In a nutshell, Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party prime minister, was run out of office by a series of scandals; and his replacement, Liz Truss, is incompetent and faces eviction from No. 10 Downing Street (Britain’s equivalent of the White House) after fumbling economic policy.
Britain’s inflation is even worse than ours, running about 10%, partly because that country is less energy self-sufficient than we are. Middle class and working people there are struggling to pay for basic necessities and face a cold dark winter.
In the face of all that, Truss, a fervent believer in Reagan’s trickle-down policies — which George H. W. Bush rightly called “voodoo economics” (details here) — floated a tax cut for the rich and spending cuts immediately upon taking office.
The blowback was instantaneous. The British Pound dropped like a rock and the Bank of England had to bail it out. Truss fired her finance minister, and his replacement stood up in Parliament and reversed nearly all her economic policies while she cowered in her office. The Economist, a highly respected U.K. magazine, compared her to a wilting lettuce. (Read story here.) Polls show the opposition Labour Party with a massive 36-point lead (see story here).
There’s more to politics than economic policies, of course, although pocketbook issues always play a large role in elections. That’s true everywhere. But beyond that, my knowledge of British politics and their economy is limited, so I’ll just say I’d be suspicious of anyone who wants to copy American conservatives’ economic policies. Here in the States, the miserable failure of those policies is smeared across the pages of history in human suffering.
America learned the hard way that free-market capitalism, without more, doesn’t work. It leads to concentration of wealth, exploitation of workers and consumers, and money controlling politics. Capitalism works fine with rules, a safety net, and government intervention when markets’ gears jam. The Great Depression proved for all time that can happen and laissez-faire capitalism’s breakdowns aren’t self-correcting. It’s a lesson we’ve relearned multiple times since.
Likewise, America’s 40-year-long experiment with trickle-down economics showed tax cuts for the rich do nothing for anyone else. Our experience gives Truss no reason to believe that policy will keep England’s working-class cottages lighted and heated this coming winter. Those people need help from their government to make it through a hopefully temporary crisis, but she made clear such help wouldn’t come from her. They’re asking, does she even care?
Oddsmakers are debating how long her premiership will last; some give her just days in power (see story here). Truss should resign; she’s in over her head, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, she’s a disaster for her party and country. She’s a perfect example of what happens when reality collides with dogma.