![]() It is not so much an endorsement of Labour but a massive anti-Tory swing. For Britain, this is an astonishing gap - the highest margin for Labour since the 1990s. ![]() ![]() Polls show that the opposition Labour Party has as much as 52 percent support compared to the Conservatives’ 22 percent. Therefore, her authority in Parliament is weak. She was only the third, arguably fourth, choice among her colleagues. She has never had the support of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, which preferred her leadership rival Rishi Sunak. Truss has had internal challenges from the outset. The media was deluged with scathing comments from Tory politicians. Throughout the annual Conservative Party conference at the start of this month, Cabinet ministers voiced criticisms and differences of opinion with carefree abandon. Truss’s authority did not just seep away but was swept away in torrents. All comparisons of Truss with Margaret Thatcher - the headlines of “The lady’s not for turning,” evoking Thatcher’s famous phrase - became a colossal embarrassment. It took all of 10 days for the PM to order her first major U-turn by abandoning the decision to cut the 45 percent top rate of tax. Any benefits that homeowners receive from the new government’s help with their energy bills will be more than canceled out by huge rises in mortgage payments. The pound plummeted, as did the stock market. They also knew what the public outcry would be against the tax cuts for the well-off. Most of them could not understand the logic of £45 billion ($49 billion) of unfunded tax cuts. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng delivered it to a crowd of stony-faced Tory colleagues, many staring in disbelief. The so-called mini-budget announced two weeks into her premiership ranks as one of the most calamitous policy pronouncements of recent British history. Today, most British voters already want her to resign. Normally, a new leader gets a honeymoon period as the party and country rally around the premier, hoping for a new dawn, warmed by optimism and fresh hope. This lack of legitimacy may come to haunt her in the months ahead, as a future leadership change cannot be ruled out. Then again, new UK Prime Minister Liz Truss cannot genuinely claim to have been elected democratically - she was only voted into power by about 80,000 Conservative Party members. It is hard to recall a more disastrous first month in office of any democratic leader.
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