UK needs leadership not sound bites: China Daily editorial

Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and thus the United Kingdom, continues to display an alarming propensity for troublemaking.

After claiming she would unilaterally scrap key parts of the Northern Ireland protocol by pushing forward relevant legislation, and she would be willing to press the nuclear button even if it meant "global annihilation", Truss told the penultimate Conservative leadership hustings on Thursday that "the jury is still out" on whether the French president was "friend or foe".

She has made both Washington and Paris uneasy almost at the same time, with the former saying it does not want to see "a situation in which the UK and EU create a diversion and damage at a time when we can least afford it", and the latter stating that France and the UK would be facing "serious problems" if the UK could not say whether they were friends or enemies.

She has obviously gone too far in her clumsy imitation of Margaret Thatcher, and raised widespread concerns about her judgment and ability to handle the situations appropriately.

Although the rising inflation, strikes and economic recession today bear some similarities with what the UK faced in the late 1970s when Thatcher came to power, the problems of the UK cannot be solved simply by resurrecting "Thatcherism" as the context is totally different today.

Not only because of the aftermath of Brexit, a self-harming mess of the UK's own making, but also for the UK's ceaseless and growing foreign policy dependency on the United States. Not to mention its economy is deeply embedded in the world market after decades of economic globalization.

It seems the UK is destined to endure banal and ridiculous sound bites rather than the genuine leadership it desperately needs.

Given the marked advantage Truss has over the other candidate Rishi Sunak in various polls, she is more likely to hold the key to No 10 Downing Street early next month when the new leader of the party is due to be decided. She will find herself buried under a heap of self-made troubles if she simply continues to shoot her mouth off.

The inflation in the country is predicted to hit 13 percent in October, the highest in 40 years, without any signs showing that the food and energy shortage will be eased in the foreseeable future as the Ukraine crisis is simmering on.

Truss, true to form, has vowed to reduce tax while maintaining public expenditure, yet without explaining where the money will come from. The government will have to run a high deficit and resort to printing bank notes to exchange space for time.

But if the gamble fails, which is very likely, as, unlike the Thatcher era, few of the factors related to difficulties the UK faces can be controlled by the country itself, the UK will find itself in a worse mess than it already is in now.