Wednesday is the one day a week where MPs can question the Prime Minister in an open forum. It is often pointless political point scoring but on rare occasions it is actually worthwhile viewing. Today is one of those days and we look ahead to how it might go and whether the beleaguered PM can survive until the turn of the year…
Life comes at you fast. No sooner are you installed as the Prime Minister do you face public calls from your colleagues to resign. It would be fair to say the Liz Truss era hasn’t gone exactly how she may have planned and now the big question going into Wednesday’s PMQs is, ‘how long can she survive?’
A disastrous mini-budget caused serious ramifications not only in the financial world but in the pockets of everyone up and down the land. Truss and her then Chancellor used the country as a petri-dish to see if their ideas could lead to growth. They did not.
A bold new slogan warning of the ‘Anti-Growth Coalition’ hasn’t stuck and her own polling numbers are so low that the world’s best limbo dancers couldn’t get below them. Labour are riding the crest of a wave and consistently seeing numbers over 50% in vote share when the public are polled. If those numbers were to be replicated in an actual General Election then Labour would win in a landslide and the Tories would be facing wipeout.
This is part of the background for the discontent, just three years ago Boris Johnson got a big majority and a very solid mandate from the British people but after his resignation in the summer, the new PM changed course completely.
The sacking of Kwasi Kwarteng as her Chancellor came as no surprise but the two of them were in lockstep on their vision. He was replaced by Jeremy Hunt who within days tore up virtually all of the mini-budget. This included the energy price gap guarantee going down from two years to six months. With talk now of the triple lock on pensions also potentially going, it does seem as though Number 11 is running the show whilst the PM is hunkered down in Number 10 unable to stop anything that is going on around her.
It is inevitable that her stay in the top job will be short but can they get her out before the turn of the year? Her performance at the dispatch box today could go a long way to determining that.
On Friday, her position was clearly weakened by a deer in the headlights performance in front of the press. If she’s as bad today and she gets attacks from her own backbenches, it’ll be time and that 4/7 will shorten. A strong display could see her eke it out ‘til next year, which is currently 6/4. Betting on 2024 or later should not be considered.
