Sir, – Finn McRedmond’s article says that Liz Truss has every right, despite having been “a bad prime minister”, to “rescue her legacy” (“Treatment of Liz Truss shows there is still a bias against middle-aged women”, Opinion & Analysis, April 18th).
Your columnist concludes that “we have to wonder why so few are willing to give her (Truss) a fair hearing”. The possible answer is that Liz Truss has not shown that capacity to others.
The problem with Liz Truss is not that she is a middle-aged woman. It is that she is Liz Truss. – Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIC HARVEY,
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An Cheathrú Rua,
Co na Gaillimhe.
Sir, – Liz Truss embarked on an entirely reckless, dangerous and disastrous economic agenda, ignored warnings from others (Rishi Sunak’s “fairytale economics” prediction), sacked the expert voice in the UK treasury, was apparently ignorant of liability-driven investments, despite their widespread use in the pensions area, and refused to take advice from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility by circumventing it. It was the markets who priced a “lunatic premium” on UK gilts. I’m not certain that the markets suffer gender bias in pricing gilts and assessing risk.
Millions of borrowers are suffering the consequences of her incompetence, and she reduced her country to a laughing stock in the world markets as her reckless political opportunism ran into the reality of the judgment of the markets. No other British prime minister caused such havoc in such a short time.
Ultimately she lost the confidence in record time of the electorate, her party and the markets. To make matters worse, she now tries to blame others for her incompetence. She was the leader and was the one person ultimately responsible; to try to claim otherwise with wild conspiracy theories merely further proves why she had to leave office as quickly as she did, and why her book and her behaviour are being widely ridiculed.
Surely Finn McRedmond is not trying to suggest a male would have been treated in a more emollient fashion in a similar context? – Yours, etc,
CRAIG DOUGLAS,
Belfast.
