What Liz Truss got right

Soon after Kwasi Kwarteng’s not-so-mini-Budget, I found myself in conversation with former aides to David Cameron and Boris Johnson respectively. They were both irritated by the way Liz Truss was being praised as a ‘true Tory’ in some Conservative circles, compared with her more cautious predecessors. One of them remarked, as the other nodded, that people will soon ‘find out there’s a reason why we didn’t do those things’.

Sure enough, the mini-Budget collapsed spectacularly and cost Truss her premiership. One of her mistakes had been simply to reject what had gone before, rather than to try to understand why compromises had been made. Her year-zero approach was one of the things that led to her being ejected from office so quickly. So it is worth taking some time to reflect on the things Truss was right about and that the new government should seek to build on.

Truss often stated when she was foreign secretary that the UK needed to do more to reduce its dependence on autocracies. She argued that this was particularly true of those countries that sought to overturn the existing liberal international order.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the dangers of relying on an autocratic regime for vital supplies. Europe has paid a heavy price for its dependence on Russian gas; and even countries such as the UK, which did not import significant amounts, have been hit by the supply crunch as the Continent scrambles for alternative energy supplies. The Bank of England calculates that the increase in energy costs this year will be greater than during the oil shock that followed the Yom Kippur War in 1973. 

Energy security and green policies are often seen as being conflicting interests; but in the medium to long term, they are allied. If the UK is to become energy independent, a far more consistent position on nuclear power is required.