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.”
Many of the arguments expounded on by Truss in Birmingham this afternoon were made in book published earlier this year, shortly before she lost her seat in South West Norfolk, Ten Years to Save the West. As well as claiming today that Britain was a socialist country, Truss said the same of Australia, the United States, Canada, France and Germany. As for the Tories, her assessment could be shortened further: “We are no longer the party of the establishment.”
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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, having educated Ms Truss, it has a lot to answer for.
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.
Well, it was a conscious decision to tame that natural outcome of capitalist economies after the war. During Bretton Woods the consensus was that war and revolutionary tendencies of the 19th and 20th century should be prevented by trying to set up a more stable and equal world economy with strong welfare states. It was also a conscious effort to dismantle a lot of this in the late 70s and early 80s.
Some confusion arises because this was done with a lot of right-libertarian rhetoric. But monetarism and supply-side thinking was always statist, essentially focusing the Keynesian welfare state on supporting big capital and the ultra-wealthy. And this, I think, is the origin of the current corporatist system.
Concur DM.
There is much talk of Mad Liz’s radicalism, and yet really her approach entirely unreflective on what has been driving R>C. Her tax cuts, had they happened, would have just seen those benefitting buying more low productivity assets and not driving a reinvigorated economic dynamism. We saw that with what happened to the £600billion in pandemic payments once that filtered through to those with assets.
Unfortunately, those with assets are now a majority of the population – so politicians are more or less forced to buy our votes by boosting the value of those assets, which they do by cannibalising the state’s resources. This won’t change until we stop passing the buck – as you do in every post you write – and start paying back.
As I’ve tried to explain before.
I think it is fair to say that everything is becoming more concentrated in the hands of a narrow group – wealth included.
This is a popular analysis – but it’s wrong. In the old days the ruling class was a minority of the population – so they had to justify their existence. Now the majority of families are asset owners. We’ve become the ruling class. To win elections politicians are required to increase the value of our assets, which they usually do by artificially inflating house prices through interest rate manipulation and boosting pension values by importing cheap labour whilst failing to create the infrastructure needed to accommodate it.
Gordon Brown was the most accomplished in this respect but they’ve all been doing it.
The consequence of this is that the property owning class as a whole has become parasitic. We’ve become richer every year since 2008 as the country has become poorer. Failing public services and disintegrating communities in the North are the result.
No politician dares to challenge this system because the entire media is controlled by the rent-seeking class. When Theresa May rather timidly suggested we could use some of the trillions in unearned wealth that we’ve accumulated to pay for social care the loudest howls of outrage came from the Guardian. That’s how far we’ve come.
Oh jeez it’s Brown’s fault, and oh yes the Guardian’s too (forgetting it was the Daily Mail that done for May’s ‘death tax). You’re becoming a parody of yourself HB.
Was this Truss puff written by Chat GPT??
If you can’t tell me why I’m wrong then don’t respond to my posts. No amount of childish sneering can conceal the fact that you’re out of your depth in this forum.
HB’s was a very measured and perceptive analysis, hardly justifying your silly “it was all Brown’s fault comment”. It is just common wisdom now that the attempt to stabilise the economy after 2008 inflated asset classes and enriched their owners at public expense, broadly speaking. ( I myself certainly don’t demonise Brown in this; it was very difficult situation ). I’m quite prepared to hear an argument that this common wisdom might be wrong, but if so that needs to be argued and explained.
There is a difference though between ordinary homeowners and the very wealthy! the former have also seen downsides in other aspects of economic and public life. The fact that your house is worth more doesn’t actually help you with writing prices, higher taxis and worsening per public services.
The description of an attempt to fund hugely expensive care costs in a fairer way by Teresa May, whether by the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Labour Party or others, was another short-termist, head in the sand ( you might say “populist”!). way of kicking a very big can down the road. If we attempted to provide adult care at the end of life to everybody for free on the state taxes would rise enormously. Whatever the virtue signalling there often is about “we want to pay more tax” I believe this would be publicly completely unacceptable and no political party will advocate it
Don’t you think that the fact that they still largely remain the most prestigious universities in the country (and certainly were when the current cabinet members went there) might have something to do with the fact that a disproportionate number of politicians,(as well and businesss leaders, senior civil servants, high court judges etc) are alumni?
