In the race towards the use-by date the lettuce persevered.
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Liz Truss has resigned:
Liz Truss has resigned as prime minister and will step down after a week-long emergency contest to find her successor, she has announced outside Downing Street.
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The final straw for many Tory MPs appeared to be the chaotic scenes on Wednesday, in which a vote on a Labour motion over fracking led to mayhem in the voting lobbies, with shouting and jostling. Afterwards, a dozen or more Conservative MPs who rebelled did not even know whether they still had the whip.
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On July 7, when Boris Johnson stepped down, I wrote:
Bye Bye Boris. I Hope We Will Never Hear Again Of You. – July 07, 2022
A current poll says that party members would favor the current defense secretary Ben Wallace. But that does not mean they will get him as one of the two candidates to vote on as the MPs have the say over that choice.
Johnson may try to get someone elected who would look worse in office than he did. Liz Truss is a good candidate for that.
The process will be, as usual, a very dirty business – knives will be out to backstab certain candidates, deals will be made, favors will be promised and not be held, people will be lied to.
On September 5, when Truss won the Conservative Party leadership, I said that Boris might come back:
RIP Great Britain – September 05, 2022
With the election process rigged for the Tories and the Labour leadership held by the hapless and vindictive Keir Starmer there is little chance for regime change in Britain. When Truss falls the premiership could even go back to Boris Johnson.
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Her incompetence and libertarian zeal nearly killed the British Pound:
Liz Truss Is Already The Bad Prime Minister Everyone Expected Her To Be – September 29, 2022
As soon as the 'mini budget' was announced the British pound sterling tanked. This not only against the overvalued U.S. dollar but also compared to the rather weak Euro.
Interest rates on British government bonds (Gilts) increased sharply.
After two days the British central bank, the Bank of England, had to intervene to prevent a Lehman like crisis that would have killed many British pension funds. The bank, which had just increased its interest rate to tighten money supply, reverted to quantitative easing by buying gilts in the open market. This will further increase the already runaway inflation.
The lower pound sterling with further increase energy costs. Many British homeowners have mortgage with flexible interest rates. They will get devastated by all of this.
In consequence Truss fired her Chancellor of the Treasury:
Líz Truss Continues To Be The Bad Prime Minister Everyone Had Expected Her To Be – October 14 2002
After only 38 days Kwarteng is no longer chancellor. That is good. But Liz Truss still has the same ideas and in her libertarian zeal will continue to make dreadful policies.
How many of those will the conservative members of parliament, who had just planned to oust her, let pass?
Said differently. I do not expect that this was the last episode of the bad movie we have just seen. There are many crises still developing in Britain and Europe that will hit critical points over the next months. Wrong decisions can make each of them worse.
Will Boris be back?
The party membership would likely prefer him over the other potential leaders. But will the conservative members of parliament allow him as candidate?
I have my doubts. It may well be that another conservative leader must fail before they allow that to happen.