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September 30, 2024 - 2:25pm
Britain is “already a socialist country”, Liz Truss claimed at Conservative Party conference early this afternoon.
Speaking to journalist Tim Stanley in Birmingham, the former prime minister said that “we’re already in socialism”, a process exacerbated by the Labour government “spending 45% of GDP” and through having “huge swathes of the economy controlled by regulation and the bureaucracy”. She added that the UK’s socialist turn started under the Conservatives, during a period when the country “had record taxes” and “state spending of 45%”.
In her only appearance at this year’s party conference, Truss accused Keir Starmer’s Labour of saying “we need more taxes, we need bigger government, we need more regulation”. She also stated that, despite Brexit, “Britain has become more of a European-style economy and less of a capitalist economy over the past 14 years” — dating to the Conservatives’ general election victory and entry into coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010.
Pinning blame on the Tories as well as their successors in Downing Street, the former Conservative leader argued that “I don’t think we can say that all the problems Britain has now are to do with the terrible government of the Labour Party.” While she referred to Labour’s analysis of national decline as “totally flawed”, Truss acknowledged that her own party “failed to take on the Blairite-Brownist statist orthodoxy”.
Truss today extended her criticism to “state institutions”, citing the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility as examples of organisations whose groupthink holds sway over Westminster. She alleged that “successive Conservative governments went along with the economic orthodoxy, loose monetary policy, giving control to the Bank of England, accepting the judgements of the OBR”, and suggested that the party “outsourced economic policy so it wasn’t being decided by the Chancellor”. Truss also singled out Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey as “unsackable”, claiming that he should receive far more “media scrutiny”.
In an interview in which she also blamed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for causing her to lose her seat in July’s general election. She also argued that “there is a battle now to save not just Britain, but Western civilisation”, with her at the forefront, suggesting that the British establishment has gone from being run by “fuddy-duddy conservatives” to “the liberal Left”. As well as the Tories allegedly proving powerless to prevent the march of socialism in the UK, the former PM argued that “there’s been a cultural battle that conservatives have failed to stand up to.”
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SubscribeMore correct, I think, to describe Britain as corporatist. The narrow oligarchy that runs this country does so principally for its own benefit and that of the bureaucratic and corporate vested interests.
Nobody deliberately sets out to undermine democracy, they simply persuade themselves that what is good for their class must therefore, by definition, be good for everyone.
This is why we will not recover until we undertake major political reform that gives everyone a voice – not just a few bubble-dwelling Oxbridge graduates.
I think Market Socialism is the correct term. It’s not Laissez-faire Capitalism nor is it Communism. Its a “Holistic Wellness” economy administered through public-private partnerships.
On the contrary, there are glaring examples of people today who are desperately trying to undermine democracy.
Your final paragraph is spot on, though the issue is surely rather wider than Oxbridge grads.
though the issue is surely rather wider than Oxbridge grads
Well, they do run pretty well everything – Both political partiers, the BBC, the Civil Service and pretty much the entire establishment media.
You can solve your problem by de establishing Oxford .
Yes, it is actually quite astonishing. 40% of the Labour Cabinet went to Oxbridge, down slightly from 45% under Sunak. It is extraordinary that our political leaders are drawn from such a narrow subset of the population.
I think it is fair to say that everything is becoming more concentrated in the hands of a narrow group – wealth included. Unless something prevents this happening, it is likely to coalesce into a rigid hereditary elite – a new aristocracy.
As Pikkety has shown, this is the more natural outcome of capitalist economies – with the period of relative equality and social mobility up to the 70s being an exception brought about largely by two world wars and related upheavals.
Not Austria though.
She’s correct, of course. Her focus on values is commendable and her criticism of the Blob’s left-leaning groupthink is entirely fair. It’s a shame she’s not really PM material.
‘Truss today extended her criticism to “state institutions”, citing the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility as examples of organisations whose groupthink holds sway over Westminster. She alleged that “successive Conservative governments went along with the economic orthodoxy, loose monetary policy, giving control to the Bank of England, accepting the judgements of the OBR”, and suggested that the party “outsourced economic policy so it wasn’t being decided by the Chancellor”. Truss also singled out Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey as “unsackable”, claiming that he should receive far more “media scrutiny”.’
I agree with all that, though she should go international with it – the UK is just part of a wider economic groupthink.
It’s a shame she was an idiot when she had the opportunity to do something about it though.
It’s a shame she was an idiot when she had the opportunity to do something about it though.
She really never had that opportunity. Every Prime Minister now is weaker than the last. Starmer will only survive so long as he does what he’s told.
Unfunded tax cuts for high earners was not a bright move when we had a substantial deficit and high levels of debt. It was inevitably going to go badly and by doing that she destroyed her own opportunity to address the above.
Not spending doesn’t require “funding”. It is spending which does require funding.
The term “unfunded tax cuts” is a total nonsense, designed as a derogatory term to disparage allowing people to keep their own money.
Someone needs to tell her that not everything in the particular internet bubble she inhabits is actually true! Top marks for sheer nerve though.