The Guardian view on Liz Truss’s U-turn: a fading premiership won’t be missed | Editorial

After a budget reversal, the prime minister is sticking with her party - the trouble is, it's not sticking with her

Is the Conservative party a sinking ship? Events on Monday suggest so. The captain, Liz Truss, was missing from the deck for much of the afternoon. Her second in command had been thrown overboard last week after a disastrous mini-budget. To right Ms Truss's listing ship of government, the new first mate and chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, dumped the ballast of her tax changes. The policy now is to increase the pay of bankers and see household energy bills rise next April by 75% to an average of 4,400 a year. Coming under fire from Labour, Ms Truss sent out her cabinet colleague Penny Mordaunt, a former Royal Navy reservist, to defend what remains of her programme.

Ms Truss has not left her party. But it appears to have left her. With little chance of winning the next election, it is not surprising that she faces a mutinous crew. Her premiership is disappearing not because of a coup d'etat, or the official opposition, but as a consequence of her own incompetence. Instead of a promised revolution in economic thinking, Ms Truss has effected a restoration of the failed ideology of book-balancing austerity. This is bad news for Britain. Cutting public services will damage the country's prospects, already hampered by a shrinking workforce as well as rising energy bills and mortgage costs.