Truss is frantically blowing on the embers of neoliberalism. But it is a funeral pyre

theguardian.com:

Purity can be a dangerous thing in politics. The world is full of impurities. Compromises are often needed to make policies work. Voters also rarely reward politicians for having a consistent ideology. Sometimes they see such people as fanatics.

Yet without a set of stubborn beliefs, governments and political parties can become directionless. They can lack a sense of purpose and a compelling story. The common centrist argument that grownup government is pragmatic ignores the fact that the most influential British governments since the second world war, Clement Attlee’s and Margaret Thatcher’s, changed society to fit their worldviews more than vice versa.

Liz Truss, one of the keenest remaining Thatcher fans in Britain, wants her government to be similarly transformative, or “disruptive”. “The status quo is not an option,” she told last week’s Tory conference. “We are the only party with a clear plan to … build a new Britain.”

That plan is currently in deep trouble, thanks to its widely perceived sketchiness and extremism, Truss and her cabinet’s shortage of political nous and communications skills, and her lack of a mandate from either the electorate or her members of parliament. But there is another, less examined reason why she is struggling. Her government has taken office when the philosophy that has re-energised and reshaped conservatism worldwide since the early 70s – a philosophy to which the Truss government seems as devoted as any in British history – finally appears to be declining.

Neoliberalism, the belief that free markets, low taxes and a state with little or no interest in equality will produce the best economic and social outcomes, has fallen out of fashion even among the business elite and their chroniclers.