No choice but for the next Prime Minister to call a General Election - The Yorkshire Post says

It was a premiership that was doomed from the start with Truss making promises that simply could not be banked on.

She and her former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng came in promising to do away with orthodoxy but they soon found that there is a reason why learned economists and experts hold fiscal rules dear.

The disastrous mini-budget saw them write cheques the country simply couldn’t cash and what has ensued since is panic in the markets with ordinary folk ultimately paying the price.

Our economy teeters on the brink of recession, people face a choice between heating and eating, churches are having to open their doors to offer people a warm place to spend a few hours and the NHS is heading towards a dark and difficult winter.

The Conservative Party is running out of road. If it ever needed more evidence then Charles Walker’s impassioned plea during an interview with the BBC should have been a wake-up call. The MP for Broxbourne looked like a broken man, questioning what had become of the party that he cared so deeply about.

This is the second failed Government in less than six months. If it was a school then it would be put in special measures.

It’s easy to forget that the Tory Party actually has a working majority so woefully inept the Government has been.

But no longer is it a matter of numbers or horse-trading in the corridors of Westminster between the various factions within the party.

The question is one of trust. Something that has evaporated amongst the electorate - as indicated by numerous polls.

The PM had the good grace to acknowledge that she “cannot deliver the mandate” which Tory members, including those in Yorkshire, gave her.

Mercifully, another elongated leadership contest has been ruled out.

In the end, Truss’s leadership campaign ran for longer than her actual premiership lasted.

Now the Tories are looking for a quick fix as the party seeks to clean up the mess that it has made.

While we live in a parliamentary democracy and we elect MPs and not PMs, the chaos during the fracking vote on Wednesday just highlights how badly the Conservative Party has lost its way.

The next Prime Minister has a major task rebuilding bridges within their party but more importantly with the British public that gave it a huge majority in December 2019.

A majority that the Government is squandering because of a litany of broken promises and disastrous decisions.

Yorkshire will not accept paying the price for the gross incompetence of the past three years. Levelling up remains largely unrealised. Our schools, hospitals and infrastructure still need urgent attention. Our economic potential remains untapped.

The country is not a petri-dish for further experimentation with ill-thought out economic policies, especially at a time of grave crisis.

For the good of the country and in the name of democracy, The Yorkshire Post calls for the public to be given a vote on how and who we are to be steered by out of the economic and political mire that Britain finds itself in.

Whoever is installed as the next PM needs to call a General Election or at the very least set out a clear road map to one for the coming months.