“Cost of living” is an expression now used so frequently, including by those in positions of power, that it’s possible to end up forgetting how incredibly bleak those words are as a concept. (See also: “human resources”.) Maybe we should revitalise the cliche by calling it the “price of existing” crisis. It is, after all, a perfectly matter-of-fact way of suggesting that there is a point at which many may simply find it too expensive to endure. People generally make too much fuss about cliches, but – in one of the very richest countries in the world – this one does feel worth urgently denormalising.
So who’s going to do it? Liz Truss?! The light from even the stars we can see without telescopes can take years to reach us – sometimes thousands of years. On Tuesday Truss was in the West Midlands, with the public able to look at an emanation from her that read: “I will support businesses to get our economy firing on all cylinders – delivering growth and opportunity in the West Midlands and beyond.” How many years ago were these words beamed out? This morning the energy price cap hit £3,549. You sense West Midlands businesses – to whom the price cap doesn’t even apply – would like to know how on earth they’re supposed to afford to switch on the cylinders at all.
Back on planet Earth, Whitehall has drawn up plans for energy-intensive firms to power down this winter. The single swinging lightbulb in Liz Truss’s head seems to have flickered on overnight, resulting in an article for the Daily Mail in which she explains: “My immediate priority will be to put more money back in people’s pockets by cutting taxes.” The latest forecasts hazard that inflation will hit 18% in early 2023. The price cap prediction for April is currently at £6,823. Which would certainly change a lot of things, among them the working definition of the word “cap”. The political reality is that a Truss administration would have had to make a number of era-defining interventions by that point – and the no-handouts posturing will seem like a relic of a distant time.
Yet realities are unfashionable. Realities have not been discussed in front of the public, either by Truss or Nadhim Zahawi, the otherwise invisible supporter of hers who has just happened to be chancellor of the exchequer for the entire summer. Maybe this is the logical political end of a culture that polices spoilers more effectively than burglary or sexual assault. The government simply doesn’t wish to ruin people’s panic attacks for them.
Truss has instead preferred to spend weeks banging on about small government, which is obviously partly a function of being technically still in a race. But the suspicion with Truss is that she is – above all – keen to be seen as a particular type of person. This is a vanity we cannot afford. Boris Johnson’s need to be seen as a certain type of person was behind all of his fatal pandemic dithering and mistakes – and, ultimately, behind the partygate culture that did for him in the end. This week, one of Truss’s campaign advisers chirped to the Financial Times: “We have to end this idea that Britain is broken, and tangibly improve people’s lives. If we can show people that the government is on their side, everyone will be in a better place come the new year.” Is this the new year when inflation could be running at 18%? Righto. See you there!
The UK needs a titanic figure; it feels like it’s getting a Titanic one. Truss is the relentlessly perky crew member trying to disguise the rush for the lifeboats as proof the cruise firm’s shore excursions are extremely popular. Appearing unable to engage realistically with the various crises simply emphasises her smallness.
Take one campaign aide’s revelation this week that “she will focus on doing fewer things and doing them better”. In which universe? In a truly ideal world, governments would be able to get out of people’s lives, things being so well arranged that they were not much required. But these are not ideal times, and won’t be for the foreseeable, so wasting the entire contest on positioning feels a pointless indulgence, and proof her party membership’s tiny electorate are the wrong people to have everyone else’s future in their hands.
Wherever you stand on the ideal size of government, the first principle of why governments exist is for people’s safety and security. The next government – by all forecasts, Truss’s government – is going to have to get right inside people’s lives. Her entire leadership pitch puts me in mind of another cautionary cliche: life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. Don’t forget that barely a year ago we were being informed that we were about to embark on a roaring 20s. Then again, two years ago we were hearing how Covid would usher in a new social contract.
As for the next wildly overoptimistic promise to be broken, who can say? On that note, we’ll play out with another Truss word-signal being received on Earth on Wednesday: “If elected prime minister, I will turbocharge the economies of places like Norwich, Great Yarmouth and across East Anglia, by unleashing the private sector with tax cuts and better regulation …” Reading this, I was reminded of the notion that the stars whose light is reaching us now are actually already dead. That may be a scientific myth – but it contains much political truth.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
What Just Happened?! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, £18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at the Guardian Bookshop
Marina Hyde will be in conversation with Richard Osman at a Guardian Live event in London on 11 October. Join them in person or via the livestream – book tickets via the Guardian Live website
