Leadership by Liz Truss | Lessons for Pierre Poilievre?

The British have an unrivaled sense of self-mockery. But they have exhausted humorous formulas to describe the tragedy that has been afflicting them for two months. The economy is collapsing, inflation is galloping and the smells of a major recession are spreading across the country.

The economy was faltering before Liz Truss came to power on September 6, but the supplementary budget that her government proposed to the British caused such an economic crisis that the International Monetary Fund saw fit to recall certain elements of tax management at M^me Truss.

The centerpieces of this budget — significant borrowing to subsidize rising energy costs juxtaposed with startling tax cuts — foundered on the first contact with reality. It provoked the ire of the financial markets and then won that of the British who reacted rather badly to a fall in the currency and a marked rise in interest rates. This budget was designed without any consideration for the economic context of the moment.

I’m hardly exaggerating when I say that the highlight of Liz Truss’ visit to 10 Downing Street was attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

She found herself in the front row during the week of national mourning and took advantage of the presence of several heads of state who came to London for the funeral to make interesting encounters. M^me Truss is also one of the last people to have met the queen before her death. I’m not calling Scotland Yard to solve a manslaughter, but one could speculate that the Queen had sensed the debacle and preferred to join the Duke of Edinburgh.

M^me Truss had taken over from the shrewd and eloquent politician Boris Johnson, who led the Tories to a landslide victory in 2019. However, his fuzzy relationship with the truth and poor association cost him the premiership last summer and caused a race for the leadership of the British Conservative Party. M^me Truss styled ex-finance minister Rishi Sunak, whom many considered much more competent, at the finish line. Despite majority support from Conservative MPs, party members sealed Mr. Sunak’s fate.

During this campaign, Mr.^me Truss portrayed Mr Sunak as an out-of-touch elite of the British. Mr Sunak, an Oxford and Stanford graduate, had argued in favor of prudent fiscal measures and described Mr^me Truss as whimsical.

Mr. Sunak also had the defect – in the eyes of his competitor – of having married the daughter of an Indian billionaire, which made him incapable of understanding the challenges of the “real world”.

Need we remind you that the budget of M^me Truss had been prepared without the collaboration of a group of senior British Treasury officials always consulted on similar matters? Probably they had the same flaw as Mr. Sunak – what could they really know about British concerns?

Dogmas before pragmatism. Willful blindness in defiance of incalculable consequences for an economy. The denigration of some of the institutions that support a democracy for purely political ends. These themes accompanied the campaign of M^me Truss and the approximately 45 days of his reign. And some would say they have also, on occasion, been part of Pierre Poilievre’s arsenal.

During the Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership campaign earlier this year, Mr. Poilievre made some startling statements about the currency, inflation and the role of the Bank of Canada. His pas de deux with cryptocurrency brought Canada closer to the Central African Republic and El Salvador, the only other countries to have adopted it as a currency (already a member of the G7, would we also be a member of the G3?). His targeted attacks on the Governor of the Central Bank raised fears of the worst if the Supreme Court ever issued a judgment with which he disagreed.

His sometimes incendiary declarations against Canadian elites showered a more comfortable audience with shortcuts to explain complex phenomena.

Mr. Poilievre won a resounding victory over Jean Charest to become leader of the Conservative Party. It would be wrong to claim that it appealed only to people who hated the “elite”. I also believe that he has an excellent chance of winning the next election. The liberals, confused and diffuse, are constantly losing support. Unlike his two predecessors, Mr. Poilievre could also make gains in Quebec.

But he still has a lack of credibility on the economic level, yet an identity element of the conservatives. The Liberals will no doubt remind Canadians of some of the strange economic theories he once espoused. He would benefit from recruiting strong candidates from the business community. But it could also make itself more reassuring by avoiding other toga effects intended for a handful of followers convinced that all governments and their institutions are dishonest or incompetent.