Throughout a torturous month for the prime minister, there was one achievement that Liz Truss could still claim: the energy price freeze. Now she has abandoned the last weapon she has in her armoury. In doing so, she has probably sealed her own fate.
Jeremy Hunt will now end the energy price freeze in April, after six months rather than two years. The universal policy had its critics, but it was the one announcement of her premiership that Truss could genuinely claim would alleviate the anxiety and suffering of millions.
It was more generous than Labour’s policy, one of the only talking points Tory MPs could grasp at when they were hit by oncoming volleys in media interviews.
Even at a cabinet meeting on Monday morning, Truss is said to have continued with her mantra that she had saved the British people from misery this winter and heralded the tax cuts in her growth plan. The only tax cuts remaining are the one to stamp duty and the cancellation of the national insurance rise.
When Hunt took the floor that afternoon, he methodically dismantled every other aspect of her platform and pulled the rug from under her one popular policy.
Now, not only will people see their mortgages and rents rise but they are no longer guaranteed long-term protection from rising energy bills. Though international gas prices are falling, early predictions from analysts suggests they will still be crippling. Already, the freeze at an average of £2,500 is double what households were paying last year.
And there are more humiliations to come for the prime minister. Almost all of what she has promised as PM now looks economically or politically impossible. Truss promised to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2026 and 3% by 2030 – the kind of unfunded spending Hunt is very likely to block.
MPs who have stood on a 2019 manifesto promising the end of austerity will have to defend widespread spending cuts. There has already been a revolt over benefit rises. Another of her pledges at the leadership contest – the return of fracking licences – looks set to be opposed by Conservative MPs at a debate on Wednesday.
With such starkly evident limits on Truss as prime minister, it is unclear what her purpose for continuing in office is now. Hunt has been the face of the change, across broadcast media over the weekend and in the House of Commons.
Hunt is not the only rival. Labour attempted to summon Truss to the House of Commons to answer an urgent question and No 10 had no choice but to send the one volunteer to go in her place: her former leadership opponent Penny Mordaunt. The savvy leader of the Commons told MPs, to loud laughter, that Truss was not “under a desk” and said with a smile: “I fully appreciate the optics of me appearing at the dispatch box.”
But Mordaunt made one other smart move: she apologised at least three times for the situation the country and the party is now in.
In a WhatsApp message circulated to Conservative MPs on behalf of No 10, there was an explanation of new policy which was blamed on “global headwinds” and came with no apology. Mordaunt struck a very different tone – and one Tory MPs might start to think is preferable in the long term.
• This article was amended on 18 October 2022. Liz Truss promised to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2026, not “by 2.5% of GDP”, as an earlier version said.
