Truss at 10: How Not to be Prime Minister by Anthony Seldon
There are only a few things that could persuade me to read anything more about Truss’ short tenure as prime minister. Renowned chronicler, Anthony Seldon, is one of those reasons, and the clincher – the book was a £0.00 kindle offer.
As the title indicates and commonsense demands, there’s no secret about the line that the book takes to her premiership. Right at the start, Seldon contextualises her place in the pantheon of PMs who failed conspicuously – he is in no doubt, though, that she belongs in that particular club.
He then goes on, in the meat of the book, to use ten criteria to analyse not just what went wrong but why. He tries to play fair by setting out the context: high energy prices due to the Ukraine situation and a febrile party intoxicated by its assassination of leaders - just two problems during her time in charge. However, against each of the ten criteria, Seldon marshals the evidence to show that Truss simply did not have the personal or political skills needed for this role.
That’s putting it kindly; Truss seems to have lacked even the most basic skills and qualities and most, importantly, had no aptitude to develop and improve because of her cast iron self-belief. He and many others are in broad agreement with Truss’ diagnosis of the country’s problems; but that’s where any understanding ends because, as this book clearly shows, she was wilfully delusional in her sense that she was the only one who could solve the country’s problems when all evidence was to the contrary.
As is the case with Seldon’s political books, he has access to all the key players, his research is good and he makes the complexities of these breathless forty nine days clear to the lay reader. This is perhaps best exemplified in the chapter where he examines her performance against the criterion: avoid major policy failures. This, of course, revolves around the mini-budget and her failure to explain how all her tax cutting measures and giveaways to the rich would be funded. Remember, besides sidelining the Office for Budget Responsibility and any analysis of her fiscal plans, she sacked the permanent secretary at the Treasurer just before she launched her proposals. Yet even now she fails to acknowledge the most basic error of launching radical fiscal plans without any analysis of what the consequences might be in the markets, or providing any meaningful reassurances in the usual way through expenditure cuts, for example.
Significantly, other of the major players of this time such as her chancellor, Kwarteng, have reflected on the mistakes that were made. Seldon draws out as much sympathy for her situation as he can but it is hard for the reader to respond to this as we see her bringing it all on herself and often acting gracelessly.
Despite the fact it is recent history, Seldon’s book provides a clear perspective on what was happening during this crazy time. And, of course, there is a car crash fascination about the narrative of Truss’ fleeting time in No.10. I probably found the denouement of most interest from a psychological point of view. When did Truss really think things were up? It was, certainly, long after her loyal, inner team of advisors who were still helping her to cling on when the Tory party was sure she was toast.
Oh, and for all her current Trumpian claptrap about the deep state, I was most impressed with Seldon’s account of the honourable, supportive and professional way the civil service behaved towards her to the bitter end. After all, they must have known she was as mad as a box of frogs.