The greatest asset of politicians is not subtlety or skill but a sense of unstoppability. The day after the latest slugfest TV debate in the Tory leadership race, we can argue about whether Rishi Sunak’s immigrant opportunity story was better than Liz’s gritty northern empathy for underserved children in poor schools. We could measure the credibility of their fiscal plans (his are safer for UK plc, hers are more of a lightning jolt flash of risky tax cuts). But the impression that lingers is that Truss looked tenacious while Sunak was fighting for air.
For some, that led to the “mansplaining” charge, though this is frankly a bit of a cheap shot — the “splaining” is a one-on-one debate and both candidates are entitled to ram their points home. The next stint of this race depends on who deals better with their stereotypes. Truss might be deemed “bonkers” (lazy Twitter-speak for a female with unapproved-of views), she may be “mad as a box of snakes” (Dominic Cummings) or have a “metallic voice and irritating raucous laugh” (Paul Dacre).Yet the sense of relentlessness that her opponents mistake for being odd is also what is powering her campaign — uncritical self-belief. Sunak can make palpable hits on “fairytale” economics and whether Truss would really like the higher interest rates her policies could usher in. This may also be the point on which fortunes turn, as Tory members weigh up the thrills of Liz and the chills of Sunak’s doomy warnings. So far, she is the true, new, blue goddess. With the unstoppable glint in her eye.
When people ask who the “real” Truss is, having written about her since 2010, I remember her having emerged from the Lib-Dem machine in the mid-1990s, in part as a firebrand who caused the late Lord Ashdown indigestion by pushing the anti-monarchist message. His aide, the emollient problem-sorter Lord Razzall, was sent out to calm the storm on the grounds that more monarchy-dissing could lose the party support — only to find Truss would not back down. Less reported, however, is that in her Lib-Dem or Tory incarnation she has always been at the free-market liberal end of the economic argument — a Lib she definitely was: a proto-socialist she most certainly was not.
Fundamentally, this contest is also about change — not just from the erratic leadership of Boris Johnson but about how much alteration the Conservative Party can absorb after a long stint in power. Sunak’s re-invention from Chancellor into pretender to the Tory crown is beginning to pay off in terms of a narrowing lead among party members and greater popularity with the wider electorate. He, too, has shifted from incumbent to challenger.
But Truss has more broadly commanded self-reinvention — from the firebrand past and Remain-voting record in 2016 to darling of a more culturally conservative grass roots. But besides the substance, when the country is in desperate need of reassurance on the future of the NHS, and how far their earnings will keep pace with inflation, voters also look for a sense of energy and, yes, even jeopardy. That is why Tony Blair was able to make off with the Labour crown over Gordon Brown in 1994 and why rakish David Cameron could pull off the trick again in the 2000s against Conservative stalwarts.
Truss is not as polished a performer as either. But she has another quality that her party (and those beyond) might well grasp: namely, a sense of adventure and boldness. Johnson was no doubt at the reckless end of this spectrum but it is far from certain that, in an age of short attention spans, voters want to return to “reliably dull” either. The most appealing quirks of Truss are whims which can be inspired — sending out a staffer when she was Trade Secretary to scour London for a Union Jack teapot to seal a (very partial) Australian trade deal with the best optics.
When I was last in search of an interview and frustrated by a lack of progress, she dared me to send a cheekily worded plea to her special adviser (I thought better of it for reputational reasons in the event of any Freedom of Information bid). None of this makes Trussonomics a perfect fit for troubled times or the prospect of her leadership a settled bet for the Tories at the next election. But one point her detractors miss is that the reason she is in contention for Number 10 after a mere 12 years in Parliament is that she believes she can do it. And that is the most high-octane political fuel of all.
