An enormous amount has happened since Boris Johnson won an 80-seat majority in the Brexit-dominated general election of December 2019.
At the time of his victory, which ended the stalemate that had frozen British politics, Mr Johnson doubtless felt optimistic about the mark he would make on history.
But less than three years later, he has as good as left the political stage following a period when his character flaws terminally undermined his ability to run the country.
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Thanks largely to him, the Conservative Party is now in a parlous state of confusion, heading for an ignominious defeat at the next election, whenever that might come.
The handover of power to Liz Truss has not gone well, predominantly because there is a huge gulf between her priorities and those of the people of Britain.
While she and her acolytes have an ideological commitment to hard right policies involving tax cuts for the rich and benefit cuts for the poor, ordinary people want measures that will directly help them to cope with the cost of living crisis.
Yet Ms Truss’ failings are not in themselves enough to justify the argument that a general election now would be the right thing from a constitutional point of view.
At the time when Mr Johnson succumbed to pressure from his own MPs and announced his intended resignation, there were many calls for an immediate general election.
These sprang from the mistaken assumption that the mandate of a government lasts only as long as the term of office of the Prime Minister who leads it.
This simply isn’t the case, and derives from the belief that our Parliamentary democracy is a variation on the presidential system of the United States.
From a constitutional point of view, the fact is that no one voted for Mr Johnson in 2019 except for a majority of voters living in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.
Likewise, the only people who will have an opportunity to vote for Ms Truss at the next election - assuming she stands - will be those living in South West Norfolk.
There are, of course, numerous examples of Prime Ministers standing down before the end of a Parliamentary term and handing over power to a new leader.
Since the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, David Cameron has been succeeded by Theresa May, who in turn was succeeded by Boris Johnson.
Labour’s last Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not come to power at a general election: he took over when Tony Blair stood down. Such transitions were all in line with long established constitutional practice.
While there were invariably calls for fresh elections, no one meant them seriously and they didn’t gain traction. What’s different about the changeover from Boris Johnson to Liz Truss?
My view is that the agenda being delivered to the people of the UK by Ms Truss is so different to what was offered by the Conservative Party at the 2019 general election that she has no mandate to stay in office.
There is a long established convention that when political parties come to power, they should base their programme for government on commitments they made in their election manifesto.
Thus, when Labour promised during the 1945 general election campaign that it would create a National Health Service and nationalise the coal industry, that is precisely what happened.
Sometimes governments complain when their proposals are rejected by the House of Lords. But there’s another convention: that the Lords will not reject government legislation if it derives from a manifesto pledge. That’s how Parliamentary business gets done.
What we’re faced with now, however, is a situation where Ms Truss is intending to pursue policies that did not figure in the Tories’ 2019 general election manifesto and in some respects represent the opposite of what was promised.
I believe that a number of extracts from the manifesto prove my point: “A Conservative government will give the public services the resources they need, supporting our hospitals, our schools and our police. We will help people and families throughout their lives by bringing down the cost of living and making sure that work always pays.
“We will not borrow to fund day-to-day spending, but will invest thoughtfully and responsibly in infrastructure right across our country in order to increase productivity and wages. Our fiscal rules mean that public sector net investment will not average more than 3% of GDP, and that if debt interest reaches 6% of revenue, we will reassess our plans to keep debt under control.
“This means that debt will be lower at the end of the Parliament rather than spiralling out of control under Labour, and we will use this investment prudently and strategically to level up every part of the UK while strengthening the ties that bind it together.”
Under Boris Johnson, then, the Conservatives promised to end the austerity measures they had implemented since coming to office in 2010, but to do so without incurring additional debt. It’s right to point out, of course, that no one expected the economic turmoil caused by the Covid pandemic.
But it was in the expansionary spirit of the 2019 manifesto that Rishi Suinak, as Chancellor, spent billions to safeguard the economy through business support and job protection schemes. Now, however, Ms Truss has changed direction.
She wanted to cut the higher income tax rate to help the wealthiest - something she was unashamed about and sought to justify on the spurious grounds that “trickle-down” economics works.
The proposal was only withdrawn when it became clear that there would be sufficient rebels from her own Parliamentary group to ensure it was defeated.
Meanwhile it seems that Kwasi Kwarteng, the Chancellor, is preparing a spending review that will fail to increase funding for public services in line with inflation - thus ensuring what are likely to be deep cuts involving job losses and service closures. And despite the previous government’s emphasis on “levelling up” poorer communities - a promise that won the Tories numerous seats in so-called red wall areas - the policy has effectively been abandoned.
Ms Truss is not, as has previously been suggested, a continuity Prime Minister. Her government is very different from that of Boris Johnson and is taking the UK in an unwelcome new direction. There is no greater justification for the argument in favour of an immediate general election.
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