It’s hard not to have sympathy for Liz Truss. Forces stronger than her had decided that her policies, which diverted from the path dictated by the big players, could not be allowed.  It was not going to happen. The markets, real or imagined, were in turmoil, the pound on the run and she panicked like her predecessor had done over Covid. The pile-on of pressure from the multinational potencies was just too much and with the first U-turn you know it was the end for her. It reminded me of Jeremy Corbin, who despite being the legitimate leader of his party couldn’t somehow get his policies through. He had gone to far, buckled over Brexit and more surprisingly, when he had absolutely nothing to lose, fell in line over Covid. He should have listened to his brother.  It reminded me, too, of Michel Gorbachev when away at his dacha on the black sea, his enemies ceased the moment, declared a state of emergency and an effective coup. He had gone too far and he had to be stopped. The coup failed because Yeltsin took charge, stormed the white house, jumped on a tank and defied the conservative cabal so that the legitimate leader Gorbachev was able to return to Moscow alive though dishevelled and missing a tie. Truss had no Yeltsin.

What would it have taken for Liz Truss to hold her ground and her nerve?  I don’t know and I am not sure if I would have acted any differently. It wasn’t tanks on the street, but the heavy emotional blackmail that was incessantly poured over her which made Lizz crumble. Her Trussonomics are now held up to ridicule and contempt. Perhaps they were flawed, but whether or not, she did have the mandate to see them through. She should have been given the chance to do that, even if they failed. The fact that she couldn’t, speaks volumes and says so much about who is actually in charge and who holds the reins of power.  The intervention of the IMF (who elects them?) and the US president (Maybe he is not as dopey as he seems) effectively interfering in our domestic economic policy, with their lackeys Hunt and Shapps, demonstrates so clearly that there are some things you cannot do. You cannot upset markets and you cannot deviate from the supranational agencies plan of how things should go. The alternative is to push your nation into the wilderness with the prospects of decades of isolation and decline.

When I was supportive of independence for Scotland (I dithered several times on that one), I felt the financial considerations were irrelevant. If you believed in it, you would say “yes, I do” and for richer or poorer. Let’s get our sovereignty and we can work it out from there.  I felt the same about Brexit. But now it seems that there are forces stronger than our little nation who will decide what we can and cannot do. Unless, of course, we have someone who will put their political life on the line, live by the strength of their convictions and get up onto that tank. I don’t have anyone in mind.