How Truss can secure her legacy

Liz Truss needs an exit strategy. Unless she can eke past Canning’s 119 days, the Prime Minister will go down in history as Britain’s shortest-serving premier. That ignominy will only be compounded by the absence of a legacy. Nothing is going to overshadow a fleeting and calamitous spell in No. 10, but there are scraps she can throw future historians searching for something, anything consequential to say about her tenure other than its brevity. Trexit will be hugely embarrassing but it need not be an unmitigated humiliation.

Time is not on her side, so whatever she does must be readily achievable while reflecting her political instincts and worldview. The most immediate way to go about this is by using the despatch box. A prime minister’s words carry a power of their own. There are a number of matters where we know Truss’s view and where a prime ministerial statement could prove significant.