the new prime minister were instead to execute the swiftest U-turn in history, ditch her promises, and instead adopt a melange of policies advocated by Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak, then her party might well question her judgement (if not their own).

It would undoubtedly be a more effective package than her blanket tax cuts, but it would rather pose the question of what Ms Truss is “for”, and it would reinforce her long-term reputation for inconsistency (whether that is due to confusion or an absence of principles). Because the energy price freeze was first announced by the Liberal Democrats and Labour, Ms Truss would be unable to make much political capital out of it. But at least she wouldn’t be instantly hated by those she seeks to govern.

In reality, true to the spirit of cakeism, it seems more likely that Ms Truss and her probable new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, will be tempted to double down on their dash for growth, and she’ll combine her tax-cutting plans with an additional package of help for the poor. It is rumoured – and it would punch a £100bn hole in the public finances. However welcome such a solution might be to virtually the entire nation, it carries with it the distinct danger of stoking inflation to 20 per cent and beyond.

This, and the prospect of it, would prompt investors to sell UK assets and the Bank of England to ramp up interest rates – pushing more homeowners and businesses to the brink and negating her dash for growth. By the end of it, real wages will be unchanged – and the currency debauched. Labour, with its windfall tax and fiscal rules, will seem the more responsible party, and thus more able to be trusted on the economy.

Economic carnage, in finer words, lies ahead, and political carnage soon after. If Ms Truss is as determined as she says she is to stand up to Vladimir Putin and help to “deliver” victory in Ukraine – laudable ends – then the energy crisis will last for longer, and be more painful, than the British public is prepared for.

Of course, Ms Truss inherits the still-handsome parliamentary majority won by Mr Johnson in 2019; but he also bequeaths her a badly divided party, with a reputation for sleaze and much intractable unfinished business: strikes across the economy, Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, NHS waiting lists, a restive Scotland. Her best bet is in fact not to try to “deliver” on all of these, but to concentrate on two or three. Otherwise they will simply overwhelm her, and her government will collapse, just as Mr Johnson’s did.

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As she peers over her shoulder at her backbenchers, Ms Truss will find some familiar, but sceptical, discarded faces: Mr Sunak, Michael Gove, Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, Jeremy Hunt. Whatever they say, they won’t be dedicated to singing her praises. Mr Johnson will be a constant, unhelpful distraction, defending himself against the charge of lying to the Commons, and writing mischievous newspaper articles.

Ms May and Mr Major will no doubt deliver withering put-downs from time to time when Ms Truss breaks the rules (as she looks inclined to). Ms Truss will warily eye a confident Labour Party, and the revived Liberal Democrats, who have an eye on the blue-wall seats appalled by her destructive attitude to Europe and her sell-outs of British farming.

The new prime minister has only two years to repair the damage left by 12 years of Conservative-led rule, reverse a 12-point-plus Labour lead, and then win a general election against the odds in the middle of a slump, housing crash included. Her party is tired and fresh out of ideas. Even in good times it would be a struggle, but in such times as these it looks very much like Liz will end up a loser.