Unfortunately, Joe Biden’s crystal ball only works to allow him to see the past as he joins the pile-on of beleaguered PM Liz Truss.
Some of us did predict the outcome of her mini-budget in advance, but I don’t recall Joe Biden being one of them.
There is a saying in politics that if you want a friend in politics to buy yourself a dog. President Biden proved this rule is still correct as he launched a retrospective attack on Liz Truss and her mini-budget, which unraveled faster than President Biden hiding his coloring book when the press show up.
Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, left-wing Labour Party, has the unofficial moniker of Captain Hindsight. President Biden appears to be giving him a run for his money on this.
Liz Truss successfully appealed to the Conservative Party membership to defeat Rishi Sunak in the competition to lead the Party and the country in a bruising leadership election this summer.
Sunak predicted a run on the pound and destabilization of the markets if Truss cut taxes in the face of the current international inflation spike publicly at those leadership hustings. However, the majority of my Party’s wider membership liked what she was selling.
There is another saying that telling people the truth won’t go unpunished for long, and Rishi Sunak was certainly punished at the leadership vote for telling it like it is.
The fact that President Biden has joined the pile-on of Liz Truss will do nothing but hasten her fast-approaching departure from Number 10 and make her the shortest serving UK PM in history.
Who will replace her? That’s still up in the air, but I would bet our Party won’t be allowing the membership another vote on it. As history certainly also shows in Joe Biden’s crystal ball, Conservative party members’ vote can be bought by the fool’s gold of promises of unfunded tax cuts at a time of high inflation.
Of the alternatives within the Conservative Party to replace Truss, some still believe that Boris Johnson could make a return. Surely, his unstinting support and endorsement of Liz Truss and her policies during the recent election of his successor automatically rules him out.
Liz has sunk her own leadership and her predecessors potential come back at the same time, all in record time.
Beleaguered Liz Truss has now run out of friends—she only ever had the support of a third of the elected MPs. We should expect more fireworks in Parliament this week. Unless this is resolved quickly, we are heading for a General Election. The big winner of all this could be Captain Hindsight himself.
MP Andrew Bridgen is the Member of the UK Parliament for North West Leicestershire. He backed Rishi Sunak at the Conservative Party leadership election.
