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Good morning. PMQs is often dismissed a pointless pantomime, but one function it performs well is to serve as a barometer of political authority. A PM or opposition leader who crumbles at the despatch box is not going to survive for long (being hopeless at PMQs was a major factor behind the Tories decision to dump Iain Duncan Smith as their leader in 2003) and that is why today’s session will be a make-or-break one for Liz Truss.
It is only her third PMQs since becoming prime minister, but it is the first time she will face the Commons since sacking her chancellor (for implementing policies including one she reportedly forced him to announce despite his reservations), dumping almost all the measures in her mini-budget, and abandoning the two-year energy price guarantee that, until Monday, was the one policy she was still claiming credit for. The word “humiliating” is over-used in political reporting, but it is barely adequate to describe quite damaging the events of the past week have been to Truss’s reputation.
