Was that it? By the time Liz Truss stood up for her press conference (although a briefing where only four questions were allowed barely counts), we already knew that she was about to abandon the key thrust of her mini-budget, and that her chancellor had been sacked. The big question was whether Truss herself would be able to survive. Her performance will have done little or nothing to persuade her MPs, or anyone else, that she will – or even that she should. Truss said that the corporation tax rise planned by Rishi Sunak, that she campaigned to abandon during the Tory leadership campaign, would go ahead anyway. She said this was in response to the fact that her mini-budget “went further and faster than markets were expecting”. (Until Friday she has implied that global factors, not the mini-budget, were mainly to blame for the recent market turmoil.)
But then she tried to explain that she was being consistent with the mission she set out during the leadership contest (boosting growth), even though it was obvious that her strategy had gone up in flames. And – crucially – she failed to explain why, if the chancellor had to go, she should not quit too.
In so far as she did have an answer to this, it was that she was “absolutely determined to see through what I have promised, to deliver: a higher-growth, more prosperous United Kingdom, to see us through the storm we face”. Her problem is not just that this line does not explain why she should stay on in No 10, but also that there are plenty of others who share her commitment to growth who have more credibility as leaders. Her whole manner during the press conference advertised a lack of confidence and authority. She started with a personal plea about how she knew what it was like growing up “somewhere that isn’t feeling the benefits of growth”. This was a reference to the time she spent in Paisley as a child, but she had a middle-class upbringing and spent her teenage years living in one of the nicest parts of Leeds. Her implied sob story sounded phoney. Then she took only four questions. Normally, politicians who feel the need to persuade the press, or the public at large, are well advised to keep taking questions at a press conference like this until they run out. Not only did Truss fail to do that, she deliberately started with questions from the two papers most likely to be favourable, the Daily Telegraph and the Sun. Only then did she take questions from the BBC and ITV, who normally get priority at such events.
If Truss was hoping for soft questions first, it did not work. But the hardest question was probably the final one, from ITV’s Robert Peston. He asked if she would apologise to her party. She wouldn’t. The lack of contrition matters because, if Truss is going to survive, she is going to need to secure the goodwill of Tory MPs. With this sort of responsibility dodging and blame avoidance, she won’t get it.