The Shortest Tenant At 10 Downing Street

When the British choose their prime ministers, sometimes the selection, life and exit of their leaders can be eventful as it can be curious to the uninitiated observer. Liz Truss’ spectacular fall from grace at the pinnacle of British politics marked a rather comical end to her short stay at the helm of the British establishment. While the rapid changes in the guard within premiership position of Britain is not peculiar to PM Truss’ time in office, the manner of the fall continues to provoke reflections among watchers of British politics many months after her exit from office. The fact that her proposed seismic tax cuts can be credited as the immediate cause of the dismissal performance of that government has dominated various narratives and commentary on reasons for the demise of her government. What is hardly mentioned, however, was the role played by race and ‘otherness’ in the political dynamic of the fall. Put differently, questions may be asked of the effect of the race of the first African chancellor, and the psycho-social role played by that reality in deepening the doubts in the leadership of that government?  The reaction of the market proved pivotal in the end and the fact that Chancellor Kwateng took the first fall for it perhaps bespeaks volumes of the dynamics at play in the crumbling Truss administration.

PM Truss announced her entry into office with bold and radical economic measures designed to keep the government going, and this was to be counterbalanced with increased government spending to help people deal with rising prices. As it turned out, these policies tended to generate the opposite effect. Within weeks of their announcement, the UK Pound Sterling took a hit, the stock market was in turmoil and the British economy appeared to be in a tailspin and heading for something of a crash. To compound matters, Liz Truss’ government remained resolute and refused to change course in spite of the visible negative impacts of her economic policies on the economy.

But what was the central feature of PM Truss’ policies that proved so deeply unpopular and many will argue, flawed at birth? At the core of the policy was an economic plan of £45bn in annual unfunded tax cuts equal to 1.8% of GDP. In the absence of a comprehensive and convincing policy framework that responded to the fears of British public and further assured them that not only did the government knew what it was doing, but that also tax cuts were not going to benefit the rich to the disadvantage of working families, the radical policies embarked on by the government was doomed to fail!  

The picture is less clear however in the case of chancellor Kwarteng. Being the first and only black Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng was in uncharted waters, and the hysteria of the ensuing reaction perhaps may have reflected the mixed anxiety and prejudice of the new man at the top!

Beyond the many questions implicated by how the Truss administration’s economic policy was received, the Prime Minister’s inexperience in office appears to have also reinforced the reaction of the establishment to her policy announcement. Mixed with a preference for economic orthodoxy which has traditionally defined the Conservative party in the UK, the shock therapy approach exemplified in her administration’s economic policy may, with the benefit of hindsight, appear to have been misguided and ill-advised. By dismissing the highest-ranking official in the government’s finance department and unveiling the tax cut proposal without providing associated cost forecasts, Truss appeared as an inexperienced politician aiming to create a legacy from the inception of her administration without putting in the effort to ensure its successful execution.

Yet in the specific case of chancellor Kwateng, it may be necessary to probe the role prejudice played in the reaction of actors and institutions to the infamous policies of the short-lived government. Given the many women who have led and successfully completed terms in British political history, it is hard to assert that the gender of the beleaguered PM might have been a catalyst behind the sudden collapse of the Truss government, the experience of PM Theresa May notwithstanding.

The picture is less clear however in the case of chancellor Kwarteng. Being the first and only black Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng was in uncharted waters, and the hysteria of the ensuing reaction perhaps may have reflected the mixed anxiety and prejudice of the new man at the top! Yet, dubious as this may look, given the treatment of the Chancellor and his prior exit before the PM herself was eventually forced to resign, it is difficult to ignore the claim of racial prejudice playing a role in the reception of PM Truss’ economic policies spearheaded by Chancellor Kwarteng.   For a start, the media narrative of the evolving chaos in the Truss administration appeared to have fully blamed the meltdown on the Chancellor, and there was generally something of a scapegoating of Chancellor Kwarteng for the ensuing failure of the economic agenda of the government.

There is also the central question of whether the Truss’ team were both sensitive and alive to the political economy of things in light of a fragile global economy and uncertainties in a post-pandemic British economy. Speaking more pragmatically, it goes without saying that bold and unprecedented policy initiatives should of necessity be framed and predicated on clarity with stated foundations. The converse seems to have been exposed when Truss’ policy of economic reform was subjected to the stress test of the markets and exogenous variables and her inability to explain the deficit arising out of the tax cut was going to be funded dealt a deathly blow to the whole proposed policy initiative.

The commotion therein ushered in by Truss’ administration perhaps exposed a key flaw in the pre-electoral policy articulation of would-be prime ministers whose promised economic policies are hardly rigorously examined at the stage of campaigning. Having promised to press ahead with tax cuts when elected, the hullabaloo was rather surprising given the fact that, by her election, the British people had legitimized and endorsed her electoral promise.

But more surprisingly, the Truss’ administration appeared to have been initially spared the harsh effect of the traditional principle of collective responsibility. As PM, she was allowed to pick and choose who was to bear greater responsibility for the historic failures of her government. Naturally, the blame fell on Chancellor Kwasi Kwateng whose sector department spearheaded the fraught economic policy. As if his name was not novel enough in a position which had been traditionally white, Kwateng’s penchant to toy with fate and remain resolute must have been both admired and loathed in equal measure by key members of the British establishment. 

But as earlier noted, in a time of huge uncertainty marked by turbulent economic times amidst a post-pandemic slowdown if not recession, championing a policy of unfunded tax cuts was hardly going to do much to the credibility of a new government with a “historic Chancellor” at the top. Beyond the issue of policy dysfunction, Liz Truss’ government suffered from a certain degree of personnel dissonance that became rather obvious in the dying embers of the regime. By sacking her chancellor, Truss implicitly laid the blame squarely at the foot of Mr. Kwateng and benefitted from the self-imposed fissure in the government. Even more telling, her explanation for staying on — which she justified as being necessary in order to calm the markets, meant that she considered the chancellor the liability whose departure was necessary for assurances of the market. 

The evolution of the unraveling of PM Truss’ administration is at best a reflection of a shift in British Parliamentary practice in its handling of executive responsibility, but at worst a selective application of the time-tested principle. Crucially, the opposition party wobbled in calling for a confidence vote allowing her to stay on longer than usual in the circumstances.

She was criticized for her communication style, which was often seen as being arrogant and out of touch. Her lack of experience and her failure to grasp the complexities of the job of Prime Minister led to her being perceived as out of touch with the struggles of the average citizen, lacking empathy for those facing difficulties. In all this, her subsequent scapegoating of her good friend and the first Black Chancellor in the UK meant that she was doomed to inevitably fail. Her recalcitrance and stubborn refusal to balk in the face of the obvious was poignant but her short-lived stay in power remains telling even by British political standards!

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Professor Ernest Kofi Abotsi is the Dean of the UPSA Law School and an Associate Professor of law