New Prime Minister Liz Truss hardly had time to get over the Downing St threshold before news of the Queen’s death derailed her agenda.
No wonder Australian broadcasters failed to recognise the premier of the country at Westminster Abbey on Monday.
Truss has had to deal with more in the last fortnight than most Prime Minister’s deal with in a year and been completely overshadowed by the late Queen’s funeral. Now politics is back with a bang and Truss is determined to prove she leads a government in a hurry to get things done.
She flew off to the United Nations general Assembly on Monday night and returns to the UK for a crammed week of policy announcements and challenges.
Here are five challenges facing Liz Truss as she gets her premiership underway:
International diplomacy
Truss touched down in New York in the early hours of Tuesday and is spending the next two days at the UN General Assembly locked in some big diplomatic meetings.
She will meet several world leaders one-to-one, including US President Joe Biden and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. Both will press Truss hard over the Northern Ireland protocol which threatens to destabilise the peace process and attempts to get the Stormont Assembly back on track.
The government has already made the frank admission that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US will take years to complete, but that is honest compared to the “getting Brexit done” bombast of the Johnson era.
There is also a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who Truss insulted during her leadership campaign by being unable to say whether he was a friend or foe. Macron’s gracious messages over the death of the Queen show that he can rise above it, the question is can Liz Truss?
Helping Ukraine
On the flight on the way to New York Truss told travelling reporters that international security was her top priority. She committed the UK to continuing to support Ukraine’s fight back against the Russian invasion with another £2.3 billion of support next year, matching the commitment Boris Johnson made as Prime Minister.
The war in Ukraine has a massive domestic impact on the cost of living crisis which will be an equally big challenge.
Getting the tone right
After the Queen’s funeral and the remarkable shared grief Truss faces a struggle in getting her agenda to land with the voting public.
Remember she does not have a personal mandate from the voters who face rising inflation and wage demands being rejected over the winter. She has ruled out a windfall tax on massive company profits to fund the £2500 energy cap freeze, putting the cost onto government borrowing.
The freeze and her sweeping tax cut plans will give Britain’s richest households twice as much financial support with living costs as the poorest households. How all that will go down with the public will define how she is seen as a Prime Minister.
Cost of living crisis
Truss’s announcement of a £2500 cap on domestic energy bills was completely overtaken by the Queen’s death and many questions remain on how it will be funded and who will benefit the most.
The Resolution Foundation think tank said the Prime Minister’s energy package, announced hours before news of the death of the Queen, would come with a “colossal” price tag for taxpayers and that was poorly targeted to help those most in need.
There is also the “no pain, no gain” effect in that voters have not been confronted with the horror of high bills yet and may not thank Truss for blunting the cost.
Businesses find out on Wednesday how they will be helped with the crisis when Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg is expected to set out plans to support firms with energy costs.
Cutting taxes
On Thursday Therese Coffey will make a statement on the NHS in England, which may have funding implications for the NHS in Scotland run by the SNP government.
On Friday Truss’s real agenda is unveiled when new chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivers a mini-Budget promising a reverse in the National Insurance rise, cuts to corporation tax and maybe even bringing forward from 2024 the promised 1p cut in income tax.
National Insurance is a UK-wide tax so affects Scots but the Holyrood government sets the Scottish tax rate separately. A cut in the UK rate, or even the introduction of regional variations in freeport zones in England, will have direct implications for Scotland.
John Swinney, the stand-in Finance Secretary, must make a call on matching the Truss tax cuts or risk having Scotland labelled as the highest taxed part of the UK.
This is not clever politics from Truss or even orthodox right-wing thinking, but tax cutting on borrowing to boost economic growth is radical. According to many economists it is a formula for crashing the economy into recession.
If that happens Liz Truss's qualities of nation leadership will be truly tested, but at least everyone will know who she is.
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