So long, Liz

Misogyny is in these days.  I didn't think much of Liz Truss one way or the other but I can't stand the way she is being treated by her party and in the press.  She proposed a budget like she said she would in the intraparty elections for a new Tory Prime Minister and now is being castigated for it both within and without her political party.  If these guys didn't want these tax cuts and energy subsidies, they should have voted for Rishi Sunak.  Oh wait, he proposed pretty much the same thing. But, now we have Jeremy Hunt as the white knight pledging to raise taxes to make up for the massive shortfall in the budget.  Which is it, boys?

Of course Liz signed onto this.  She would have been wise to learn the lesson Theresa May provided in that you don't try to clean up a mess unruly boys created.  At the heart of this financial debacle is Brexit, a measure neither Liz nor Theresa supported.  Yet, each wanted to be the next Margaret Thatcher and so they accepted the role of PM in a party dominated by middle-aged white males with only token female and minority representation.  

Thatcher was fine with that.  She thought women were too emotional and shouldn't be in significant leadership roles.  She was the exception because she took after her father.  I suppose if the old bat was still around she would have thought Theresa and Liz justified her views.

The only mistake Liz and Theresa made was allowing themselves to be played by the cynical men in their party.  No one wanted the thankless job of making Brexit work.  David Cameron resigned as he didn't support it.  Boris went incognito in the weeks following the surprise exit vote with his father speaking for him. This left the Tories scrambling to find a new PM.  I have no idea why Theresa May took the role but I guess she felt it was for the good of the party.   

She made a game effort, trudging back and forth between London and Brussels.  Whenever she came close to an agreement that Brussels would accept, her party back in London would reject it, and vice versa.  For three years this went on until a vote of no confidence forced her to resign.  Lo and behold, Boris pitched up again and within a matter of months had a deal, albeit not one much unlike the one his party had previously rejected, reinforcing the idea that white males should lead the party.

Liz had to know what was going on but she probably figured she learned from Theresa's mistakes and would rise above the men in her party and save the day.  Well, her mini-budget was doomed from day one, no thanks to Kwasi Kwarteng.  He was soon ousted and Jeremy Hunt brought in to fix the budget.  Then Suella Braverman resigned as home secretary, claiming irreconcilable differences with the way Liz was leading the government.  You can't lose two top ministers in a matter of days and expect to stay on, so Liz was soon offering her resignation after a mere 44 days on the job.  Her shining moment was an audience with the Queen in her final days.

The sacking of Kwarteng and resignation of Braverman were also interesting in that Liz promised a rainbow coalition within the party and delivered.  You would never imagine this was the Old Tory party, but here again these minorities were proxies for Tory policy.  Kwasi offered a ruthless version of its tax policy and Suella promised to be the toughest home secretary yet on immigration.  It was like the Tory policy on steroids.  No surprise the government collapsed before our eyes with the pound tumbling to a 40 year low.  Kwasi and Suella didn't do anything the Tory Party hadn't been promoting for years.  They just made the fatal mistake of trying to deliver on those menacing proposals, only to face a massive public backlash.

Now we see Jeremy and Grant assuming the vacant roles left by Kwasi and Suella.  Both middle-aged white men adopting a softer line.  Suella shouldn't have taken her anger out on Liz.  It should have been these guys she castigated, but then it seems she thinks she still has a role in the party.  Who knows, she may put herself up for Liz's vacant seat?

The Tory Party owns these disastrous policies starting with the Brexit vote.  Cameron didn't have to stage the referendum nor honor it, but since he had made it a campaign promise he went through with it anyway. He didn't gauge how unpopular EU policies were in Britain or anywhere else in the EU for that matter.  I think if you staged this referendum in any European country at that time, most would have voted to leave.  It didn't matter that the EU economy was soaring.  People hated the restrictions that were placed on goods and services in the name of the collective whole.  Brits harbour a lot of resentment toward Poles, Lithuanians and Romanians working in their beloved country, treating them like they did Italians during World War II, a necessary evil. 

However, Cameron wasn't willing to own up to his mistakes.  He would leave that to the Brexiteers.  The only problem was that these guys never imagined the referendum would pass.  They were just using it for their political gain.  Nigel Farage was perfectly content playing the opposition, but now that it came time to work out a plan, he was nowhere to be found.  His UK Independence Party suffered terribly in the general elections and so the Tories had to scramble among themselves to come up with a safe exit plan that wouldn't kill the economy.

For a while there it seems Britain might not actually go through with it, but then that would have been rather embarrassing after making such a big show.  Mercifully, the economy was still soaring and it would be two years before they were actually forced to pull out.  They made all sorts of agreements to keep things moving between Britain and mainland Europe.  We'll just kick this can down the road. When time finally came to do something, the Tories cobbled together a plan of sorts but no one wanted to own up to it, least of all Boris Johnson, who led the Brexiteers within the party.

It didn't help that the Labour Party was in shambles, led by a woeful Jeremy Corbyn that only succeeded in making Boris Johnson look good by comparison.  Boris gauged the general election perfectly, going around with his silly hats being at one with the people of Britain.  John Oliver had warned us not to fall for Boris' charm.  Jeremy sourly watched as Boris demeaned himself before the public eye, never for one moment realizing how these little shows of commonality work.  This from a socialist mind you, who long ago had a soft spot for Eastern bloc countries.  You knew who was going to win.

Smartly, Labour got rid of Corbyn after the 2019 election.  Keir Starmer is an improvement but still not the telegenic guy you want leading the party like Tony Blair once was.  Why not a woman?  Angela Rayner is young and dynamic but the best she could manage is the number two spot.  Seems Labour also prefers middle-aged white men leading its party.   

Labour can now watch the Tories unravel before the public, which is anxious for new government.  It doesn't matter whom the Tories put in at this point, the damage is done.  It wasn't because of Liz or Kwasi or Suella.  This was a mess the Tories made collectively dating back to 2016.  

My biggest fear is that women and minorities will be viewed as incapable of running this genteel country.  The press is having a field day with Librium Liz, comparing her to a head of iceberg lettuce that lasted longer than she did.  This is from The Guardian mind you, the vanguard of liberal press in Britain.  There hasn't been quite as much scorn directed at Kwasi and Suella, but the sentiment is clearly that Britain needs white men running the country, not women nor minorities.

The demise of Liz Truss is also playing well in Moscow.  After all, she was the Defence secretary overseeing British operations in Ukraine during the Johnson administration.  Dmitri Medvedev couldn't resist a dig at Liz.  Watching Britain unravel is exactly what Russia wants to see.  This was the whole point of pushing the Brexit vote through useful idiots like Farage, who has been a regular on the Russian propaganda channel RT for years.  Russia not only wants to see Britain break up but all of Europe, and is hoping that a cold winter will do the trick.

Before the British press makes anymore jokes about Liz, I suggest it takes a long hard look at how the country got to this point and quit blaming women and minorities for the problems.