Mick Clifford: Truss typified the politics of magic thinking

The latest example of the calibre of character who stepped forward to fill the void — rising to the top at a time of upheaval through a combination of neck, bluff, guile, charm, and luck

Liz Truss with her husband Hugh O’Leary, makes a statement outside 10 Downing Street, London, where she announced her resignation as prime minister on Thursday. Picture: PA

There was a time when a Liz Truss wouldn’t have got next nor near Number 10 Downing Street. Her attributes would have seen her reach a career high as a minor junior minister. In such a world, nine out of 10 people would not have recognised her in a photo. (Come to think of it, nine out of 10 mightn’t even recognise her now).

She would have been the smiling face at the edge of the gathering in which party bigwigs crowd around their leader.

That she got to spend 45 days as prime minister of Britain, even in these chaotic times, is quite an achievement. She should pinch herself to check that it really happened.

The brief elevation of Truss to high office is a depressing reminder of what is becoming of politics.

There is a void in many, if not most, national electorates across the western world. It is being filled by different kinds of characters who come bearing promises that they are going to clean up politics, be a non-politician politician, drain the swamp, fill in your own blank accordingly.

Truss is the latest example of the calibre of character who stepped forward to fill the void. She was simply out of her depth, the kind of individual who can rise to the top at a time of upheaval through a combination of neck, bluff, guile, charm, and luck.

Central to this new brand of politics is a form of magic. It points to a Utopia where all the pain that many are suffering will simply disappear if the right people are in charge and the kind of chassis that is ill serving people right now will be swept away by a force of personality. Just believe and a new way is possible. Magic.

So it went with Truss’s great slogan, “low taxes and high growth”. Who’s against low taxes? Who’s against high growth? Believe and it will happen. Perhaps she researched how Bertie Ahern’s governments had succeeded during the days of the Celtic Tiger, but left out the bit about a whopper of an economic crash at the end of it.

Just like Brexit

In the UK, Brexit was all about magic. Plans for a new dawn outside the EU were not required. Projections that an economic slump would ensue were dismissed as “project fear”.

Emotion beat science around the place as the whole thing was presented as an opportunity for Britain to unshackle itself from Europe and set sail to reconquer the world, this time with trade and its knowledge economy. All you had to do, according to the Brexiteers, was believe.

Teresa May attempted to bring things back to earth but she quickly got bogged down and shown the door.

Why spoil Utopia with dirty reality? Then cometh the hour, cometh the man. Boris Johnson was a magician out of the top drawer, great stage presence, a sense of fun, good comic timing and overflowing with wit and repartee. If he didn’t have to run a country, he would have been box office from here to eternity.

Boris Johnson kept the 'magic' going by getting rid of anyone who might try to sneak in a sense of reality.

Boris recognised that to keep the magic going he had to get rid of anybody who might try to sneak in some sense of reality. So it was that he saw the back of those MPs not on board his magical mystery tour to “get Brexit done” . 

A whole clutch of sensible, responsible Tory MPs were either deselected or given no support in the general election of 2019. Boris won a majority of 80, mainly through weaving his spell in formerly staunch Labour strongholds in the north of England. Politics was no longer a function of ideology of one sort or another. It was all about the touch, the feel, the magic.

That election left Boris in his element, having secured his own mandate. He managed alright initially, even giving the impression now and again that he knew what was going on. But he just couldn’t stop lying only and there is only so much lying of that any democracy can tolerate from its leader. Step forward Liz Truss.

The first act of her government was to fire the Treasury’s top civil servant, Tom Scholar.

This gent had been a central figure in navigating the UK out of the financial collapse of 2008, but during her campaign to succeed Boris, Truss described such civil servants as “bean counters”.

Belief vs analysis

Instead, she wanted her people to believe rather than analyse. Now, her magic has dissipated, but at least she can tell her grandchildren she was PM for 45 days, whatever the cost to the British people.

Over in the US, the magic was spawned not by a concept like Brexit, but a big, orange personality, Donald Trump. Even 10 years ago nobody could ever have envisaged that such a man would not just become president but dismantle a party as old and tenured as the Republicans.

His days in high office may be gone but look what he has left behind. Recently the Washington Post reported that the majority of Republican candidates in the forthcoming state and national mid-term elections do not believe that Joe Biden won the presidential election in 2020.

A total of 299 candidates out of 569 — including some running for governorships and senatorial seats — either deny or question the legitimacy of Biden’s election. There is zero evidence to back up such an outrageous contention.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is expected to be elevated to the frontline of the party if Republicans retake the House in the next election. Picture: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

But Trump asserted it to be so, and therefore it must be.

He has also opened the door to usher in people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, who is expected to be elevated to the frontline of the party if the Republicans retake the House in the forthcoming election.

Greene has espoused far-right white supremacist conspiracy theories, as well as promoting QAnon, a completely whacky yet highly dangerous conspiracy-based movement. In a time less crazy, Greene would be confined to a dark corner of the internet.

That is where the gaping void in politics has brought these two formerly great democracies. In other countries the void has been filled with authoritarian leaders or parties of the far right that are peddling their own brand of magic. At such a time, there are small mercies for which to be grateful.

We have some very serious problems in this country right now, none more so than housing.

The Government can be rightly criticised for some of its policies but certainly to the extent that can be determined, none of them believe in magic.

The main opposition party Sinn Féin is promising a better way in that respect, and while some of its proposals appear unrealistic at least they are not peddling the kind of utopian nonsense that has seen politics in other countries veer dangerously off course.

Let’s hope things stay that way.