Liz Truss defended her first month in office at the Conservative Party convention

The Conservative Party conference, which included a new prime minister, was a moment the party had hoped would mark a fresh start after the many scandals of its predecessor, Boris Johnson. Instead, Truss had to defend the first weeks of her premiership, already marked by historic economic volatility, a rebellion within her party, and voters turning away from the Conservatives in droves.

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“I’m ready to make the hard choices,” she said. She warned of “stormy days” ahead but insisted Britain needed to “do things differently” and that “whenever there is change, there is turmoil”.

“I am intent on taking a fresh approach and getting us out of the cycle of high taxes and low growth,” she told party faithful gathered in Birmingham, England.

Referring to the protesters later in her speech, she spoke disparagingly of an “anti-growth coalition” made up of a broad cross-section of the country’s people, including opposition politicians, “hard-line unions, think-tank special interests, talking heads, Brexit deniers.” EU, Extinction Rebellion and some of the people we were in the room earlier.”

In fact, they would rather protest than do so. “They would rather talk on Twitter than make tough decisions,” she said. “They commute by taxi from North London homes to the BBC studio to drive out anyone who challenges the status quo. From broadcast to podcast, they have published the same old answers. It is always more taxes, more regulation and more interference. Wrong, wrong, wrong” .

Truss took office and has a lot to prove. Although she played a fairly prominent role as foreign secretary during the war in Ukraine, she was not known to the British public in the way that Johnson – the colorful former London mayor and newspaper columnist – was before taking office.

Truss was not pushed through a general election but through a leadership contest within her party. Until then, she It was not the first choice Of the Conservative Party MPs, some members of the People’s Party who rallied around it already admitted missed johnson.

What momentum did gears have Next Prime Minister It was cut two days later with the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The new prime minister joined the new king on a tour of the four countries of the United Kingdom, but she played a marginal role.

When interest finally returned to politics, things took a dramatic turn for the worse. Her government’s plan to grow the economy through tax cuts aimed primarily at the wealthy, to be financed by billions in borrowing, has prompted investors to scramble to dump British assets. And the pound sank to the lowest level against the dollar. The The Bank of England had to intervene To suppress a revolution in the financial market.

The pound rebounded after the British government reversed part of the tax policy that drove it to collapse

Just after 10 days of economic turmoil and under heavy pressure from her party, Truss reversed, announcing on Monday that she would drop the most controversial element of her economic plan: a proposal to scrap the highest rate of income tax.

Since then the pound rebound. But divisions within the Conservative Party remain, as this week’s conference proceedings made clear. Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday criticized those within the party who “performed a coup” that “undermined our prime minister’s authority in an unprofessional manner”.

On the other hand, public opinion of the Conservative Party has fallen, falling by 20-30 points in the past two weeks.

“This is the most dramatic shift in polling in my life,” said Chris Curtis, head of political polls at Opinium Research.

Curtis said the Conservatives “have lost sight of being the economically qualified party – it’s that simple.”

a vote A Tuesday night post showed the opposition Labor Party leading the Conservatives by 38 points in northern England “red wall” areas that swung behind the Conservatives in the 2019 election.

If elections were held today, pollsters say Labor would win the largest majority.

What this shift in opinion polls shows is that British voters are increasingly fickle. It aligns decreasingly with the party’s association. “Voters will swing from party to party,” said Will Jennings, professor of political science at the University of Southampton.

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Politics in Britain is much less polarized than in the United States. This is partly due to Brexit, which has led many people to shy away from the parties they’ve supported for decades and instead think of themselves as “leavers” or “leftovers” – designations that cross party lines. Now that Brexit is a done deal, Voters are open to being affected by other concerns.

This volatility means that the pendulum can swing back and forth several times before the next election, which could be as far as January 2025, so neither the Conservative Party nor Coss is in immediate danger.

However, conservatives are notorious for ruthlessly abandoning leaders who no longer appear to be vote-winners. was johnson Fired Halfway through his tenure, in the wake of a number of scandals, even though he led his party to a massive majority in 2019.

If the Conservatives think Truss will drag them down, she may find herself hunted just like Johnson.

“She’s in a vulnerable and vulnerable position,” Jennings said. If the Conservatives stay at current levels in the polls, [members of Parliament] would be very worried. One should never assume too much about a political future, but she is certainly in a tough spot. Reclaiming the support of its deputies and constituents will be a formidable challenge.”