How Liz Truss needs a unified Cabinet to stop Labour from winning the next election - Bernard Ingham

Going backwards is not the way forward even though Boris’s sacking is one of the more contemptible in the history of panicking Tory MPs. Boris’s reinstatement would just be a recipe for continuing strife.

That last simple sentence underlines what is required not just of Liz Truss, as seems likely, but the entire Tory party, both MPs and rank and file.

And that in turn can be expressed very simply: the hour demands a sense of priorities.

If the top priority of the Tory party across the country is not to pull together, they will in all probability ensure their defeat at the next election only two years away.

The public abhor fractious parties – and they will abhor the Tories all the more if the Remainers continue with their anti-democratic and idiotic campaign to return us to a failing European Union.

The basic issue is whether the Tory party recovers a sense of responsibility or paves the way for a Labour government which could secure election only on grounds that it is time for a change after 14 years of Tory rule.

Let’s face it, Labour, in its present fractured state, is in no condition to lead the country to the promised land but they might get the chance if the Tories forget all sense of duty to the public and their leader.

I am not trying to make excuses for Liz Truss before she even picks up the baton. We all demand too much of governments and give far too little of ourselves.

Ms Truss’s first priority is to put together a Cabinet that recognises its colossal task in recovering from the expense of the Covid pandemic and Vladimir Putin’s assault on freedom in Ukraine – and more importantly what that demands.

It can be expressed in two words: collective responsibility. That does not mean they have to agree on everything. But it does mean that once they have taken a decision they loyally stick by it instead of going their own daft way as that Euro-fanatic, Lord Heseltine, has been doing since he walked out of Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1986.

Rishi Sunak has not exactly set a good example during the hustings by hinting that he would not join a Truss government because he does not agree with her approach.

That is not the spirit demanded of the age.

We need a Cabinet of all the brains, plus loyalty to go with where that collective brain takes them.

Having said all that, let us turn to Liz Truss’s other priorities on entering Downing Street.

First, uphold freedom. She has a duty to the free world to follow in Boris’s footsteps in stopping Putin’s bloody empire building in its tracks.

Second, ease the pain of the cost-of-living crisis on the worst off, promote growth and demonstrate a determination to rebalance the nation’s finances by slashing spending wherever possible.

The bloated bureaucracy is not performing wherever you look. It is ripe for slimming – and for shaking up its ideas on what constitutes service to the public who pay them.

Third, do whatever is possible within all the constraints to help the NHS through the winter while at the same time demonstrating it is no longer a sacred cow but one overdue for reform.

That means rooting out the obstructive bureaucracy and requiring all GP practices to see patients face to face and provide a 24-hour service. The clogging of A&E departments by part-time GPs has to end.

Fourth, crack down on illegality and police forces which do not do their duty to uphold law and order.

That includes putting every spanner in the works of illegal immigration that the French obviously facilitate.

Fifth, make it clear we have enough to put up with Putin without fellow-travelling trade unions bent on economic damage in pursuit of the class war. They should be told they are drinking in the last chance saloon.

Either acquire some common sense and responsibility or strikes will be outlawed.

Sixth, revolutionise the Government’s grossly overmanned communications system so that it actually supports the Government by persistently clarifying the justification for stern action if the country is to recover.

That would set the tone of the new administration and, given collective Cabinet responsibility, would, I believe, command the public support needed to win the 2024 election.

All that is left is to deliver an improvement.