We have a new Prime Minister, and during the course of this week, we have a new Government.
There is a lot, as has been said repeatedly by just about every news outlet in the world, in Liz Truss’s in-tray. She has got to get on with this quickly and do it well. Over the coming few days, we will see more proper announcements about support for families and businesses through the energy crisis.
People are right to be worried about what will happen to household and business bills. Just as importantly, they are right to be frustrated at the government for the political and leadership vacuum we have seen over the last couple of months.
To be fair to the leadership candidates, they have not been in a position to make solid policy announcements, partly due to a lack of inside advice from officials about what is and isn’t possible (or advisable), and partly due to convention that policy announcements must be made to Parliament in the first instance. Whilst the leadership contest was going on, it was not really viable to recall parliament.
But I do think criticism of how the campaign was run, with two months over the summer being tied up for introspection by my party, is totally justifiable. As a party of government, it is simply not on that we allow the country to cruise, unguided, and with just a caretaker government for so long. Whilst I do think a proper testing of candidates is a good thing, after a few weeks of this, I can see why the Catholic Church uses a Papal Conclave to select its new popes.
I didn’t support Liz, but I wish her well and look forward to supporting her from the backbenches. It turns out she is a daughter of Kidderminster, her father having taught at King Charles II school in the 1980s for a couple of years. I believe she was just an infant at the time, so may remember little, but I look forward to inviting her to visit the town and district.
Importantly, I want her to see what the legacy of Boris Johnson means to the district. Since he came to power, we have seen around £60 million government investment into our towns and I want to see more of the same from Liz. I’ll add that to her in-tray.