Five headaches that await the new prime minister

1. Can the new prime minister appoint a settled and united cabinet?

After the failure of Truss’s government the next prime minister will need to bring in a range of perspectives, and importantly talent, from across the party in forming a cabinet. Turnover of ministers and appointment based on loyalty and political factions rather than merit was already a problem, even before the Truss cabinet started its own implosion because of those very problems.

They also need to be able to govern as a collective. Whoever becomes PM will not have much political authority – their mandate will be ‘sort this mess’, and the only way they will develop political authority is to prove they can do exactly that. To do that requires a cabinet who are willing and able to put collective interests before personal interests. Calm governing cannot happen when departments are struggling to adjust to a whirlwind of ministers and when infighting over the very hard decisions ahead is dominating everything.

Cath Haddon

2. Can the new prime minister set out a credible economic and fiscal plan?

Alongside their chancellor, the new prime minister will need to show that they have a credible economic and fiscal plan that can deliver sustainable public finances to avoid the instability of the last month.

The immediate decision will be over what happens on 31 October. There will be no time to test and put together a plan of tax rises and/or spending cuts with the prime minister’s input over a weekend. If the medium-term fiscal plan does go ahead, at most it can set out the government’s fiscal targets and a broad plan to meet them based on the latest forecast.

The events earlier this autumn show the danger of making tax and spending decisions in a rush. A set of detailed plans developed before the new prime minister came into post would be unlikely to be especially credible in any case. Whether or not the event goes ahead on 31 October, decisions over which (if any) taxes should increase and which (if any) spending plans should be cut should wait until later in the autumn to allow the new prime minister and chancellor to take their time to decide which difficult choices they will make.

Thomas Pope

3. Can the new prime minister set out a coherent policy agenda?

A new prime minister – and new government – will need to provide a sense of policy coherence. The last few years have been dogged by disjointed – even incompatible – policies, resulting in inaction and a damaging series of u-turns. The roots of this go back to the 2019 manifesto's ambitious spending pledges, which were irreconcilable with simultaneous promises to hold down taxes, reduce debt and not borrow to fund day-to-day spending. The incoherence continued with Truss’s market-spooking inability to articulate how she would reduce the size of the state to compensate for lowering taxes. Any new prime minister will need to develop policies that engage with the very difficult choices ahead – spending cuts, tax rises and the perilous state of core public services, rather than making more promises that cannot be kept.

To support this, the new government will need to approach policy making itself afresh. This means giving proper direction on the fate of major reforms like levelling up, and eschewing the back-of-the-envelope ‘red meat’ policy announcements, and attempts to push through new programmes without advice or challenge, that contributed to their predecessors coming unstuck.

Emma Norris

4. Can the new prime minister run a functional No.10?

The Truss and Johnson governments were almost polar-opposite case studies in things that can go wrong with No.10 organisation. Truss gave her team a clear direction, albeit one that led them off a cliff, but her Downing Street was hollowed out, stripped of experience with old hands (whether political or civil service) treated with suspicion. Johnson had plenty of staff who were battle-hardened veterans by the end, but who faced in different directions and did not cohere around a clear mission. Both incarnations of No.10 failed to appreciate the importance of deft parliamentary handling and relationships with MPs.

It is vital for a prime minister to have high quality, experienced aides. They can – if they are listened to – help avoid some mistakes like Truss’s fracking vote chaos or Johnson’s dreadful misjudgement trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook. Good advisers help kick ideas around and amplify a prime minister’s objectives across the government machine. But they never, ever substitute for competence and integrity at the top. Prime ministers who are lords of misrule like Johnson, or stubbornly resistant to advice like Truss will leave a trail of bad decisions and a record of poor government.

The next PM needs a tightly organised and loyal No.10, experienced operators who can set direction for government departments while respecting the remit and authority of cabinet ministers, and who are seasoned political operators. The next government is going to have an awful time; the prime minister will need all the support in No.10 they can get.

Alex Thomas

5. Can the next prime minister learn how to manage Conservative MPs in parliament?

Liz Truss – and her predecessor – were both ultimately undone by their failure to have the support of enough of their own MPs, despite the apparent size of their Commons majority. The arithmetic facing the new prime minister has not changed, and he or she will inherit a parliamentary party that is clearly deeply fractured – and that has got used to rebelling. That will make it hard to get things done, particularly on the major and difficult decisions that need taking.

To deal with this, the new prime minister will need an effective and experienced whipping operation that ensures that views from across the party are communicated to Downing Street. They will have to ensure that backbenches' views on policy and legislation are actively sought before matters come to a head, rather than after the fact. And they must be prepared to persuade Conservative MPs of their policies and actively seek their votes, rather than taking them for granted. 

Alice Lilly