As Rachel Taylor says, under 50% of the cabinet is Oxbridge educated. I’m sure much the same would be true of almost all major public institutions, which makes the issue rather wider than Oxbridge.
The brightest minds go to the best Universities. I’m sure a large percentage of “movers and shakers” in the US went to Ivy League colleges too.
The brightest minds – and therefore alumni of the “best” universities – aren’t necessarily the most capable or just governors. As anyone who has sat in a UK senior civil service meeting surrounded by the cream of Oxbridge can testify, the very brightest often have a terrible combination of behaviours:
– Play semantics to dissemble, delay and disrupt decisions they don’t agree with;
– Overly confident, lacking self-criticism, and very self-centred;
– Confuse their opinion with theory and theory with reality; and
– Resort to their credentials rather than evidence to prove a point.
Yet these are all behaviours that make for excellent (if not honest) academic performance, particularly in the humanities.
Interestingly, I am told that senior government officials in the US tend not to be Ivy League graduates (I guess because the money in the private sector is so much greater).
The Senior Executive Service is increasingly drawn from Ivy League and Ivy League adjacent* universities. So the US government is becoming more like the UK. Low career risk and in-network recruitment suits perfectly the progeny of an established middle class.
*Colleges like Stanford and Hamilton.
Hamilton is an odd choice to lump with Stanford and Harvard.
Indeed – the ability to “read and regurgitate” better than others during your teenage years has little bearing on whether you develop adult intelligence.
Plus, they’re lazy beyond belief. They got the degree. They got the job. What more do you want?
It’s not where you studied, it’s what you studied, and did you understand it so that it can be applied, in a positive manner?
There is a surfeit of degrees from the Arts and Humanities, especially Law, PPE, Politics and (any sort of) History. The last two offer the opportunity for the MP to attempt to emulate a famous prime minister, such as Churchill, usually without the appropriate ability.
Of course, we need a few, to ‘civilise’ the Chamber 🙂 , but government is also about Business Management and Infrastructure projects. And there aren’t enough experts with sufficient experience for that to form a football team. Yes, they may not be running the projects, but unless you have a good grounding, how can you take responsibility for decisions.
In addition, Scientists, Engineers and other disciplines need several years of Industrial Experience to become useful: being a Spad just doesn’t cut it. Yet, after gaining a few years of knowledge, with just a few more years required to understand an industry, who would risk winning a swing seat, or land into the bureaucratic treacle of the state? So we are left with very few in the upper strata of the Establishment able to discuss the TECHNICAL problems at that level before decisions are made. It is what senior management is supposed to do.
For those that think there isn’t a problem, focus on the NET Zero policies that have over twenty years of unbelievable stupidity to back them up. And then we have the siloed, short termism of the NHS and the ideological straight jackets within schools and universities, and few MPs appear able, or even willing, to do anything. Perhaps, on the current state, nothing can be done, especially when so many have forgotten that they aren’t parish councillors any more.
I agree – many people at all sorts of levels are seeking to destabilise democracy and destroy two millennia of history and cultural inheritance. I like Hugh Bryant’s concept of “bubble-dwelling Oxbridge graduates”! They are at the forefront of the destabilisation process!
‘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.
The tax cuts were unfunded because spending was to remain the same.
No.. the spending was therefore unfunded. My original comment is correct.
Silly point MC. She needed to make clear what she was withdrawing funding from. Had the funding never existed then your argument holds, but that wasn’t the position.
Far from silly, just logic…not spending doesn’t require funding. It is perfectly obvious. Tax cuts don’t need “funding”.
In fact you make the exact point yourself, quite rightly. She needed to say from what funding was being withdrawn and she didn’t.
Presumably the idea was to get growth by tax cuts and the resultant increase in the overall tax take would fill the gap. But she didn’t supply any figures to support the idea, that I know of.
