We're in the hands of a couple of doctrinaire Thatcherites. The tax cuts won't be unfunded, but the vicious cuts to public services won't happen until next spring!
They're counting on this coming winter being as mild or milder than the last three or four have been not much frost, no snow to speak of, daytime temperatures well above zero (Celsius) and nighttime ones only about minus two or three. Not much chance of anyone freezing to death apart from the usual half-dozen old folk and homeless people we're accustomed to every winter. So dish up a few quid here and there, and lean on the energy companies to rein in their profits for a quarter.
Then, come the spring, it'll be "Well, that wasn't so bad was it? Told you the tax cuts would work. now all we need to do is slim down the bloated public sector!" Then they'll take the axe to schools, the NHS, social care, the police, emergency services, road maintenance and everything else except defence. Meanwhile the employers will say "You've had a tax cut so you don't need a pay rise this year! Now leave me to count my uncapped bonus in peace."
Liz Truss seems to have forgotten, or failed to realise, that she is to all intents and purposes an unelected Prime Minister. She knows it's unlikely that the 1922 Committee would allow another leadership challenge so soon, so disaffected Tories would have nowhere to turn except a full vote of no confidence. That she's sure of winning because no Tory wants to risk losing power and thei're behind in the polls right now. But if the public -some of whom gave her a hard time on the radio the other day - see their incomes shrinking, their house values plummeting while their mortgage costs soar, having to hand out more to keep Granny in the nursing home, the kids' school clamouring for money to buy books while class sizes are up to 50 or more, the local GP practice and A&E department closed down, and are facing redundancy because their employers' energy bills have tripled, get annoyed enough, then MPs hands might be forced.
Of course, there is always another option. There is a legal opinion that says that: "A dissolution is allowable, or necessary, whenever the wishes of the legislature are, or may fairly be presumed to be, different from the wishes of the nation." Which basically means that if the monarch is convinced or advised that the government was not acting in accordance with the wishes of the people, he or she may be permitted, or perhaps even obliged, to use Royal Prerogative to dissolve Parliament and force an election. The late Queen would never have exercised this unless asked to by members of the government itself. The King, however, is a different kind of person - one known to be intolerant of incompetence in those who work for him and one who tries at least to listen to what his people are saying. I can see King Charles, with advice from legal and constitutional experts and aware of massive public discontent, threatening to dissolve Parliament on his own initiative unless the Government either changes its tune or resigns. The outcome of that scenario is not one on which I would feel confident in placing a bet!
