Foreign secretary has ‘edged into pole position’ in race to become Boris Johnson’s successor
Liz Truss is emerging as one of the favourites should a Conservative Party leadership challenge be launched against the under-fire Boris Johnson.
The foreign secretary is the “one candidate the Tory faithful keep talking about” amid Johnson’s falling poll numbers, The Times said, with ConservativeHome’s latest ranking of leading Tories’ popularity placing her ahead of the competition by nine points.
Boasting “a strong base within the parliamentary party and among Tory members”, she has been “dining with backbenchers at her Mayfair club to solicit more support in recent weeks”, The Telegraph reported.
And the charm offensive appears to be paying off, the paper added, with a group of admirers who would “likely form the basis of her campaign team” founding a WhatsApp group named “Liz for Leader” to organise her supporters.
Zeal of the convert
Truss was born in Oxford and was the second of five children. Her father was a maths professor at Leeds University and her mother worked as a nurse and teacher, while also serving as an active member in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
In a 2012 interview with The Times, Truss described her parents as “to the left of Labour”, telling the paper that she “never met a single Tory” while growing up.
When she later decided to run for election as a Conservative, “her pragmatic mother came to help”, while “her father stayed at home to mow the lawn”, the paper said.
She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, becoming president of the university’s Liberal Democrats and a member of the national executive committee of its youth wing. A speech at the party’s 1994 conference in which she expressed anti-monarchist sentiments has repeatedly gone semi-viral on Twitter.
It was not until 1996 that she joined the Conservative Party, by which time she had graduated from university, going on to work for oil giant Shell as a commercial manager and telecommunications company Cable & Wireless as economics director.
She told The Times in 2012 that the shift from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives was a result of meeting new people at university and that she “gradually moved to the Right of politics because I realised that the Tory party was saying quite sane things”.
After fighting and losing two elections – the first in 2001 and the second in 2005 – she won the seat of South West Norfolk in 2010, sitting in the House of Commons alongside her former Lib Dem allies in the coalition government.
She has since served as justice secretary (a role she “bombed in” according to The Times), international trade secretary and foreign secretary, as well as holding a series of junior ministerial roles across Whitehall.
‘Last true Tory’
After Matt Hancock’s resignation in June, Truss became the longest serving cabinet minister, having held various posts under three prime ministers.
Under Johnson, she positioned herself as “the last true Tory”, The Times said, contrasting herself against her colleagues by making it clear that “she alone in cabinet” argued against his “manifesto-breaking £14 billion increase in national insurance”.
“Believe in yourself, believe in Britain” would “probably be her campaign slogan”, her former adviser told the paper. Any Truss campaign would likely position “freedom”, “liberty” and “free trade” as key ideological positions, The Times added.
Critics argue that she has “gone too early” in her bid to take over should Johnson fall on his sword, The Telegraph reported, adding that allies of the prime minister have “criticised her for making clear that she was opposed to further Covid restrictions before the Cabinet had made a final decision on any new rules”.
One senior Tory insider told the paper: “It will backfire for her over the coming months. If you are going to make interventions that can be read as leadership ambition, they have to be well timed.
“She is just constant and so naked about it. It winds people up. I think she has gone too early on all this.”
Meanwhile, others have suggested that taking over David Frost’s Brexit brief could turn out to be a “poisoned chalice” for the foreign secretary.
She may already be a “darling of her party’s grassroots”, but her new portfolio “will be very closely watched – especially by the Eurosceptics”, wrote Politico reporter Cristina Gallardo.
Other commentators, however, think that she may already be lapping her competitors in the race to move into No. 10.
“The Instagram-obsessed foreign secretary’s Thatcher Mark II act is securing admirers on Tory benches and she has long topped popularity polls among Conservative members,” said the Daily Mirror’s associate editor Kevin Maguire.
“I reckon she has edged into pole position ahead of Rishi Sunak with Jeremy Hunt, Priti Patel and Sajid Javid trailing behind.”
This was echoed by The New Statesman’s Paul Mason, who added that Truss has not only been “quick out of the traps” but is also “the real thing: a political chameleon who will shamelessly channel Thatcher just as relentlessly as Johnson channels Winston Churchill”.
As The New Statesman said, “Labour may have more to fear from Truss” than any other potential successor.
Replacing Johnson with the bored teacher Truss will be peak Tory…..and confirmation of just how out of touch they are!
True Tory in the sense that she has no commitment to anything except a desire for power.
She is a modern Tory in that she has no principles, was a Remainer, then followed the wind blown by the ERG.
No, she’s not the last, there are loads of incompetent chancers with zero integrity who’d sell their own mothers for a chance to sniff the farts of someone with more power or money than them.
When a party collapses, always hand the reins over to a woman so you can blame them for the failure
The “last true tory” sounds a lot like those Hammer house of Horror TV films from the 1980’s
Visitor from the Grave, The Two Faces of Evil, The Mark of Satan, The Last True Tory, The House That Bled to Death… Fits right in there…
Mildly interesting, as well as being a oxbridge PPE type, she seems like basically like a free market ‘libertarian’ but with conservative social views. Do any tories want to chime in with an idea of what her politics are.
Is the Thatcher hair intentional to distinguish herself from all the other ruthlessly ambitious oxbridge PPE free market social conservatives or is it just a coincidence.
She’s spineless and will give up what she believes to keep power and money. She’s awful in every job given. Is that what a “true Tory” is?
The push to make her next is hilarious and if Tory voters eat it up then it will be a new low point for how gullible they are.
Easy there mate, she isn’t going to sleep with you.