Instead we are to have tax rises in a stagnant economy, thereby depressing growth…and cuts eventually necessary anyway (as Dennis Healey found out many years ago…I wonder how flush the IMF is these days…)
She didn’t need to provide evidence. Example after example in economic history shows she was right. Only Sunak didn’t ‘believe’ in the Laffer curve.
Lefties love tax punishment.
It’s an example of why the Right gets so much wrong – inability to be honest about choices.
If she wanted to reduce tax she had to either borrow more or reduce spending and be clear where. She just didn’t specify what she was going to do. You do exactly the same and think it’s sufficient. It’s the same infantilism.
It’s an honourable position to take – i.e: we spend less – but you have to be clear where and how you’d do that or it’s all slogan no substance. Hence people won’t believe you and the markets panic and react accordingly. Pretty basic really.
Yep
Unfunded tax cuts oay for themselves quickly. Remember when Brown raised surtax levels to 50000? Revenue stayed the same.
Those ‘unfunded’ tax cuts for higher earners were indeed what scuppered the KK budget, even though they only represented about 2% of the overall package. The optics were terrible, a schoolboy error from our Oxbridge-educated elites which fed red meat to the leftie media.
Someone needs to tell her that not everything in the particular internet bubble she inhabits is actually true! Top marks for sheer nerve though.
Not Austria though.
No, though Austria might become National Socialist.
It does have form in that regard.
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.
Quite right. That “single-handedly tanking the economy” thing did blot her copybook somewhat.
Values? Chucking her Chancellor under a Bus to save her own skin? A total lack of self reflection on what she got wrong? That everyone else but she was to blame? Remarkable values indeed.
Her values are predominantly narcissistic and about ‘herself’.
Or did the Blob ensure she was portrayed as not PM material when their own candidate failed to secure the leadership.
To paraphrase Jonny Rotten: Blob, blob, blob – the Blob is you!
Well that was riposte from the master of quick wit and ready repartee
At midnight, the misnamed energy price cap will go up by a whopping 10 per cent even though wholesale prices have come down, and a country standing on a thousand years’ worth of coal, the world leader in clean coal technology until something happened 40 years ago, will become the first major country to stop burning it. These two developments are not unconnected.
Connected to both is the downgrading of Port Talbot to a glorified recycling plant for steel from India, where it will of course have been produced in blast furnaces, as Britain continued its progress towards becoming the only G7 country without the basic sovereignty and security of a domestic steel industry. Margaret Thatcher said that her greatest achievement was New Labour. She was right.
As PM, Ms Truss demonstrated that she didn’t understand economics. Now she’s demonstrated that she doesn’t understand socialism.
The ‘freak show’ that’s ‘keeps giving’. Good grief do the Tories not understand the more air-time they give Mad Liz the more damage it does them.
The point often forgotten is her incompetence, combined with a tin-eared robotic style, undermined the case for economic radicalism. She blames a ‘Deep State’ for her failings and yet the Treasury helped to deliver her vision in the mini Budget. The BofE then saved her bacon with their firefighting. And the OBR forecasts helped restore the credibility of the public finance outlook. Th truth is she just can’t accept responsibility for her critical role in a disastrous 49 days. In fact without the latter two’s help she’d have tanked the economy even more.
Truth is she’s actually has made it more difficult for politicians, of whatever persuasion, to be bold and embrace radical change. The fact her prominent narcissism leads her into a conspiratorial self-justifying narrative also further shows what bedfellows are those traits.
Yes, the Treasury helped to deliver her vision in the mini Budget, but didn’t tell her about the LDIs that the BoE had been arranging for some considerable time. What was worse was that they were ‘quite good’ at it, too good in fact, and many were sold, more than appropriate. This meant that a rise in interest rates increased cost for the country.
She sacked her lead Treasury Civil Servant before he could provide any advice. She didn’t want to hear any did she. Do you think if she’d known about LDIs she’d i) have understood it? ii) made her stop and think more first?