At the time of publication, Mary Elizabeth Truss has been the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for some 20 hours – and Ears To The House is already wishing we could have Boris Johnson back. Yes, the previous incumbent was a duplicitous, dishonest, corrupt liar who cared only for himself – but at least he made little attempt to disguise this.
Truss, on the other hand, is an unprincipled turncoat and political chameleon – she used to be a Liberal Democrat years ago, yet she’s won the Tory leadership contest by pandering to right-wing Brexit supporters despite having campaigned against leaving the EU. So we’re not remotely encouraged by her apparent coronation into the top job.
Now, there will be plenty of focus elsewhere on what Truss might do in certain areas – but since we’re a dance music site, we’re going to ask what she’ll do to help the dance music world. And unsurprisingly, the short answer to this question is absolutely nothing good. But there might be an aspect where the Truss ministry could indirectly help out.
One of those would be energy bills. For some reason, a lot of people are now acting surprised after discovering Russia is a major energy supplier within Europe – hence why there aren’t as many Ukrainian flags on social media these days. Several European countries are capping how much supplies can charge their customers – drastically reducing how much of a hit they’ll have to take this winter.
However, many of these caps don’t apply to businesses – whose choice of suppliers is often more limited and invariably more expensive. Nightclubs face exactly the same issues – and when they’re already trying to claw back their positions after over a year of Covid-related closures, exponential rises in their energy bills could push some of them out of business.
Action in this area might save a lot of businesses – and some of them might just happen to be nightclubs. Announcements on what Truss intends to do in this area are likely soon, if only to ensure a steady supply of positive headlines from Tory supporting newspapers in her first days in office.
Other than that, though, we’re struggling to think who in dance music will benefit. Whoever those people are, they seem to be remaining noticeably quiet online right now…