One of Queen Elizabeth II’s last acts was to receive the new PM Elizabeth Truss at Balmoral castle. That’s a tradition, so good for the queen, I guess—and maybe even better for the new PM? But the key question going forward is: Do Brits trust Truss?
King Charles III and the new PM will have a lot of thorny issues to sort through. While not as diverse as the US, and immigrants and refugees are mostly from old colonies and not especially fond of the old British Empire, the economy is in bad shape, the NHS is in trouble, and people might have trouble heating their homes this winter. (The latter might be a real problem up in Balmoral!)
Let’s forget about King Charlie for now. He’s probably a fan of the statuus quo because his family have been parasites living off British taxpayers forever, but he has little to no power to change things anyway. So, to continue the title question, does Liz Truss instill trust among the British people? And can Brits trust her to wield it artfully?
Considering that less than one percent of Brits made old Liz PM of the UK, these are all valid questions. She claims to be the new Margaret Thatcher—definitely not a plus for me, although the Iron Lady and her actor counterpart, Death-Valley-Days Ronnie, weren’t the complete fascists the “f&^%ing moron” and his minins are—but Liz squeaked through without even her own party completely supporting her!
Can she handle the job, coming through for the Brits as the shite hits the ventilator? The UK, like the rest of Europe and the US, is already suffering from hard times, mostly created by Brexit, the pandemic, and the Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the Tories are notoriously hard on and uncaring about the British middle class, precisely those who will suffer most, because, unlike the poor, the middle class actually had something pre-Brexit.
At Oxford, old Liz was a radical far-left firebrand who wanted to get rid of the monarchy. (That’s something I could applaud, not just because I’m half-Irish, but also because the idea of having Charlie replace his nice and generally well-meaning old mum gives me acid reflux.) Unfortunately, Liz took a sharp right turn (channeling Abbie Hoffman?) driven by political expediency and not by any worthwhile causes she champions. (At least, Charlie preached against global warming, but I doubt that will continue now. Yes, he’s king, but he can’t be political, right? Like the US, the UK is split on environmental issues, that split basically corresponding between sane progressives and insane neo-fascist conservatives.)
I’m just a Yank who’s just as interested in what happens in the UK as I am in what occurs in other countries among the western democracies, including the US, of course. Right now there are two existential problems that we all have to face (although some ignore them): The first is global warming—we’re destroying our world! The second is the trend toward fascism—China, North Korea, and Russia are the obvious enemies, but so is every two-bit existing or wannabe dictator around the world (the latter includes DJT and all his MAGA Good Ole Piranha minions). Will the new PM work to solve these problems? Or will she make them even worse? Not only the Brits want to know the answers to those questions.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens over there across the pond. The UK could continue to destroy the environment and swirl down into the cesspool of fascism along with the US the way things are going. PM Truss doesn’t seem to possess the curriculum vitae to halt what Johnson started when he was PM (or did it all start with the Iron Lady?). The world is changing in the UK and elsewhere…but probably not for the better!