10 comments
Liz Truss: ‘last true Tory’ with an eye on No. 10
Foreign secretary has ‘edged into pole position’ in race to become Boris Johnson’s successor
Liz Truss is emerging as one of the favourites should a Conservative Party leadership challenge be launched against the under-fire Boris Johnson.
The foreign secretary is the “one candidate the Tory faithful keep talking about” amid Johnson’s falling poll numbers, The Times said, with ConservativeHome’s latest ranking of leading Tories’ popularity placing her ahead of the competition by nine points.
Boasting “a strong base within the parliamentary party and among Tory members”, she has been “dining with backbenchers at her Mayfair club to solicit more support in recent weeks”, The Telegraph reported.
And the charm offensive appears to be paying off, the paper added, with a group of admirers who would “likely form the basis of her campaign team” founding a WhatsApp group named “Liz for Leader” to organise her supporters.
Zeal of the convert
Truss was born in Oxford and was the second of five children. Her father was a maths professor at Leeds University and her mother worked as a nurse and teacher, while also serving as an active member in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
In a 2012 interview with The Times, Truss described her parents as “to the left of Labour”, telling the paper that she “never met a single Tory” while growing up.
When she later decided to run for election as a Conservative, “her pragmatic mother came to help”, while “her father stayed at home to mow the lawn”, the paper said.
She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, becoming president of the university’s Liberal Democrats and a member of the national executive committee of its youth wing. A speech at the party’s 1994 conference in which she expressed anti-monarchist sentiments has repeatedly gone semi-viral on Twitter.
It was not until 1996 that she joined the Conservative Party, by which time she had graduated from university, going on to work for oil giant Shell as a commercial manager and telecommunications company Cable & Wireless as economics director.
She told The Times in 2012 that the shift from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives was a result of meeting new people at university and that she “gradually moved to the Right of politics because I realised that the Tory party was saying quite sane things”.
After fighting and losing two elections – the first in 2001 and the second in 2005 – she won the seat of South West Norfolk in 2010, sitting in the House of Commons alongside her former Lib Dem allies in the coalition government.
She has since served as justice secretary (a role she “bombed in” according to The Times), international trade secretary and foreign secretary, as well as holding a series of junior ministerial roles across Whitehall.
‘Last true Tory’
After Matt Hancock’s resignation in June, Truss became the longest serving cabinet minister, having held various posts under three prime ministers.
Under Johnson, she positioned herself as “the last true Tory”, The Times said, contrasting herself against her colleagues by making it clear that “she alone in cabinet” argued against his “manifesto-breaking £14 billion increase in national insurance”.
“Believe in yourself, believe in Britain” would “probably be her campaign slogan”, her former adviser told the paper. Any Truss campaign would likely position “freedom”, “liberty” and “free trade” as key ideological positions, The Times added.
Critics argue that she has “gone too early” in her bid to take over should Johnson fall on his sword, The Telegraph reported, adding that allies of the prime minister have “criticised her for making clear that she was opposed to further Covid restrictions before the Cabinet had made a final decision on any new rules”.
One senior Tory insider told the paper: “It will backfire for her over the coming months. If you are going to make interventions that can be read as leadership ambition, they have to be well timed.
“She is just constant and so naked about it. It winds people up. I think she has gone too early on all this.”
Meanwhile, others have suggested that taking over David Frost’s Brexit brief could turn out to be a “poisoned chalice” for the foreign secretary.
She may already be a “darling of her party’s grassroots”, but her new portfolio “will be very closely watched – especially by the Eurosceptics”, wrote Politico reporter Cristina Gallardo.
Other commentators, however, think that she may already be lapping her competitors in the race to move into No. 10.
“The Instagram-obsessed foreign secretary’s Thatcher Mark II act is securing admirers on Tory benches and she has long topped popularity polls among Conservative members,” said the Daily Mirror’s associate editor Kevin Maguire.
“I reckon she has edged into pole position ahead of Rishi Sunak with Jeremy Hunt, Priti Patel and Sajid Javid trailing behind.”
This was echoed by The New Statesman’s Paul Mason, who added that Truss has not only been “quick out of the traps” but is also “the real thing: a political chameleon who will shamelessly channel Thatcher just as relentlessly as Johnson channels Winston Churchill”.
As The New Statesman said, “Labour may have more to fear from Truss” than any other potential successor.
Replacing Johnson with the bored teacher Truss will be peak Tory…..and confirmation of just how out of touch they are!
True Tory in the sense that she has no commitment to anything except a desire for power.
She is a modern Tory in that she has no principles, was a Remainer, then followed the wind blown by the ERG.
No, she’s not the last, there are loads of incompetent chancers with zero integrity who’d sell their own mothers for a chance to sniff the farts of someone with more power or money than them.
When a party collapses, always hand the reins over to a woman so you can blame them for the failure
The “last true tory” sounds a lot like those Hammer house of Horror TV films from the 1980’s
Visitor from the Grave, The Two Faces of Evil, The Mark of Satan, The Last True Tory, The House That Bled to Death… Fits right in there…
Mildly interesting, as well as being a oxbridge PPE type, she seems like basically like a free market ‘libertarian’ but with conservative social views. Do any tories want to chime in with an idea of what her politics are.
Is the Thatcher hair intentional to distinguish herself from all the other ruthlessly ambitious oxbridge PPE free market social conservatives or is it just a coincidence.
She’s spineless and will give up what she believes to keep power and money. She’s awful in every job given. Is that what a “true Tory” is?
The push to make her next is hilarious and if Tory voters eat it up then it will be a new low point for how gullible they are.
Easy there mate, she isn’t going to sleep with you.