Labour’s panicked reaction to turbulence is to promise ‘ruthless’ cuts. It has learned the wrong lessons from Britain’s shortest-lived PM

Britain’s centre of power is stalked by a zombie. Across Westminster, the mere mention of her name summons up a grim past, but she remains ever present: blond bob, eyes that never move and a grin slightly aslant so it expresses not mirth, but faint menace. When least expected, she can bark a laugh that sends shivers up a cabinet minister’s spine. And whenever her shadow looms in SW1, the dread murmur starts: she used to be prime minister, you know.

Liz Truss’s stint at the top of politics ended years ago. Perhaps close confidants and trained medics are yet to break the news, but for her, power is a fading memory, a shrinking image in the rear-view. As the voters of South West Norfolk ensured last July, she is now an ex-politician. Yet in British political culture, she is the great undead. No other prime minister since the Brexit vote so haunts current debates. It’s not just because she never belts up, never stops chuntering about how the Guardian and the BBC must be “fixed”, or siccing her lawyers on Keir Starmer. It’s also because her few days of mayhem at No 10 remains the pre-eminent cautionary tale of our times.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist