Amidst heavy rain on Tuesday afternoon, the heavens allowed a brief pause for the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister, Elizabeth “Liz” Truss, to address the nation outside the official residence of 10 Downing Street.

Ms. Truss had returned from Balmoral Castle where she met with Elizabeth II who, according to the Buckingham Palace press release, “requested her to form a new Administration.” She “accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands” — more likely, a curtsy — “upon her appointment.”

Ms. Truss was repeating, in reverse, the steps of her predecessor, Boris Johnson. He gave one last stemwinder outside Number 10 before heading to Balmoral where “he tendered his resignation,” reads the Palace statement, which the Queen was “graciously pleased to accept.”

Pundits were quick to pounce on Ms. Truss’s first speech as Prime Minister. She was criticized for a pedestrian attempt, lacking an inspiring vision at a time of general and rising unrest. More troubling still was Ms. Truss’s seemingly lackluster understanding of the daunting prospects facing her ministry.

In one rhetorical flourish, Ms. Truss called upon the United Kingdom to “ride out the storm.” Yet her catalog of challenges gave little more indication than that she was calling upon Britons to brave the inclement weather all around her.

“Building hospitals, schools, roads, and broadband” were signaled for attention, as was “more investment and great jobs” across the land. She was near the mark in her assertion to “take action this week to deal with energy bills and to secure our future energy supply.”

She vowed to “cut taxes to reward hard work and boost business-led growth and business,” with a goal to “transform Britain into an aspiration nation . . . where everyone, everywhere, has the opportunities they deserve.”

She even gave a half-hearted attempt to rally the nation.  “As strong as the storm may be,” Ms. Truss said, “I know that the British people are stronger.”

Few can miss the allusion to Sir Winston Churchill. He titled the first volume of his World War II history “The Gathering Storm.”

“I felt as if I were walking with Destiny,” Churchill describes his appointment as prime minister in May 1940, “and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.”

 In November 1954, with the growing realization in the West of a new “Cold War,” Churchill returned to this theme at a speech at the Chateau Laurier in Canada.

“We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe,” he said. “All will be well . . . after a storm-beaten voyage.”

Instead, with Ms. Truss’s curious list of priorities, Britons were served up a compendium of pedestrian objectives, in relation to the stark reality. She obliquely took aim at the cost-of-living and energy crises. Is this convenient omission due to the Government’s own role in fomenting them?

Estimates are that the costs of Covid lockdown and furlough are in the range of £500 billion. The bill for easing the pain of rising energy prices begins at £100 billion — and no doubt will increase.

Among the existential challenges facing the United Kingdom ignored in the Prime Minister’s inaugural address were unchecked immigration, the “woke” assault upon British institutions and culture, and the Government’s zealotry concerning climate change.

Add to the charge the prospect of another Scottish independence referendum and the unresolved issue with the European Union over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The new ministry may be (willfully) blind to the true nature of the challenges facing it. But the British public are not. They may not be able to articulate its full extent nor its causal factors, but they know their country is on a precipice toward calamity.

The one option left before them, an early general election and a Labour Government, is no answer at all. For all the failings of past Conservative administrations, they pale before the statist program on offer from Labour and its leftist supporters.

With storm clouds gathering, we again think of Queen Elizabeth. Ill-health precluded her return to Buckingham Palace to meet her first ministers and so, in service to their sovereign, they traveled to Scotland and Balmoral Castle.

With the official photograph revealing a bruised hand outstretched to greet her new premier, Elizabeth’s frailty is sadly in evidence. Her now stooped, diminished stature is in stark contrast to the monarch of memory who, for more than 70 years, commanded the love and respect of her people in the Commonwealth and around the world.

Of Churchillian courage, Queen Elizabeth’s was the one, only, indisputable example on offer.

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