The Big Picture

Vincent Boland: Truss’s agenda from a vanished age unlikely to save poor old Britannia

A country struggling with chronic economic weakness and low productivity will now be led by a prime minister whose ideas are steeped in Thatcherite nostalgia

Liz Truss: there is no sign that Britain’s new prime minister understands the scale or nature of the challenges her country faces. Picture: Getty

One of the unusual things about Britain’s departed prime minister and the woman who replaced him is that both are published authors. Boris Johnson wrote a biography of Winston Churchill that was long on hero worship and short on insight. Liz Truss, who became prime minister last Tuesday, is the co-author of a book entitled Britannia Unchained, which appeared in 2012.

Truss’s book is a libertarian’s lament for a Britain that, she and her four ...