Liz Truss needs nerves of steel to end new winter of discontent

WHEN Margaret Thatcher swept into Downing Street for the first time there were as many boos as cheers from the crowds.

The year was 1979 and ­Britain was in a wretched state.

Inflation was soaring, unemployment was sky high and rolling strikes by trade unions had plunged the nation into a “winter of discontent”.

No wonder the new premier felt she needed God on her side — quoting the 13th Century mystic St Francis of Assisi from the steps of No 10.

The less religious Liz Truss, who has been dubbed Britain’s “new Iron Lady,” can also expect mixed reactions from onlookers if she inherits Boris Johnson’s crown in two weeks’ time.

After 12 long years in power, the Conservatives are exhausted and despised by many voters — and Truss is braced to inherit a spectacular mess.

ROCKED BY ENERGY COSTS

Granted, things are not quite as bad now as they were in 1979.

Worklessness then was a far greater scourge, and Thatcher’s historic showdowns with the miners and print workers permanently weakened the unions.

Moreover, Thatcher blazed the trail for Truss, showing that cutting taxes creates higher growth.

Yet the parallels between the state of the nation now and the turmoil Thatcher inherited from Labour’s Jim Callaghan are almost uncanny.

Then, as now, inflation was out of control, running at 13.4 per cent, relative to 10.1 per cent now.

By 1980 it had soared to 20 per cent — only a little worse than economists at Citigroup believe Britain could soon face.

Then, as now, public spending as a proportion of GDP had rocketed to 44 per cent.

Then, as now, there was an energy crisis, following the fall of the Shah of Iran.

The Iranian Revolution sent oil ­prices rocketing from $13 per barrel in mid-1979 to $34 per barrel in the mid-1980s.

Fast forward to 2022, and almost every household and business is being rocked by spiralling energy costs.

One poor woman in ­Scotland was recently quoted almost £17,000 a year for ­electricity at her modest home — prompting her to tweet that it is a three-bed rural bungalow, not a cannabis farm.

It would be funny if it was not so serious.

Worst of all for Truss, she has just 24 months to turn things around before Britain goes to the polls.

This terrifying timeframe means there is not a minute to lose.

She must drive through urgent reforms in all the great Whitehall departments, as well as the police and NHS.

Like Thatcher, she must take no nonsense from anybody.

In Kwasi Kwarteng she will at least have a supremely loyal Chancellor who believes ­passionately in the subordinacy of No11 to No10.

Better still, she has a very clear plan. It is not just about tax cuts, though those are at the heart of her agenda.

Nor is it just about tackling the energy crisis, though she will delight in ditching the windfall tax on energy firms to which she and Kwarteng were always vehemently opposed.

Excitingly, Truss wants to do something much more profound — and difficult — than manage these immediate policy challenges.

She wants to liberate her administration from the ankle chains of a civil service that is still populated, at the very top, by relics of the New Labour era.

These people cannot overcome their antipathy to Brexit, and recoil at the pursuit of wealth creation.

They still struggle to recognise — or even accept — that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Truss is determined to transform this stultifying ­operational environment.

Given the economic challenges ahead, it is in the ­Treasury that such cultural change will matter most.

Gordon Brown may have left in 2010, but his ghost still haunts the corridors of power.

His legacy was an overbearing and intrusive machine that conspires to thwart everything from manifesto commitments to day-to-day ministerial instructions.

Team Truss blame this sprawling sleeper cell of Left-leaning meddlers for hampering Brexit and preventing the Conservatives from being truly Conservative.

Regime change will come as a shock to Her Majesty’s ­Treasury.

There were few challenges to Treasury orthodoxy from Rishi Sunak.

Having only entered Parliament in 2015 and Cabinet in 2019, he was inexperienced and malleable.

Naturally deferential, he was neither inclined nor equipped to take on such a mighty ­institution.

By contrast, Truss is a fearless insurgent who has already run a great office of state.

The bell will toll for any mandarins who are not on board.

Following a series of meetings with the front runner for PM last week, these faceless figures can already feel the chill winds of change.

HER PLACE IN HISTORY

In recent days, Boris Johnson has been privately fretting that Sunak might pull off a shock victory in the leadership ­contest.

The outgoing Prime Minister is still seething over what he sees as his former Chancellor’s treachery and is haunted by the idea that he might ­somehow win.

Barring an extraordinary upset however, that will not happen.

Some 80 per cent of the Tory party membership have already cast their votes, and Whitehall is now actively preparing for a Truss government.

Entering No 10 for the first time on May 4, 1979, Thatcher declared that she was “very excited”.

By the time Britain went to the polls again in 1983, she had triumphed in the ­Falklands War, earning her another term.

Truss cannot hope to defeat President Putin to cement her place in history.

Nonetheless, she is as enthusiastic as her predecessor about the task ahead.

Even among trusted friends she shows no sign of nerves.

Just as well, because they will need to be made of the finest, strongest, British steel.