“Not up to it, I’m afraid.” Clement Attlee’s reported dismissal of a minister who’d asked him why he was being fired represents, in summary, the hostile positions held on both sides: on one, Liz Truss‘s cabinet; on the other its opponents – the markets, spurned European capitals and even Washington DC.
The question is urgent following the Institute of Fiscal Studies’ warning that Britain needs to make £62bn of cuts to balance the books, which means cuts of 15 per cent to all departments outside of health and defence. These are politically undeliverable and the collapse of this government is now entirely possible.
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