Truss Was Toppled in 'Moderate Coup,' UK Ruling Conservative Party Now Doomed - Experts
22:35 GMT 21.10.2022 (Updated: 15:24 GMT 28.05.2023)
© DANIEL LEAL
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Toppled UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was the victim of a coup by her country's moderate establishment and her failure means the ruling conservative Tory Party is now doomed in the next general election, experts told Sputnik.
Truss resigned on Thursday after only 44 days in office, the shortest term of any UK prime minister since the position was created 300 years ago.
UK political commentator and former diplomat Peter Ford said her rapid fall was caused by radical policies that outraged the country's liberal political consensus.
"There has been a coup by the 'moderate' establishment, heralded by the BBC, just as there was a coup against [former Labor Party leader Jeremy] Corbyn," Ford said. "The Tories are now doomed."
Unable to offer the electorate real conservatism, Ford said Tories are bound to be "decimated" at the next general election by ultra-moderate Labor.
In today’s UK, Ford added, corporate media will conspire to bring down any politician who deviates from the series of "moderate" beliefs, shared by MPs of all parties.
The former British diplomat described what happened to Truss as a "speeded-up mirror version of what happened to Corbyn."
"Both were chosen by enthusiastic party memberships - one to bring socialism back to [former prime minister Tony] Blair's Labor, one to bring back real conservatism - low taxes especially - to the Tories - and both were upended by revolts by MPs of what I would call the extreme center," Ford said.
Ford also said Truss undermined herself by continuing the fierce anti-Russian policy she inherited from her old boss and predecessor Boris Johnson that seriously weakened the UK's own domestic economy.
"One of the ironies here is that Truss was to some extent responsible for her own failure because as foreign secretary she co-authored with Boris Johnson the policy of sanctions on Russia which have backfired so spectacularly on the UK and EU economies," he said.
20 October 2022, 18:44 GMT
The resultant spike in energy prices, Ford added, proved to be the last straw that broke those economies after years of spending and borrowing that had laid the groundwork for a takeoff in inflation. Ford said these, among other establishment policies, have crippled the UK.
"Unswerving devotion to recklessly high public spending funded by money creation and borrowing, a cult of the National Health Service, climate alarmism, social liberalism undermining the family, and of course worship of 'defense' and NATO… have brought the country to its knees," Ford said.
Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, Chas Freeman, said Truss appears to be the perfect embodiment of the "Peter Principle" whereby people are promoted above their levels of experience and competence.
"Her ideological approach to policy making confirmed the impression many had of her as a bit of a dimwit with delusions about the freedom of maneuver Britain had gained from Brexit," Freeman said. "So she had to go."
From an American point of view, the speed with which she fell is both inspiring and dispiriting, Freeman added.
"Many here [in the US] wish that our system would permit an equally expeditious dispatch of elected leaders who have proven their ignorance and ineptitude beyond a reasonable doubt," Freeman said. "But it won't."
