Energy prices and cost of living
How Truss deals with this is likely to determine her premiership and the fate of the UK for years to come. And people want answers very quickly. Truss fought her Tory leadership campaign by focusing relentlessly on calls for tax cuts and was skeptical of what she called “handouts” – that is, direct government help for people facing energy prices rising so fast that millions of households simply will not be able to pay them. Given the scale of the crises, critics say this seems politically and morally untenable. Truss has been careful not to rule out more help, and perhaps the biggest policy decisions she will ever make will be deciding how actively and radically she intervenes to help people. Take bold and costly action and Truss risks alienating the small state, MPs and the free-market Tories who put her in No 10. Do too little, and the UK could see an economic, social and humanitarian emergency need in which unaffordable energy bills create mass business closures, widespread impoverishment and thousands of extra deaths during the winter. It’s hard to overstate the difficulty of the task it faces, which is highlighted by the fact that the government is undertaking contingency planning for possible energy restrictions and blackouts. Police chiefs are reportedly even preparing for the possibility of riots or wider civil unrest.
NHS and social care
Poverty and health campaigners would argue that this is in many ways another element of the cost of living crisis, as the prospect of large numbers of people forced to live in freezing homes or skip meals will exacerbate already crippling pressures on services health. Most Prime Ministers who take office in early September could prepare for an anticipated crisis in the NHS. Truss already has one, with ambulance responses routinely delayed for hours amid a shortage of beds and a massive backlog of procedures and operations, many due to the negative effects of the Covid pandemic. Ambulance delays in particular are a factor in the continuing poor state of adult social care, with many beds taken up by elderly, frail patients who simply have nowhere else to go. Boris Johnson has promised to transform social care with money from the increase in national insurance. Truss vowed to reverse that. Among the many difficult health-based decisions she faces is how to pay for everything.
Uniting the Conservative party
Given that the last three predecessors of Truss as Tory leader either resigned or were forced out long before they were expected to, this is something of an ongoing problem, but one he will face perhaps more acutely than anyone else. Truss’ pitch to Tory MPs was deliberately entirely unique in ideological terms: a small state, a low-tax Thatcher heir, adamant on Brexit and excited by culture-war divides. This played well in the leadership race, but many Tory MPs are less right-wing than members, even following the slaughter of the more liberal, one-nation Tories under Johnson. In the early stages of the leadership contest, Truss received the support of less than a third of her fellow MPs, and many remain skeptical of her ideology and abilities. A basic test will come with her locker. Attracting a range of ministers from different wings of the party could help unite MPs and perhaps soften her reputation for political blips. But it would necessarily upset the faithful who lose the top jobs. There is also the legacy of the bruising leadership campaign in which Mr Truss’ rival Rishi Sunak was scathing about her financial plans. The former chancellor has ruled out a role in her government and could become capital for disgruntled MPs to seize on any mishaps and mistakes. While she inherits a majority of 71 MPs from the Commons, parliamentary life could be difficult, with a number of bigwigs likely to find themselves on the back burner, and predictions that several Tory MPs are not so supportive that her actual majority could approach 10.
Ukraine
Compared to the previous two policy areas, this is not one where Truss will have to think too hard about her options. As Johnson’s foreign secretary and the self-proclaimed candidate to succeed Boris, Truss will maintain his staunch support for Ukraine’s battle against Russian invaders. One of the few near-certainties of Tras’s first weeks in office will be images of her in Kyiv alongside Volodymyr Zelensky. But like other world leaders, Truss will face difficulties as the war drags on, with no apparent solution in sight, especially as the fallout from the energy price crisis, much of which is linked to the war, begins to bite. Truss will undoubtedly remain committed to Ukraine. But as its effects are felt, it looks likely that he will face more voices, within the Conservative party and more broadly, looking for an alternative plan.
Election or not?
Given the size of the policy tasks Truss faces, this may seem irrelevant. But if Truss is to be more than a third interim Tory prime minister, it will be a crucial crisis. The official line from Team Truss is that no election will take place until the current term ends, bringing an election in December 2024 or even January 2025. However, she could face difficulties in pushing the legislation through, especially in the Lords , based on Johnson’s 2019 mandate, based on a notably different policy platform. The energy crisis also makes the prospect of elections unlikely. But if Truss sees any kind of poll bounce, or creates or stumbles into some kind of economic respite, then the temptation to roll the dice could be overwhelming. One of the defining lessons of the last two decades of UK politics was Gordon Brown’s failure to call an election in the spring of 2008 when the polls were favorable and speculation was unleashed. Instead, he was late, had to wait for his term to expire, and lost.
