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Kwasi Kwarteng has very good reason to believe he has been hard done by. Sacked by the Prime Minister for his tax-cutting mini-budget, in other circumstances he would be mounting a claim for

unfair dismissal. The policy ideas that led to Mr Kwarteng’s demise originated with the Prime Minister. It seems that the former Chancellor was thrown to pursuing wolves for little more

reason than to lighten the sledge. During the Conservative Party leadership contest, Ms Truss made it absolutely clear she was championing tax cuts in a bid to stimulate economic growth. The

British economy has taken a bit of a battering of late, but the bruising experience is not actually an outcome of government policy. The double-whammy of a global pandemic of a kind unseen

in over a century, followed by the first major war in Europe since 1945, has caused economic chaos. Under other circumstances, a government of national unity would have been formed to

navigate the country through the crisis. If Putin sets off a nuke, this might still happen. Ms Truss’ policy seemed to me and others to be a copy of Edward Heath’s “dash for growth” of the

early 1970s. Other events from that period seemed eerily reminiscent. There had been a major pandemic, Asian Flu, in 1968. Union militancy was causing a series of debilitating strikes to

challenge the government. Finally, there was a major war overseas that led to a national energy crisis. At a meeting during her leadership campaign, I challenged Ms Truss using these details

to explain to me how she would succeed where Edward Heath had failed. She brushed me off while fixing me with a hard stare. She dismissed my concerns by saying blandly that we were not now

in the 1970s, which was pretty much a statement of the bleedin’ obvious. Ms Truss then went on to argue that because UK borrowing compared to GDP was below the level of the USA or other

major economies, this proved that there was potential to raise government debt to finance the reductions in government revenue, in the hope (presumably) that the revenues from promised

growth would repay the increased  borrowings and more. I can imagine Ms Truss standing at a lectern somewhere and proclaiming: “The UK borrows less as a proportion of GDP than the USA. That.

Is. A. Disgrace.” Her performance at the election meeting I attended was wooden and robotic, as if she had used Theresa May as a role model and decided that there was still more stiffness

of demeanour that could be wrung out of the part. There is a fluid, emotional element to being a politician. Ms Truss was a block of ice, and not in a good way. I saw Rishi Sunak the

following day at the same venue. He correctly identified Ms Truss’s economic strategy as the 1970s Heath/Barber tribute act that it was. Mr Sunak was funny, engaging, full of ideas and

plans, confident, optimistic, and energetic. His communication skills were first-rate and he owned the event. Perhaps he had trotted out the same lines everywhere he went. Certainly Ms Truss

had, when she referred yet again to her experiences at a state school in Leeds. But Mr Sunak riffed on the audience. Ms Truss acted as if she was still in an empty rehearsal room. So Mr

Kwarteng’s budget, the one that got him sacked, was actually that of Ms Truss, the person that sacked him for doing what she herself had promised on the stump she would do. Perhaps Mr

Kwarteng put her up to it, and that was why he was kicked out. Certainly, unless we know more, he seems to have had a raw deal. The Government’s drop in the polls is of a magnitude such that

only a small war involving this country could lead to a recovery in fortunes. Ms Truss’s best hope would seem to be that Vladimir Putin does something seriously rash and irresponsible in

Ukraine that crosses NATO’s red line. It could be that Ms Truss was doomed one way or another. Twelve years is a long time for one party to be in power, and the public may just want a

change. This is what did for the Conservatives in 1964 and, at least partly, in 1997.  The same old faces did not seem up to the new challenges. The Conservative Party may take some small

comfort that, apart from Sir Tony Blair’s premiership, the public tire of Labour in power after about three years (three years of Gordon Brown was quite enough, after all). The Labour Party

does not normally survive in office for longer than about six years, so alienating voters only after more than a decade in office is pretty good going for the Tories. But that is still small

comfort for a party that, unlike non-Blair Labour, puts staying in power before any ideology. Labour do tend to get a lot of vandalism in during the short time allowed by the electorate,

and it takes the Conservatives a long time to undo the mess they always inherit, if at all. Defenestrating Boris Johnson may have been a necessary act, especially if he was running 10

Downing Street in any way similar to the way he ran The Spectator while he was editor there. His wife seemed to have excessive influence over government policy and staffing. This country has

no need of Evitas, Elenas, or Imeldas. Rishi Sunak alienated the Conservative party membership by being a key element in that defenestration. There cannot be another full party leadership

election before the General Election. But there may need to be a coronation if Liz Truss does not deliver the goods, and soon. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s

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