London
I am not sentimental about the special relationship between the U.S. and Britain but fully support it. Nations have to look out for their own interests, but in a dangerous world you keep old friends close. We came from them: The Magna Carta flowed into our Declaration, the English and Scottish Enlightenments helped form our Founders. We are English-speaking peoples, democratic ones that fought side by side through the turbulent 20th century. Margaret Thatcher once said in conversation that she saw part of England’s role as stopping bad ideas on the Continent from jumping across the ocean to us. Perhaps part of our job, in our better years—Silicon Valley 40 years ago, say—was to inspire with an anarchic energy.
So it matters that Britain will have a new prime minister Monday, when the votes of Conservative Party members are announced. The Tory leadership race commenced in July and the winner will almost surely be Foreign Secretary Liz Truss over former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak.
London was bustling when I was there mid-August, full of tourists, restaurants humming, yet every conversation reflected a rising sense of alarm about the future. Inflation had just gone over 10%, huge hikes in household heating bills were forecast due to Vladimir Putin’s energy war on Europe, the National Health Service seemed to be teetering on some new kind of collapse. Everyone seemed to be braced for something.
In America every political conversation quickly devolves into “Trump,” and in London it goes quickly to “Boris.” And how with his gifts, with his cleverness and best-in-a-generation political talent, the prime minister still couldn’t get himself in order and handle the scandals that surrounded him, that he made.
Boris Johnson loomed over the Tory race and in looming muted it. Ballots came in low and slow. People couldn’t make up their minds. Conservatives far from London were roiled: They knew Mr. Johnson had to leave but didn’t like it that he’s gone. He unified the party just three years ago, now it’s all split up again. Neither candidate to replace him seemed his size.
When Mr. Johnson became prime minister I thought I was witnessing the beginning of an era. It turned out to be a moment. As I watched Mr. Sunak and Ms. Truss I thought whoever wins, this is the beginning of a moment, not an era.
Mr. Sunak, 42, in Parliament seven years, is thoughtful, accomplished, knows policy and takes it seriously. He has a clear and cultivated mind. He is unjustly accused of having betrayed Mr. Johnson by resigning from his cabinet. But Mr. Johnson did in Mr. Johnson. Ms. Truss, 47, in Parliament 12 years, and having held similarly impressive posts, is more politically agile, even a bit shape-shifty. A member of Parliament who has taken no public stand on the race saw that as a virtue. “You don’t quite know what she will do, which makes her interesting and perhaps a better fit for the moment.” In Ms. Truss’s unpredictability there may be creativity. In Mr. Sunak’s steadiness people see more of the same.
There are policy differences—she would cut taxes to ignite things; he, worried about inflation, would forgo early cuts to get it under control. When the race was called, Mr. Sunak made a mistake in calling Ms. Truss’s tax cuts “fantasy economics.” It had echoes of 1980, when George H.W. Bush called Ronald Reagan’s economic plan “voodoo economics.” From that moment Ms. Truss was cast as the Reagan figure, and embraced the comparison.
It seemed to me Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher’s biographer, had it best, in July, in the Telegraph, about why Ms. Truss would win. “Almost all people who do, or might ever, vote Conservative have experienced nothing whatever to encourage them since Covid-19 began.” Their taxes are up, savings down, “wokery has insulted their culture.” While I was there the head of recruitment for the Royal Air Force stepped down over race and gender directives.
Mr. Sunak read the Conservatives of Parliament right but Ms. Truss read those on the ground right, and the latter will decide. I think she saw the almost poignant desire of regular Conservatives simply to feel like conservatives again: Reduce taxes, make the government less overbearing, stop the liquid wokeness that keeps rising—you plug the hole here and it comes in there. Can’t we have a few victories that we actually recognize as conservative?
The week she pulled ahead I met Ms. Truss at her campaign offices on Lord North Street. I told her I am a famously bad interviewer because I am embarrassed to ask people questions and put them on the spot, which made us laugh, and we did questions at the start and then off the record. Naturally off the record was the most interesting part. But it was immediately apparent that while Mr. Sunak was out asking for votes, Ms. Truss was planning a government.
Conservatives, she said, must be more confident in their positions. “Profit is a good thing.” “Don’t allow the left to have the high moral ground.” She sloughs off criticism she’s imitating Thatcher. “I admire Margaret Thatcher, I admire Ronald Reagan. I admire Robert Peel.” She defended against charges her policies just play to the base. “I think being popular is a good thing. It’s extraordinary people can say that’s somehow bad.”
I said it was my sense that she had to fight for everything she had, not in a class sense—she is from a middle-class family of the political left—but some other way. She considered this. “I’m not claiming I was in any way disadvantaged.” But yes, “I have always wanted to be in control of my own future. And I want that for others. But I fought hard for my beliefs.”
At a meet-the-candidates event later that evening, Mr. Sunak was greeted with enthusiasm. He is vibratingly eager when he takes a podium, like a Christmas puppy just out of the box. Ms. Truss, who spoke after, was all business, standing with feet apart on a small riser, hands on hips. She enjoyed mixing with the crowd.
The best moment I saw on the hustings came later that evening when, in Q-and-A with an audience, Mr. Sunak, the son of Indian immigrants, was asked about being the ethnic minority in the race. There was a reference to Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th-century prime minister, who was Jewish. “I can tell you this,” Mr. Sunak said: “Whoever is announced the winner in September it is going to either be the third woman prime minister in British history or the second ethnic minority. Who produced these people? The Conservative Party.”
Mr. Johnson at this time, while London was bracing, was off on a series of vacations. But returning to Britain last week for a goodbye tour he refused to rule out the idea of launching a comeback.
The next two years will be hellacious for his successor. How will he or she survive inflation, fuel prices, the NHS, a weakening pound, the constant air of crisis? And with a split party?
Mr. Johnson will be a parliamentary backbencher, one who knows his gifts, who resents his fall and those who pushed him. Simmering, highly quotable, wanting what’s rightly his . . .
Does this remind you of anyone?