Truss at Ten

No doubt provoked by those who claimed that her 49 days in office provided insufficient material, Anthony Seldon has produced a magisterial account of how many things went wrong for Liz Truss. In fact, everything! He postulates ten critical success factors for PMs and traces her story by reference to her failures to match the requirements of any of them. The irony is that amid this bleak landscape of arrogant certitude and a refusal to listen to advice, lie a few shafts of sunlight – attributes which could have stood her in better stead had she made fewer mistakes. She is credited with knowing exactly what she wanted to do, but not how to get there or how to carry the country with her. For a forensic analysis of how not to perform the role, this is a rapid, rip-roaring ride to an inevitable conclusion. Having excoriated her immediate predecessor for a different set of failures, Seldon must look forward to being able to write a more generous assessment of a Prime Minister. Alas, I suspect Sunak may not quite provide the occasion.