The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has only been in the job for two days. But that counted for nothing. The speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, aware that few policy statements in recent years have been more important, blasted her government for not providing MPs with written copies in advance. “Instead of judging it to be deliberate, I’m going to put it down to mismanagement or incompetence,” Hoyle said brusquely. Seconds later Truss entered the room to loud cheers and, exuding great confidence, made no apologies. What followed from the prime minister would, on any other day, have been momentous news. Energy bills for a typical family will be capped at £2,500 over the next two years, Truss said. Fund orthodoxy was being thrown out the window. Borrowing would skyrocket. There would be an equivalent warranty for businesses of six months. It was the biggest budget intervention of its kind by a British government in peacetime and would cost around £150 billion – more than double the cost of the furlough regime, which has drained state coffers to pay workers’ wages during the pandemic. The political and economic magnitude of all this did not escape anyone. The key question was: how would all this be paid for? Truss told MPs that these issues would be left to her new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, to explain later this month. Labor leader Keir Starmer saw it as a defining moment in his quest for the keys to Downing Street. A critical policy gap was opening: Labor wanted to pay for the freeze in household gas and electricity prices largely by taxing the £170bn excess profits of energy companies. But Truss had ruled that out, saying such a tax would deter those companies from investing in increased production. A left-right divide had emerged on the key political and economic issue of the times, clear as day. “That’s the basic political divide,” Starmer said. Under Labour, a few deserving rich people would foot the bill, while under the Truss workers would be pinched. “The government wants to protect the excess profits of oil and gas and energy groups. we want to protect workers,” Starmer told the house. Then suddenly, at around 12.25pm, in some disorienting moments that none of those who were there will ever forget, the House of Commons was transformed. Rival politics was absent from its natural home. Disputes over price caps subsided. To adapt Tony Blair’s words, the kaleidoscope was shaken. In the Commons room, rather like students seeing something distracting outside the classroom window, members’ heads turn. Truss and Kwarteng looked up at the press gallery above, something ministers and MPs try never to do. Political reporters had left their posts. Nadhim Zahawi, the minister who had become responsible for constitutional affairs two days before, hurried into the room and passed a message to the prime minister. Truss stared ahead, expressionless, for a few seconds. A Commons staffer kept putting a phone up to the speaker’s eye to alert him of breaking news. A minute or two passed before another official presented the President with a written statement. She glanced at him taking in his gravity. The SNP’s parliamentary leader, Ian Blackford, was on his feet, losing his audience. Hoyle held up his hands, gesturing for Blackford to back off, initially to no avail. He repeated the gesture a second time, raising his palms a little higher this time and shaking them with more urgency. Blackford saw and retreated. “All right. I want to say something about the announcement that was just made about Her Majesty,” Hoyle said. “I know I speak for the whole house when I say that we send our best wishes to Her Majesty The Queen and that she and the Royal Family are in our thoughts and prayers at this time. I’m not going to contribute to it now. if there’s anything else, we’ll update the house accordingly.” The Queen greets Liz Truss at Balmoral on Tuesday. Photo: Jane Barlow/PA The deputies immediately knew to fear the worst. Outside the chamber, Andrea Leadsom, the former leader of the House, was among those in tears. Another Tory MP in his 60s told him it was clear to everyone what was going to happen, if it hadn’t already. “Almost everyone on those benches, except maybe Peter Bottomley [the “father of the house”, who was born in 1944] she has met no other monarch than the Queen,” the former cabinet member said. “It’s…well…a pretty great time.” Even before rumors of the Queen’s decline had begun to filter from Balmoral to Westminster, the magnitude of what was happening to the governance of the country and the economy was proving quite difficult to fathom. Important events followed one another at breakneck speed for several days. On Monday, Truss was announced as the new Tory leader. then on Tuesday, after Boris Johnson had left Downing Street, he had headed to Balmoral. There, a weak queen had “kissed the hands” and invited Thras to form a government. Back in No 10, Britain’s third female prime minister had moved swiftly and decisively, replacing every holder of the main offices of state – the chancellor, the home secretary and the foreign secretary – as well as the health secretary and the education secretary. The new incumbents had all appeared at her side for her first Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. MPs who had not backed Truss for the leadership and supported Rishi Sunak were shocked at the way Truss had packed her government with Johnson loyalists and supporters, making little or no effort to unite the party. “It’s very confrontational,” said one former minister. In Whitehall too, horror at the new regime had quickly turned to outright anger. Senior officials had already been alarmed by repeated reports that figures such as Tom Scholar, the highly experienced permanent secretary to the Treasury, and Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, could be removed from the incoming Truss administration as it sought to sweep the ‘ orthodox”. thought. Their worst fears had been realized when, as one of Kwarteng’s first acts, Scholar was informed on Tuesday night that his skills were no longer required. Despite playing a key role in guiding government programs during the pandemic, he was told the Treasury required “new leadership” to follow the new prime minister. What Truss unleashed, in a time of economic emergency, was radical change, at the top of both government and public administration. Fears of instability were growing even before news of the Queen’s death was confirmed. While most people in Westminster tried to prepare for the worst from lunchtime on Thursday, it wasn’t until 6.31pm that afternoon that Buckingham Palace released their official statement saying that the Queen, the country’s longest-reigning monarch, had died peacefully on afternoon. at Balmoral. To mark the moment, the BBC played the national anthem which for 70 years had been associated with only one person. It was the moment many in Westminster said the impact of her death hit home. The Prime Minister issued a statement that was short on rhetorical flourishes. “The death of Her Majesty The Queen is a huge shock to the nation and the world. Queen Elizabeth II was the rock on which modern Britain was built,” Truss said. Truss meets King Charles on Thursday. Photo: Reuters Starmer offered something more personal: “Nobody under 70 knew anything but Queen Elizabeth II on the throne. To the vast majority of us, the late queen was just the queen, the only queen.” Within minutes, West End theaters canceled productions and Last Night of the Proms was cancelled. The test match against South Africa was called off the following day and the railway strike was called off. The Bank of England postponed a decision on interest rates. This weekend’s TUC conference has been postponed. There was no politics in the Houses of Commons and Lords on Friday and yesterday. The day was devoted to tributes, which came from all quarters. The chamber was full again, but this time it was a sea of black. The financial difficulties faced by the families were not mentioned. Many of the politicians’ memories of the Queen were touching, some were amusing and some were both. Former Prime Minister Theresa May recalled her meetings with the Queen with great fondness. “I am sometimes asked of all the world leaders I have met who was the most impressive and I have no hesitation in saying that of all the heads of state and government the most impressive person I have met was the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” May. he said. “I remember a picnic at Balmoral, held in one of the two on the estate. The barriers came from the castle and we all entered to put the food and drink on the table. “I took some cheese, put it on a plate and carried it to the table. The cheese fell on the floor. I had a split second decision to make. “I took the cheese, put it on the plate and put it on the table. I turned to see that my every move had been watched very closely by Her Majesty the Queen. “I looked at her. He looked at me and just smiled. And the cheese was left on the table.” Labour’s Harriet Harman focused on what the Queen had done for women. “In the 1950s, when he was crowned, I was a child and I remember my mother warning me that people thought men knew more than women. that the male…
