This is how bad governments die – with the mask fallen away, their worst face revealed
Is it too soon to offer a small word in defence of Liz Truss? I appreciate that this is a lonely endeavour. In what should be her honeymoon period, the new prime minister has instead presented the electorate with multiple grounds for divorce. Polling suggests she’s about as popular as a Covid sweat. Still, Truss deserves praise for one thing at least. What she brings to our national life is an admirable clarity – though perhaps not in the way she intends.
The Conservatives have been in power for more than 12 years, and for much of that time they have been hard to pin down. David Cameron was elected as a compassionate Conservative, all huskies and hoodies and “the big society”. In reality, he imposed a period of austerity that hit the poorest hardest, starved communities of cherished services and left countless neighbourhoods neglected and derelict. From one side of his mouth, Cameron’s chancellor, George Osborne, said, “We’re all in this together”; from the other, he pitted “strivers” against “skivers”.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
